** Make sure you visit this week’s Poetry Party on Shadow & Light (these are a few more of the images from my photographic journey last week)** ______________________________________________ © Christine Valters Paintner at Abbey of the Arts: Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts Become a fan of the Abbey on Facebook, follow this blog on Facebook, friend me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter
Welcome to our 36th Poetry Party! I select an image and suggest a theme/title and invite you to respond with your poems or other reflections. Add them in the comments section and a link to your blog (if you have one). Make sure to check the comments for new poems added and I encourage you to leave encouraging comments for each other either here or at the poet’s own blog. ADDED NOTE: Mister Linky is acting kind of funny and not loading properly and slowing down the loading of my blog, so for now we’re doing this the old-fashioned way and posting the poems
I went on a journey to the Seattle Aquarium yesterday and in addition to my favorites of sea otters and moon jellies, I found myself captivated by reflections and children pressed up against the glass to see more clearly. What do you see? © Christine Valters Paintner at Abbey of the Arts: Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts Become a fan of the Abbey on Facebook, follow this blog on Facebook, friend me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter
The great, gashed, half-naked mountain is another of God’s saints. There is no other like him. He is alone in his own character; nothing else in the world ever did or ever will imitate God in quite the same way. That is his sanctity. -Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation These mountains — Mount Baker and the Sisters and Shuksan, the Canadian Coastal Range and the Olympics on the peninsula — are surely the edge of the known and comprehended world…. That they bear their own unimaginable masses and weathers aloft, holding them up in the sky for anyone to
Spring is the season when the earth awakens after her long slumber. It is the season associated with the element of air and breath. That moment of inhale, of breathing in the fullness of divine life, is the moment of dawn when the sun scatters the long night and the day begins. It is always such a privilege to do this work. I am so incredibly blessed to be able to offer this kind of transformative space for others, to have wonderful women with whom I work and facilitate, and to welcome in participants longing to dive deep and discover what
lucy is inviting us to consider what six words would make up our memoir in this moment. Mine are: urban monk bearing witness to beauty I’d love to hear what your own six word memoir would be. Feel free to share it in the comments or at your own blog.
The lovely Rachelle at Magpie Girl interviewed me for her series on creating Soultribes (a generous soulcare community). Go over and read about my own experience of creating and sustaining a small group for deep soul work and then share some of your own wisdom. Make sure you also read yesterday’s Sacred Artist Interview with Patricia Ariel. _______________________________________ © Christine Valters Paintner at Abbey of the Arts: Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts Become a fan of the Abbey on Facebook, follow this blog on Facebook, friend me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter
I met Patricia Ariel recently online when she left a comment at one of my previous Sacred Artist Interviews. I went to her website link and discovered her beautiful artwork. I love the sensuality and vibrancy of her images which enter the viewer into the mythical realm. I found myself exploring their inner landscape in my imagination and loved the places they took me. As always, I am so grateful to her for taking the time to respond to these questions and offer you, my dear readers, another window into the connection between creativity and spiritual practice. ________________________________________ Are you
So have you missed the Abbey this week? I have been on an amazing journey for five days with even more amazing women. We close our time together this morning and then I will head back home to rest and renew and will return to blogging Monday. In the meantime, visit my article on Art and Spiritual Practice at Patheos, a new site offering resources to explore the gifts of different religious traditions.
When I dare to be powerful— to use my strength in the service of my vision— then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid. -Audre Lorde We must learn to realize that the love of God seeks us in every situation, and seeks our good. God’s inscrutable love seeks our awakening. True, since this awakening implies a kind of death to our exterior self, we will dread God’s coming in proportion as we are identified with this exterior self and attached to it. But when we understand the dialectic of life and death we will learn to