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)
    • 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
  • Calendar
  • Reflections
  • Contact

Advent Christmas Epiphany

Epiphany

* * * * *

And behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them,
until it came and stopped over the place where the child was.
They were overjoyed at seeing the star,
and on entering the house
they saw the child with Mary his mother.
They prostrated themselves and did him homage.
Then they opened their treasures
and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod,
they departed for their country by another way.

-Gospel of St. Matthew 2:9-12

* * * * *  

Here at the year’s end, at the feast
Of birth, let us bring to each other
The gifts brought once west through deserts-
The precious metal of our mingled hair,
The frankincense of enraptured arms and legs,
The myrrh of desperate, invincible kisses-
Let us celebrate the daily
Recurrent nativity of love,
The endless epiphany of our fluent selves,
While the earth rolls away under us
Into unknown snows and summers,
Into untraveled spaces of the stars.

-Kenneth Rexroth, from Sacramental Acts

* * * * *

The story of Epiphany offers us so many images: making the long journey through the desert, following the call and wonder of a star, carrying gifts and treasures, celebrating the beauty of a birth, and then returning home by another way, a different path. It is really a pilgrimage of the soul, the archetypal journey we each take as we move through a new transforming moment, part of the "endless epiphany" of our lives.

These last couple of weeks have been sheer gift.  It began with the silent beauty of snow, lots and lots of snow.  And while the city of Seattle came to a standstill, I reveled in the wonder of it all.  I had already planned this time off, so I did not have anywhere I had to be.  I surrendered myself fully to the silence of winter.  Each snowflake became a star of wonder to follow.  I walked for hours with camera in hand.  I curled up in my prayer corner watching the snow fall outside and the people having great fun sledding down the hill by our home again and again. I sat in a darkened Cathedral on the Winter Solstice, the longest night, and listened to the service of Compline being sung. Compline is the Hour of re-entering into the darkness at the end of day.  In monasteries, after Compline is sung, silence is kept through the rest of the night. I relished those long dark hours and marveled at the birth happening within me.

The snow has long since melted now, but I have continued to relish these quiet moments of the in-between days that mark the 12 days of Christmas.  While others have attended "after-Christmas" sales, I have continued to hold the gift of these days like a jewel in the palm of my hand. It has been a wondrous balance to the full days of my life lately.  Shifts and insights are opening within me like the flower in winter, beautiful and sturdy.  I am being invited to go home to myself again in a different way.

Epiphany marks another celebration for me, the entrance of Tune into our lives two years ago.  She continues to be the wisest of presences.  Her witness to me in the quiet hours has been of another kind of knowing.  She is both magi and gift, both bearer of gifts and the gift herself. She is the truest sense of the word epiphany — a constant revelation to me.

While I have mixed feelings about "New Year's Resolutions," what I do love is the hope wrapped up in those promises to do better, to be better.  The hope that life is bigger and fuller and more meaningful than we can imagine right now in this moment.  That there is always an invitation to travel hard journeys, to follow the joy of that which brings us to wonder, to carry our gifts with us and offer them to others, to celebrate the holy birth happening at every moment, to journey by new paths.

What are the endless epiphanies of your own life?

What is the birth you are being invited to celebrate?

(c) Christine Valters Paintner at Abbey of the Arts:
Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts

** Visit the NEW YEAR SALE at the ABBEY SHOP **

** Our next Poetry Party returns tomorrow! **

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3 Comments January 4, 2009

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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