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

Cycles and Seasons

Being at Home

I have just returned home to Seattle after two amazing weeks of teaching soul care practitioners how to bring creative expression to their ministries of compassionate presence.  35 spiritual directors gathered in Louisiana and Mississippi for introductory workshops and then another 10 gathered on the shores of beautiful Lake Michgan for our Awakening the Creative Spirit five-day intensive (next one will be May 13-18, 2012 in the Pacific Northwest and they fill up early!)  It is hard to express what a profound privilege it is to be with groups like this, to make safe space for deep inner exploration, to witness the in-breakings of newness into the soul, to behold the awe and wonder and tears that emerge in a space like this.  It reminds me again and again why I am on this path.

And after two weeks away I am ready to be home, at least for a few days before I leave again to be a participant this time, in a yoga retreat.  I am by nature a nester.  My contemplative heart is deeply satisfied with days on end of time to simply be in my home, to savor the nurturing space I have created with my husband, to return to my own natural rhythms.

I also am by nature a wanderer and explorer, someone who embarks on great adventures both near and far.  Pilgrimage is a central practice in my life, especially to ancestral places.

My word for this year is "sanctuary."  It emerged out of my own brush with death last Christmas and my longing to experience a place of deep safety and refuge in the midst of that experience.  Sanctuary is an evocative word for me because it means the place where the holy of holies dwells, but it is also a place of refuge for those fleeing persecution or a place of safety for animals who can no longer be in the wild.  Sanctuary speaks of a place where we encounter the sacred, a safe space, and a space of meeting our own inner wild natures.

I was in Hawaii this past summer as one of my pilgrimage experiences.  This time wasn't to encounter my ancestors but to visit the sacred volcano on the Big Island, that place of fiery destruction and new life.  I hiked across the caldera of an active volcano and walked on new earth that had only been formed in the last few decades and experienced the wonder of that place.  I also journeyed to be in the presence of the amazing sea turtles who dwell there.  Turtles hold great energy and delight for me and this time I really felt the power of them carrying their home with them wherever they go.  I experienced "sanctuary" in this place of being called to find the home within and to also meet the spirit of wildness alive and well in those lava flows.

I adore the season of autumn.  There is a joy that I experience each year around this time breaking open in me as we enter the glories of fall readying for the spareness of winter.  My mother died in the autumn eight years ago and ever since I have fallen in love with the way nature offers her consolation and fierce wisdom around the journey of letting go.

This year I am noticing the energy of migration calling to me and the question of what it means to journey home wherever we are.  In the Northwest the salmon are making their long journey back to their birthplace to offer new life.  They will die in the process, there is a wildness to this journey, yet they can't resist the call to give birth.  In Michigan I encountered Monarch butterflies and geese who will be beginning their own migration to a place of warmth for the months ahead.  In my own inner work, I continue to explore the call of living in Vienna, the land of some of my ancestors, in the near future.  As I finish up my application for dual citizenship with Austria I also ponder what it means to be a citizen of a land and how I claim the fullness of that experience for myself.  Lots of threads moving through me these days.

An essential part of being a monk in the world is cultivating the sense of being at home wherever we find ourselves.  Each moment offers its own invitations if we are paying attention.  Can we be at home in this moment of time?

Stop by this week's Poetry Party about Going Home and share your own poetic response for a chance to win a spot in my upcoming online retreat Honoring Saints & Ancestors: Peering through the Veil (October 30-November 19, 2011).

 

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1 Comment September 20, 2011

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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