Visit the Abbey of the Arts online retreat platform to access your programs:

Happy Second Bloggiversary to Me!

All the arts we practice are apprenticeship. The big art is our life.

-M.C. Richards

Last Friday was my two-year Bloggiversary!  Hard to believe I have been showing up in this space for that long.  It makes me smile to look at my Poetry category in the sidebar and see the number of entries at over 100. When I first began, my blog was called the Sacred Art of Living, a name I still love, but I found there was occasional confusion with this fine place of the same name.  So when I launched my brand new website I transferred all of my old posts over and claimed a name for myself that spoke of my love of monastic tradition and the arts while continuing to explore the intersection of spirituality and creativity.  I experimented with some regular features such as (my favorite!) the every-other-week Poetry Parties, Visual Meditations which offer a few moments each week of invitation into wonder and seeing more deeply, the marvelous folks who have shared their wisdom through the Sacred Artist Interviews, and of course interspersed are lots of my own honest reflections on themes important to my heart like creativity, discernment, grief, nature, and living as fully and meaningfully as possible.

So I offer a warm thank you to all of you, my wonderful readers and supporters.  Truly this has been a joyful place for me to connect with others of like mind and heart and a great discipline for my own creative journey.   I would love to hear from you this day, especially if you’ve been reading silently for a while.  There are a lot of you out there and so a comment or email would surely make my day.

-Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the Arts

You might also enjoy

Winter Solstice Blessing ~ A Love from Your Online Abbess

Winter Solstice*Holy One of the turning earth,we watch the daily pilgrimage of the sunas its journey grows shorter and shorter.Bears, bats, and hedgehogs restwhile swallows and swifts have already migrated south again. Cold air, bare branches, blankets and shawls,the growing quiet calls us to our

Read More »

End of Year Giving

Your donations help us make what we do fully accessible to all who desire to be a part of this virtual monastery and gathering of kindred spirits. It is because of your generosity that we are able to offer many free resources – such as our

Read More »

Monk in the World Guest Post: Melanie-Préjean Sullivan

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Melanie-Préjean Sullivan’s reflection on her morning prayer practice. I have always been a student of spirituality. From the time I could read,

Read More »

17 Responses

  1. Oh how wonderful to hear from all of you, thank you kigen, st inukshuk, Bette, and SS! I am grateful for all of your words.

  2. Me too, me too! Happy Bloggiversary – it is always a comfort and inspiration to visit your words and your visual presentations. I look forward to the day we meet face to face.

    xoxoxo

  3. Happy Bloggiversary! My how time flies. Thank YOU for everything you do to make this a great place to come to for so many wonderful things :) HUGS and LOVE

  4. Happy blobbiversary! You enrich our lives with your gift of photography, spiritual insight and creativity. Thanks!

  5. Christine, thanks for your generosity, all the resources you draw from to make this Abbey an oasis of creativity and joy.

  6. Thanks Suz, it was a gift getting to know you through the Awakening program! Yes, a very wonderful group indeed of which you were an integral part!

    Elaine, thank you so much for the haiku! What a lovely gift, it would make a fun Poetry Party. :-) and its never too late!

  7. A Happy Second Bloggiversary Haiku for you (this really is an occasion for a Poetry Party, don’t you think?):

    Come to the Abbey,
    Reflect, create, live fully,
    in a sacred space.

    Blessings to you. And thank you for bringing joy, meaning, discovery and creativity to our days through your words and images.

    (So sorry I’m a day late.)