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Snowy Wonder

Yesterday afternoon it began to snow here in Seattle, a fairly unusual occurrence. I had headed off to an art class, but after less than two hours the students kept looking outside and the snow was falling heavy and beginning to pile.  So we all chose to cut our time short so we could drive home before the roads got any worse.  There were a couple of stops on my way home where I was at a stoplight facing downhill and I could see that my car was sliding slowly forward.  As soon as I got home my husband, Tune,

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December 2, 2007

Art for Advent

“This season beckons me to ask, what am I preparing for? What is the way that is being prepared within the wilderness of my life? What does it mean for my own life to become a path, a way of welcome for the Holy One? How do I give myself time to notice the ways that the path unfolds before me and within me? What are the acts of preparation that bring delight to my daily life? Whom do I ask or allow to help me prepare?” -Jan Richardon, Night Visions: Searching the Shadows of Advent and Christmas As most

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December 2, 2007

Keep the Poems Coming!

Thanks to everyone who has submitted their poems already for the Poetry Party!  11 participants on the very first day is a great showing.  Make sure to scroll down or click here to see the fun.  And make sure to check out Annie Thorndike’s wonderful poem, I think our youngest ever participant at the age of 9.  Annie is the daughter of Rebecca who participated in our recent Awakening the Creative Spirit program.  Remember you have until Friday to share your poems here and then I’ll draw one person’s name to win a small prize. In light of our celebration

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November 27, 2007

Invitation to Poetry: Full Moon Rising

This is our 8th Poetry Party!  These are posted every other Monday.  I select an image and suggest a title and invite you to respond with your poems, words, reflections, quotes, song lyrics, etc.  Leave them in the comments and I’ll add them to the body of the post as they come in along with a link back to your blog if you have one (not required to participate!) Feel free to post the poem along with my image below on your blog with a link back to this post.  Please invite your readers to come join the party too! I love

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November 26, 2007

Abbey Bookshelf (pre-Advent edition)

Advent begins a week from today and it is one of my favorite liturgical seasons in the Christian tradition.  Advent begins the new church year and is a season about waiting, preparing, and birthing.  It also occurs at one of my favorite times of year, this slow descent toward winter and the solstice.  This autumn was beautiful in the Northwest, and I kept thinking maybe it was my favorite season, but these last couple of weeks the trees are revealing in their essence again and those bare branches and the sun low in the sky make my heart dance (and I

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November 25, 2007

Frozen Earth

Remember to come back on Monday for our next Poetry Party!     (Leaves discovered on the ground outside my hermitage this morning.) May your weekend bring you the still gifts of winter’s release and rest. -Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the Arts

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November 23, 2007

On Gratitude

Listen with the night falling we are saying thank you we are stopping on the bridge to bow from the railings we are running out of the glass rooms with our mouths full of food to look at the sky and say thank you we are standing by the water looking out in different directions back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging after funerals we are saying thank you after the news of the dead whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you in a culture up to its chin in shame living in

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November 23, 2007

Cusp of Winter

  11 a.m. late November shadows    (photos from a late autumn walk through my Capitol Hill neighborhood in Seattle) -Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the Arts

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November 21, 2007