Abbey of the Arts

Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts

  • Welcome
    • Prayer Cycle
      • Introduction to the Earth Monastery Prayer Cycle
      • Day 1 Morning & Evening Prayer:
        Earth as the Original Cathedral
      • Day 2 Morning & Evening Prayer:
        Earth as the Original Scriptures
      • Day 3 Morning & Evening Prayer:
        Earth as the Original Saints
      • Day 4 Morning & Evening Prayer:
        Earth as the Original Spiritual Directors
      • Day 5 Morning & Evening Prayer:
        Earth as the Original Icon
      • Day 6 Morning & Evening Prayer:
        Earth as the Original Sacrament
      • Day 7 Morning & Evening Prayer:
        Earth as the Original Liturgy
      • Prayer Cycle Leader Resources
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    • About Christine Valters Paintner
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  • Books
    • Sacred Time:
      Embracing an Intentional Way of Life
    • The Wisdom of Wild Grace: Poems
    • Earth, Our Original Monastery:
      Cultivating Wonder and Gratitude through Intimacy with Nature
    • Dreaming of Stones: Poems
    • The Soul's Slow Ripening:
      12 Celtic Practices for Seeking the Sacred
    • The Wisdom of the Body:
      A Contemplative Journey to Wholeness for Women
    • Illuminating the Way:
      Embracing the Wisdom of Monks and Mystics
    • The Soul of a Pilgrim:
      Eight Practices for the Journey Within
    • Eyes of the Heart:
      Photography as a Christian Contemplative Practice
    • The Artist's Rule: Nurturing Your Creative Soul with Monastic Wisdom
    • Desert Mothers and Fathers: Early Christian Wisdom Sayings Annotated & Explained
    • Lectio Divina–The Sacred Art: Transforming Words and Images into Heart-Centered Prayer
    • Water, Wind, Earth & Fire: The Christian Practice of Praying with the Elements
    • Awakening the Creative Spirit:
      Bringing the Arts to Spiritual Direction
    • Lectio Divina: Contemplative Awakening & Awareness
  • Poetry | Art | Music
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      • Monk in the World art series by Kristin Noelle
      • Saints & Animals art series by David Hollington
      • Sacred Time art series by Alexi Francis
      • Mary block print art series by Kreg Yingst
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    • Live Programs: Pilgrimage & Retreats
      • Monk in the World (Ireland)
      • Writing on the Wild Edges (Ireland)
      • Vienna Monk in the World (Austria)
      • Hildegard of Bingen (Germany)
      • Awakening the Creative Spirit: Experiential Education for Spiritual Directors in the Expressive Arts (Northwest)
    • Lift Every Voice: Contemplative Writers of Color Book Club
    • Community Online Retreats
      • The Spiral Way:
        Celtic Spirituality and the Creative Imagination
      • Journey with the Desert Mothers and Fathers (Lent 2021)
      • Dancing with Fear in Troubled Times
      • Novena for Times of Unraveling
      • The Two HT’s-Harriet Tubman and Howard Thurman-on Being Free
      • Writing Into Bloom
        with Christine Valters Paintner
      • Sacred Time: Embracing an Intentional Way of Life (Spring 2021)
      • Poetry and the Sacred Garden of the World:
        An Online Writing Retreat
    • Self-Study Online Spiritual Retreats
      • Creative Flourishing in the Heart of the Desert:
        An Online Retreat with St. Hildegard of Bingen
      • Dreaming of the Sea:
        A women’s discernment journey through the story of the Selkie
      • Earth, Our Original Monastery
        A Companion Retreat to the Book (SELF-STUDY)
      • Exile and Coming Home:
        An Archetypal Journey through the Scriptures
      • Eyes of the Heart:
        Photography as Contemplative Practice
        (Companion retreat to the book)
      • Honoring Saints and Ancestors:
        Online Retreat for the Season of Remembrance
      • Lectio Divina:
        The Sacred Art of Reading the World
      • A Midwinter God:
        Making a Conscious Underworld Journey
      • Sacred Rhythms of Sky, Sun, Sea & Stone:
        A Creative Retreat with the Elements (SELF-STUDY)
      • Sacred Seasons:
        A Yearlong Journey through the Celtic Wheel of the Year
      • The Soul of a Pilgrim:
        Eight Practices for the Journey Within
        (a companion retreat to the book)
      • The Soul's Slow Ripening: 12 Celtic Practices for Seekers of the Sacred (a companion retreat to the book)
      • Water, Wind, Earth & Fire
      • Watershed Moments
        in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures
      • Way of the Monk, Path of the Artist:
        A 12-Week Companion Retreat to The Artist's Rule
      • The Wisdom of the Body:
        A 10-Week Online Companion Retreat to the Book
      • The Wisdom of Mary and the Sacred Feminine
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Grief, Mystics and Saints

