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Heading Home Again

I have returned home from my time of retreat.  I love Saltspring Island with its miles of farmland and sheep grazing, its community of working artists, its forested coastline.  Last Friday was a brilliant day, sun shining, baby geese everywhere, the world feeling so full of possibility. On the drive up I was listening to David Whyte’s CD set called Clear Mind, Wild Heart which I have borrowed from the library a half dozen times and finally made it through all six of the CD’s.  He talks about how we are both creatures of belonging as well as creatures of exile

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May 7, 2007

Retreat

I am leaving tomorrow for a few days of retreat on Saltspring Island up in British Columbia.  I am bringing Tune, my camera, my journal, and my art supplies, and I will meet one of my dearest friends up there. I went to Saltspring Island for the first time in January of 2006 and it was a powerful week of retreat for me.  Duke was with me and he kept vigil during that holy time.  I heard the whisper of the sacred presence all around me, calling me to new things that are still unfolding within me.  I spent hours walking

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May 2, 2007

So Many Gifts

There are so many gifts Still unopened from your birthday, There are so many hand-crafted presents That have been sent to you by God. The Beloved does not mind repeating, “Everything I have is also yours.” Please forgive Hafiz and the Friend If we break into a sweet laughter When your heart complains of being thirsty When ages ago Every cell in your soul Capsized forever Into this infinite golden sea. Indeed, A lover’s pain is like holding one’s breath Too long In the middle of a vital performance, In the middle of one of Creation’s favorite Songs. Indeed, a

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May 1, 2007

Summer

Tomorrow is the feast of Beltane, the first day of summer according to the Celtic calendar.  Like its sister feast of Samhain on November 1st, it is a time when the boundary between this world and the Other world is believed to be especially thin.  It is also a time of lighting bonfires for rituals of purification and bringing livestock out to summer pastures.  I find the Celtic dates for marking seasons make more sense to me, by the Solstice we have already reached the longest day and then we begin the slow turn back to darkness.  I realize some of you are just

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April 30, 2007

Sacred Arts Ring

Have you visited the Sacred Arts Web Ring lately?  There’s lots of nourishment for the soul:  Poetry  Rich at Pilgrim Path is posting his wonderful poems, I especially love his latest two: “Eventually” and  “Angels of Comfort” about the beauty of Sabbath.  Kate at Thru My Lens Lightly shares about Happy Endings with a lovely poem and image. Visual Art  Bette at Surimono Garden shares the beautiful first budding of her iris.  Leah at This Far By Faith is playing around with her software to create a digitized painting of a Romans 11:5.  Britt-Arnhild at her House in the Woods always has lovely images

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April 27, 2007

Tulip Sunrise

It seems this week I am short on my own words and am drawn to lots of poetry and images I have been taking of spring.  Part of it is that I have been feeling in a very reflective and inward mood, wanting to let things bubble inside of me, not quite ready to lay them out here.  Besides, do I really need to say anything when the world is this beautiful? -Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the Arts

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April 25, 2007

Earth Arising In Us

Ninth Duino Elegy (excerpt) Earth, isn’t this what you want?  To arise in us, invisible? Is it not your dream, to enter us so wholly there’s nothing left outside us to see? What, if not transformation, is your deepest purpose?  Earth, my love, I want that too.  Believe me, no more of your springtimes are needed to win me over – even one flower is more than enough.  Before I was named I belonged to you.  I seek no other law but yours, and know I can trust the death you will bring. -Rainer Maria Rilke from In Praise of

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April 24, 2007

Luminescence

Have you ever looked closely at the purple petals of an Iris in the golden afternoon sun? Have you seen how luminescent they are, glowing from a source deep within?  Have you watched the way they fold themselves over gently, inviting you to pause for a moment and embrace a sense of  wonder? Have you noticed the way everything lights up under your deep and loving gaze? Have you taken a breath this day and rediscovered the luminous world waiting for you to just pay attention? -Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the Arts

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April 23, 2007

Testimony

Testimony (for my daughters) I want to tell you that the world is still beautiful. I tell you that despite children raped on city streets,  shot down in school rooms, despite the slow poisons seeping from old and hidden sins into our air, soil, water, despite the thinning film that encloses our aching world.  Despite my own terror and despair.   I want you to know that spring is no small thing, that the tender grasses curling like a baby’s fine hairs around  your fingers are a recurring miracle. I want to tell you that the river rocks shine like

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April 22, 2007

Grief

This is from Barbara Cawthorne Crafton’s Geranium Farm daily email, originally discovered at Possible Water: Well, when would be the best time to commit a crime? Wouldn’t it be right after another one had been committed in another place nearby, when everyone’s attention was focussed on the first one? Such a plan makes enough terrible sense that even a person whose mind is diseased enough to do such things could follow the logic. And, as we know today, it worked — just well enough, for a shooter who doesn’t mind dying himself — at Virginia Tech’s Norris Hall. So there

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April 17, 2007