Abbey of the Arts

Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts

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      • Day 1 Morning & Evening Prayer:
        Earth as the Original Cathedral
      • Day 2 Morning & Evening Prayer:
        Earth as the Original Scriptures
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        Earth as the Original Saints
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  • Books
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      12 Celtic Practices for Seeking the Sacred
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      A Contemplative Journey to Wholeness for Women
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      Embracing the Wisdom of Monks and Mystics
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      Eight Practices for the Journey Within
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      Photography as a Christian Contemplative Practice
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      Bringing the Arts to Spiritual Direction
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        A Spiritual Survival Guide for Dark Times
        with Kayleen Asbo, PhD
      • The Spiral Way:
        Celtic Spirituality and the Creative Imagination
      • Journey with the Desert Mothers and Fathers (Lent 2021)
      • Sacred Time: Embracing an Intentional Way of Life (Spring 2021)
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      • 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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Art and Spirituality

Beauty of Broken Things (continued)

For the last Poetry Party I invited you to reflect on the theme of the "beauty of broken things."  Your poetic responses were marvelous, spanning a wide spectrum of possibility and exploration.  Many of the images moved me, such as "I am the hidden underside of things" and "ice so cold it is also fire" from Tess, "fierce winds sprung from God’s deep lungs" from Rich, and "swampy depths of truth" from Kievas, or the stark simplicity of Kayce's poem: "dark / broken / desperate… / still / i reach for the heavens."

Many of the poems offered probing questions like Sue's "will you let me break you?", Ashley's "why not lift your eyes and swallow?", Milton's "How did I become accustomed / to a life of unfinished and disrepair?", Cathleen's "Can I honor this pain? Can I dare call it sacred?", or Elaine's "Beauty of brokenness. . . do I really / see you?"  Brokenness does seem to lead to more questions rather than answers.

I've been reading Crispin Sartwell's book Six Names of Beauty.  Each chapter focuses on a different word for beauty each from a different language.  The one that has most resonated with me and captivated by imagintion is the Japanese word wabi-sabi.  

Sartwell writes: "wabi-sabi is an aesthetic of poverty and aloneness, imperfection and austerity, affirmation and melancholy.  Wabi-sabi is the beauty of the withered, weathered, tarnished, scarred, intimate, coarse, earthly, evanescent, tentative, ephemeral. . . Wabi-sabi is a broken earthenware cup in contrast to a Ming vase, a branch of autumn leaves in contrast to a dozen roses, a lined and bent old woman in contrast to a model, a mature love as opposed to infatuation, a bare wall with peeling paint in contrast to a wall hung with beautiful paintings."  (p. 114)

To me, this speaks in essence, to the beauty of broken things.  It is easy to be plunged into awe and wonder at the setting of the sun or the magnificent flowering of spring.  In some ways it is more challenging to ask where beauty dwells in what is dying and broken and falling apart.  What happens when we begin to look for gift dwelling between the rough edges of things?

Part of my walking practice when I am at the beach is looking either for the wonderful white oyster shells that seem to call my name again and again, or these spiral shells that sing out to me.  I have only found a couple that are whole and intact, most of them are missing fragments, edges chipped and broken.  There is something so beautiful to me about their brokenness.  Perhaps it is because out of the 30 or so that I have found and gathered only one or two are cracked through the core.  Most of them, under the weight of the thrashing sea are able to hold onto an intactness with the strength of that center spiral . 

Reading Bette's poem last week especially resonated with me:  "after a long walk / my pockets are full of prayers / worn and broken shells."

I empty my pockets of broken prayers and spread them out along my windowsill as an offering to my own broken places.  This sill is also my altar space, the border between my hermitage and the vision of the sea just beyond, a reminder of the edges to which I am called.

(an apology for those poems I did not mention in this post, truly all of them were beautiful and moved me in different ways, what a gift to have so many to reflect with — thank you again) 

-Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the Arts

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10 Comments October 31, 2007

Upcoming Programs

The Way of the Hermit:
A Spiritual Survival Guide for Dark Times

January 22-24, 2021
with Kayleen Asbo, PhD

The Spiral Way:
Celtic Spirituality and the Creative Imagination

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

Recent Reflections

  • 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
  • Hildy Tales One: Dia dhuit, is mise Hildy! by John Valters Paintner, Your Online Prior
  • Celebrate the Earth Monastery Prayer Cycle podcast with us!

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