Marigold Path Grid Blog: Saint Duke

Photo

One of the ways I understand Saints are as those people who have been honored for embracing their flowering, for allowing themselves to bud and blossom and burst forth fully into the world.

These last few months, I have been contemplating the idea of what it would mean to extend my image of the Communion of Saints to include not only the ones I love who have gone before me, but other members of creation as well.  Animals don't refuse their own flowering, they are simply what God created them to be.  This image has arisen for me especially in response to our sudden loss of Duke in August who was a very special creature in our life.  It used to be that special connections to animals were signs of holiness.  We in large part have lost the sense of the sacred bond that crosses over species and reaches beyond our perceived boundaries.  We desperately need to reclaim a holistic understanding of the holy presence in all of creation.

So today, on this holy feast of All Saint's Day which is also the Celtic feast of Samhain, a time when the borders between this world and the next are especially thin, I celebrate again the gift Duke was in our life and the bond I shared with him.  We found Duke at an animal shelter when he was a year old.  But really he found us.  We had him for nine blessed years and he claimed a place for himself in our "pack" so quickly and easily.  He was Baby Bear and we were Mama and Papa Bears.  Adorable I know.  But it was much more than the sweet sentimentality of pets that connected us.

Duke was a profound teacher and a companion.  He lived so gently in the world despite his size.  He witnessed to me the power of living into your natural rhythms, the gifts of a good long nap, the joys of the body stretching and asking for what it needs, the exuberance of being reunited together after time apart.  I miss his unabashed joy at seeing me.  I miss his faithful presence by my side as I work and write.  I miss his solid body that he loved to press against me, as if to reassure himself I was really here.  I miss his heavy sighs always so perfectly timed that my husband and I were convinced he understood every word we said.

He went away with me for a week of silent retreat last January and in that sacred space he kept vigil.  There I heard the sound of my name called and sung, first as a whisper and then as a roar.  Duke tended to my own unfolding in ways I can't explain.

Most of all, I miss his gift of otherness and the wondering he opened within me.  So faithful and steadfast, I wonder how he understood our differences in species and why he preferred our company over other dogs.  I wonder if he puzzled over our actions and demands.  I wonder what it was he dreamed of.  I deeply miss his daily animal companionship that was a constant reminder to me of the vastness and otherness of God's presence in the world.  He was truly an icon of holy mystery, I never tired of gazing on him.  What would the world be like if more of us submitted ourselves to the wisdom of creatures?

Now we are connected by a slender thread between worlds, a thread I am more deeply aware of among trees and other wild places.  In those sacred last moments of his life when his breathing stopped, his sweet body lying there on the hearth in our arms, he cracked open yet another door within me.  I have no words for it, only a sense of longing that lures me far beyond myself into the great community of those who commit fully to their own flowering.

-Christine Valters Paintner

P.S. To read other posts participating in this grid blog, please go here.

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17 Comments November 1, 2006

Upcoming Programs

The Spiral Way:
Celtic Spirituality and the Creative Imagination

Hosted by the Rowe Center
February 1-21, 2021
with Christine Valters Paintner, PhD

Journey with the Desert Mothers and Fathers
Retreat for Lent 2021

February 17-April 1, 2021
with Christine & John Valters Paintner and Betsey Beckman

Recent Reflections

  • Celtic Spirituality and the Spiral Way ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess
  • Hildy Tales 3: Ní heolas go haontíos ~ by John Valters Paintner
  • Humility + Join us today for live prayer! ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess
  • Hildy Tales 2: Tús maith leath na hoibre – by John Valters Paintner
  • New Book Club for 2021: Lift Every Voice ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

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