Spring is the season when the earth awakens after her long slumber. It is the season associated with the element of air and breath. That moment of inhale, of breathing in the fullness of divine life, is the moment of dawn when the sun scatters the long night and the day begins.
It is always such a privilege to do this work. I am so incredibly blessed to be able to offer this kind of transformative space for others, to have wonderful women with whom I work and facilitate, and to welcome in participants longing to dive deep and discover what is waiting there.
While holding that space there are always new things awakened in me. I am still tending to the movements but am grateful for many sacred moments like rolling in the grass on a sunny afternoon, laughing deeply from authentic joy, witnessing the range of feeling touched through the arts again and again, seeing the incredible freedom that comes from moving out of the longings within. Can you just imagine what happens when a group gathers together and gives each other permission to be fully exactly where they are? To each listen and respond to what is rising up within? Each time I feel like I am given a window into what church really means.
I went to see my own spiritual director today. The word I am holding closely right now is exuberance (isn’t that just a wonderful word to say?). There is a new exuberance over my work in the world as it burgeons (another great word) and I am welcoming it all in. In fact, while driving home, I was thinking that perhaps my Six Word Memoir is actually * exuberant monk bearing witness to beauty. *
So, dear readers, what is awakening within you?
Next year’s dates for the Awakening the Creative Spirit program are May 22-28, 2010, again at the beautiful Hood Canal. The setting alone is worth the trip, I promise.
(Sunrise Sister and lucy were both there. Click over to see what they had to say about their experience)
*Photo on top is of our participants’ masks and below is my marvelous teaching partner Betsey Beckman dancing through the grass while telling us a story on a warm spring afternoon.
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© Christine Valters Paintner at Abbey of the Arts:
Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts
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6 Responses
Wonderful comments, thanks!
kigen, I love the image of lucid dreaming. That moment of pulling off the mask and first seeing the inside and then the reflection is quite surreal.
Suz, we would love to have you come back. :-)
your exuberance is indeed burgeoning within and without!!! more ponderings up from me today. the fullness continues to flow. six more words “my fullness flows within and without”…xoxoox
The collages and masks are so wonderfully expressive! Thanks for sharing photos of your work.
Sigh…the most wonderful experience…
I want to do it again sometime.
Great photos! and it must have been a wonderful week of bonding and awakening! I remember an art class once where we all made plaster casts of each other’s faces. It was a challenging experience, a lucid dreaming, to see one’s face come back at one in three dimensions!
Having already heard something from Lucy about this blessed time you all had together, I shall now scurry over to Sunrise for more. Wonderful masks.
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