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
    • 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
    • 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)
    • Community Online Retreats
      • Lift Every Voice: Contemplative Writers of Color
      • The Way of the Hermit:
        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)
      • 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
  • Calendar
  • Reflections
  • Contact

Photos, Pilgrimage

Sacred Stories

"All the great voyagers return
Homeward as on an arc of thought;
Home like a ruby beacon burns
As they crest wind, scale wave, soar air;
All the great voyagers return…"

– from "The Homecoming," by Barbara Howes

Thank you dear readers for the many warm comments and emails I have received as a welcome home.  I am truly blessed to have such a supportive virtual community.  A special thank you to Laure who shared the above quote in her comment on my previous post.  She wrote that she imagined me on the other side of an arc of thought.  These words provided a lovely counterpoint to the quote I left you with before my journey from Meister Eckhart: "I need to be silent for a while, worlds are forming in my heart."  New worlds have formed, I have ridden the longings which drew me on my travels to the other side, the arc of thought which initiated my journey is now descending.

I am not sure I would call myself a "great voyager", but I do feel as though I have been on a great voyage across ancestral landscapes.  It is hard for me to know where to even begin sharing all that stirs within me. But begin I must, for my own sake, grasping onto each thread and seeing where they take me.

I am grateful to have this place to have my stories witnessed — witnessing is a mutual act of speaking aloud the truth of what you have discovered and having the community in return affirm the meaning of those stories.

(Image taken at Melk Abbey in Austria)

The image of the spiraling staircase symbolizes what this journey was about for me.  I have gone on an interior descent of sorts, part of the pilgrim's path.

The spiral also has another meaning for me in connection with my travels.  I have been contemplating a great deal the meaning of stories.  My pilgrimage was in part a way of entering into the stories of the people who came before me and listening for the stories of the landscape.  In the last few months an image has been developing within me, an image of the layers of sacred story in which we participate.  I see my own sacred story as the core of my identity, but wrapped around my individual story are my ancestral stories — the stories of the people who have walked before me, their struggles and joys.  I believe I carry these in my very DNA and I must speak their stories to understand my own.  In telling their stories, I affirm the meaning of their lives and thus the meaning of my own life.

Wrapped around these ancestral stories are the cultural stories, the ways of thinking and being that formed my family members — the wars that traumatized them, the religious beliefs that shaped them, the languages they spoke, the external limits on their possibilities.  Wrapped around these cultural stories is a global story, the story of humankind, of who we are as a species.  And this is wrapped within the earth story, the story of all creation, we are woven together with the trees and the creatures, the stones and the oceans.  Their stories help us to understand ourselves as well.  These stories are wrapped within the story of the cosmos, the great pulsing of life through the universe.

I held this image as I left on my journey and my travels have only deepened my sense of connection to these layers spiraling around me. And while I have traveled up an arc of thought and am now traveling down the other side, paradoxically I have made a descent and am now climbing my way back up.

Please excuse me if these words sound abstract.  I will try to make them more concrete in the coming days with words and images.

In the meantime, what are the layers of sacred story in which you participate? What are the unnamed longings of your ancestors that still pulse within your heart?

(c) Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the Arts

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10 Comments August 17, 2008

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

  • 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
  • Hildy Tales One: Dia dhuit, is mise Hildy! by John Valters Paintner, Your Online Prior

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