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
    • About the Abbey
    • About Christine Valters Paintner
    • About John Valters Paintner
    • About the Wisdom Council
    • Monk Manifesto
    • Join the Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks
    • Subscribe to Our Love Notes
    • Website privacy notice
  • Books
    • Breath Prayer:
      An Ancient Practice for the Everyday Sacred
    • 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
    • Music + DVD
    • Poetry by Christine Valters Paintner
    • Poetry Videos
    • Dancing Monk Icons
    • Other Art Collaborations
      • 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
  • Programs
    • Lift Every Voice: Contemplative Writers of Color Book Club
      • Embodied Spirits: Stories of Spiritual Directors of Color (Book Club – March 2021)
      • God Alone is Enough: A Spirited Journey with Teresa of Avila (Book Club – February 2021)
    • Community Online Retreats
      • Dancing with Fear in Troubled Times
      • Novena for Times of Unraveling
      • Sacred Time: Embracing an Intentional Way of Life (Spring 2021)
      • Sky, Sun, Sea, & Stone:
        Celtic Spirituality and Creative Writing
      • The Two HT’s-Harriet Tubman and Howard Thurman-on Being Free
      • Writing Into Bloom
        with Christine Valters Paintner
      • Revelations: The Mysticism of Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe
    • 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 (SELF-STUDY)
      • 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
    • Live Programs: Pilgrimage & Retreats
      • Writing on the Wild Edges (Ireland)
      • Hildegard of Bingen (Germany)
      • Awakening the Creative Spirit: Experiential Education for Spiritual Directors in the Expressive Arts (Northwest)
  • Calendar
  • Reflections
  • Contact

Cycles and Seasons, Spirituality

Endings and Beginnings

Yesterday my sweet husband started back to work.  It was faculty meeting day and today he gets to meet all of his students.  I am always a bit sad at the end of summer–we get to spend so much time together and he truly is my best friend so we have a lot of fun, a lot of time to play and be.  This summer felt especially rich with treasures to explore together.  He really enjoys his work, the school where he teaches, his students, his co-workers, but it is hard to transition back to waking at six a.m. while I roll over and go back to sleep with the dog for another hour or two.

But at the same time I absolutely adore autumn and I am head over heels in love with winter, so this time marks the entry into the seasons of harvest, letting go, and stillness that feed my soul in ways that spring and summer simply can't.  Those seasons have their own gifts of course, but this is the time of year that makes me feel most alive and in touch with sacred presence.

Last week I got my Living in Season email newsletter written by Waverly Fitzgerald.  She offers such wonderful resources for getting in touch with the different seasons of the year and when I received my email and read "The First of Fall" I let out an audible squeal of delight at the reminder of autumn's descent.  In Celtic tradition, the feast of Lammas on August 1st celebrates the first wheat harvest or "feast of first fruits" and is one of the cross-quarter days between summer solstice and autumnal equinox, so it begins the fall season.

Autumn also means diving back into my work in a more sustained way, thinking more intentionally about my projects for the year and where I want to devote my energy.  Being largely on an academic calendar means that autumn for me is also a new year of sorts, a time of new beginnings.  This coming year I am very excited to be teaching our Awakening the Creative Spirit program again with my wonderful partner Betsey Beckman, in the spring I will be teaching Contemporary Christian Spirituality and Prayer again at Seattle University's School of Theology and Ministry, and I had the delight of being asked to be an adjunct faculty for Loyola University New Orleans' Ministry Extension (LIMEX) program.  About ten years ago I trained as a facilitator and worked with one of their learning groups in Sacramento and then another later in Vallejo when I was starting my doctoral studies.  It was a great experience, it is a very strong program that offers students the chance to earn a degree in pastoral ministry or religious education in their community while working full-time.  I really loved my work with them and adored the students, so it was lovely to be asked to connect with them again, this time as one of their faculty who gives feedback on the reflection papers. Plus I'll get to go on a trip to New Orleans in February for their annual adjunct faculty meeting.

In the visual journaling workshop I took this summer, the teacher had us create an inner sanctuary in our journal by folding pages in a particular way. The middle sections above lift up to reveal more space on the other side.  Then she invited us to consider the opposites in our lives, the things we hold in tension.  I wrote several things, some of which you can see on the edges below. Then we were asked to take the pair of opposites that was connected most directly to our art-making lives, the thing that seems to get most in the way of our creative time and make images to represent that on the outside of the sanctuary and represent the creativity on the inside visually.  I realized that over the last year or so I have been experiencing art and teaching in tension with each other.  But then she had us imagine that what was on the outside, what we experienced in opposition, was perhaps in a different relationship to our art, maybe more of a support than we had realized, maybe a place of protection.  I don't remember her exact words, but I had a small epiphany there in my art journal about how much I hold this tension within myself between my love of teaching and my love of writing and art-making.  As much as they both bring me joy, I realized that I have been experiencing them on one level as competing with each other for my time.  Hard to explain what stirred in me, but suddenly I knew they didn't have to be in opposition anymore, I have learned how to make time for my own art and the teaching supports me financially and allows me interaction with many wonderful people. It was a moment of breathing deeply, an experience of great freedom.

What are the endings and beginnings of your own life in this moment?  What have you been holding in opposition that could now be reconciled?

-Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the Arts

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4 Comments August 23, 2007

Upcoming Programs

Dancing with Fear in Troubled Times
March 13, 2021
with Drs. Jamie Marich, Kellie Kirksey, and Christine Valters Paintner

Novena for Times of Unraveling
Becoming a Monk in the World

March 17-25, 2021
with Christine & John Valters Paintner, and Simon de Voil

Recent Reflections

  • More Dancing with Fear in Troubled Times ~ A Love Note From Your Online Abbess
  • Lift Every Voice: Contemplative Writers of Color – March Video Discussion and Book Group Resources Now Available
  • Dancing with Fear in Troubled Times ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess
  • Call for Submissions – Monk in the World Guest Post Series
  • Hildy Tales 7: An Nead by John Valters Paintner

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