Abbey of the Arts

Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts

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  • Books
    • Breath Prayer:
      An Ancient Practice for the Everyday Sacred
    • 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
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      • 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
    • Lift Every Voice: Contemplative Writers of Color Book Club
    • Community Online Retreats
      • Harriet Tubman and Howard Thurman-on Being Free
      • Writing Into Bloom
        with Christine Valters Paintner
      • Revelations: The Mysticism of Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe
      • The Wisdom of Wild Grace: A Weekend Retreat Online
      • The Spiral Way:
        Celtic Spirituality and the Creative Imagination
      • Sacred Balance:
        Aligning Body and Spirit Through
        Yoga and the Benedictine Way
    • 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)
      • Journey with the Desert Mothers and Fathers
        (SELF-STUDY)
      • 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 (SELF-STUDY)
      • 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
    • Live Programs: Pilgrimage & Retreats
      • Writing on the Wild Edges (Ireland)
      • Hildegard of Bingen (Germany)
      • Awakening the Creative Spirit: Experiential Education for Spiritual Directors in the Expressive Arts (Northwest)
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Art and Spirituality

Awakening to our creative, sacred hearts

I am most honored to have a post featured over at Tess Giles Marshall's beautiful site Pilgrim's Moon (her site is subtitled "growing older on our own terms, a counter-cultural path for woman" and she offers great wisdom there regularly, so be sure to bookmark her) on Awakening to our creative sacred hearts:

I teach a five-day workshop called Awakening the Creative Spirit, designed for soul care practitioners to kindle their own creativity and bring the arts to their work with others.  I love the metaphor of “awakening” because there is a gentleness to it, a soft transition from slumber to alertness.  We have all been asleep in one way or another to parts of ourselves, to dreams we have.

The edges of life

Sacred wisdom from Buddhist and Christian traditions speaks of the spiritual journey as a gradual awakening to our true nature, to who we most deeply are.  Generally this truer, deeper self doesn’t really begin to emerge until we have reached mid-life.  When we are confronted with the reality of our own mortality, we begin to press against the edges of life.  It may be the illness of a loved one or our own, it may be a deep loss of some kind: a job, an identity, a beloved.  These experiences are often initiations, thrusting across a new threshold and waking us up.

Wrestling with your inner critic

Often this calls us to go against convention which feels frightening at times, but we are lured by the beckoning of a deep joy we haven’t known before and a sense that life can’t continue in the same way.  In monastic tradition, St. Benedict writes about the need for a commitment to conversion, to always showing up again and again, to continually being changed.  He wisely writes in his monastic Rule four of my favorite words: “always we begin again.”  This beginner’s mind is essential for how we approach our creative process and our prayer.  Engaging in creative work often sparks our inner critic into overdrive. Many of us wrestle so much with our inner perfectionist that we give up even trying.  And yet we may slowly begin to realize the question no longer becomes about whether we are “good enough” to be an artist, but about claiming our right to profound joy and freedom and to step into unknowing

Read the rest of my reflection here>> 

Leave a comment at her blog for a chance to win my book Lectio Divina–The Sacred Art: Transforming Words and Images into Heart-Centered Prayer

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1 Comment July 19, 2011

Upcoming Programs

  • Writing Into Bloom with Christine Valters Paintner
    • May 1, 2021
  • Revelations: The Mysticism of Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe
    • May 13, 2021
  • The Wisdom of Wild Grace: A Weekend Retreat Online
    • May 15, 2021 - May 16, 2021
  • View All Upcoming Programs

Recent Reflections

  • Monk in the World Guest Post: Reverend Deb Goldman
  • A mini-poetry reading from Christine plus other publishing news
  • St. Kevin Holds Open His Hand and Radical Hospitality ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess
  • Monk in the World Guest Post: Greta Kopec
  • Monk in the World Podcast + Harriet Tubman Mysticism ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

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