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
    • 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
    • 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
    • Lift Every Voice: Contemplative Writers of Color Book Club
      • God Alone is Enough: A Spirited Journey with Teresa of Avila (Book Club – February 2021)
    • Community Online Retreats
      • Dancing with Fear in Troubled Times
      • Novena for Times of Unraveling
      • Sacred Time: Embracing an Intentional Way of Life (Spring 2021)
      • Sky, Sun, Sea, & Stone:
        Celtic Spirituality and Creative Writing
      • The Two HT’s-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
    • 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 (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)
  • Calendar
  • Reflections
  • Contact

Women on the Threshold

Drink freely from the life you have been given

I ask for the gift
of a moment
to sit by Your side
The work that I have in hand
I can finish afterwards.

Now it is time to sit quiet
alone with You
and to Sing
a re-dedication of my life
in this Silent
and overflowing joy.

—Rabindranath Tagore

I have been away on a silent retreat this past week at a small retreat house in lower Austria called Die Quelle (meaning "The Source.")  I went for a number of reasons: spending time in deep silence is integral to my spiritual life and my call to ministry; I wanted to reconnect with Sister Ishpriya with whom I participated in a very meaningful contemplative retreat many years ago; and being in this place of profound transition I wanted to offer myself the gift of a holy pause, to reflect on what is being called forth from me in this time.

The retreat is at a simple center in lower Austria, up on a hill, 1000 meters up, and adjacent to the beautiful forest.  12 single bedrooms and a rhythm of life that includes two periods each day for silent prayer, one teaching session where Sr. Ishpriya offers a direction for the day, time for cooking and cleaning on behalf of the community (everyone spends two hours each day in some kind of manual labor), and then large periods of time in silence where you can walk, journal, pray, or follow whatever longing your heart desires.

The poem above began our time together: this invitation to sit in silence by the side of God, the Source, the ground of Love.  Silence is, of course, not an absence, but a profound kind of presence, a pathway into a deep communication.

The line from the poem which shimmered for me throughout the week was to "Sing a redication of my life."  When I read those words I knew that is why I had come to this place: to rededicate myself to this path, to deepen into stillness, to commit again to the contemplative way in the midst of life.

The first two days of the retreat were more challenging as I settled into the rhythm of the place, trying to find my way among fellow journeyers, and as I quieted enough to hear the thoughts clamoring for my attention. I was surprised by the level of self-judgment and criticism that arose in that space, the old voices of my father, the barrage of inner noise.

Thankfully, I have been on silent retreat often enough that I knew I needed to keep releasing these distractions and stay on the path.  Several times I found myself doubting whether I should even be there with so much work to do to prepare for the fall, when a wiser voice rose up in the midst: what better preparation than this?

Often when we first settle into silence we experience this inner barrage of demands, doubts, critical voices, and then we back away, deciding that we aren't cut out for this kind of thing after all.  This is so unfortunate.

Because if we can stay with the practice, noticing the thoughts as they arise, but not letting them take root, noticing as our mind wanders down this unfruitful path and gently bring it back to center, we slowly drop down beneath into a wide expanse of stillness.

The evening of the second day something broke me open.  I began to weep freely and I recognized this as the moment I was finally letting my defenses down, I was finally softening into this gift.  The desert monks tell us that these tears are a gift, they signal an opening, a willingness to receive, a desire to be shaped.

By day three I felt a marked shift in my prayer. I sat in spiritual direction with Sr. Ishpriya, and at the end of our time she asked me, "what is your purpose?"  Not what I do for work, but what is my deeper purpose as a human being in this life?

I went on a long hike.  The day was hot and humid, but the forest provided some relief.  Still, I was hiking up and up and up, into the beauty of the silent woods.  Not a single other person there, only a pair of deer, and ants scrambling over the ground.  As I climbed I could feel my heart beat loudly in my chest and I relished the experience of being alive.  After about an hour it was time to turn back so that I would not be late for evening meditation.  I descended carefully and at the entrance to the hike found a water trough, with free flowing ice cold water.  I stood there, hot and sweaty from the exertion, under the bright blue sunlit sky, and I plunged my hands into the pool of water and was enlivened by this gift.  I drank thirstily to quench myself.   I splashed the water on my face and neck and blessed myself.  I felt alive and grateful.

I returned for silent meditation, feeling the exhilaration of the journey I had been on.  As I settled into the quiet, Ishpriya's question about my purpose came to me, and a phrase shimmered forth in response: "Drink freely of the life you have been given."  I paused for a moment to ponder these words.  I settled into meditation savoring this experience of receiving the gift of cold mountain water at the end of the long hot hike, and how this was like my life: the call to become willing to receive freely the gift of refreshment and nourishment so generously offered to me.

Ten minutes into our half hour of prayer I heard the sound of rain begin to fall outside on the roof.  By the time prayer was over and we went to dinner, the sky was pouring forth water, where just a little while ago there had been nothing but clear sky.  I felt like God was telling me, "see, there is not just a fountain to drink from, but an abundance being offered to you."

After dinner as the rain subsided I went out to dance barefoot in the wet grass in celebration.

The rest of my retreat was a breaking open of this invitation, this "word" I had received in prayer:

"Drink freely. . . " meaning do not hold yourself back, allow yourself to be quenched, to give yourself over to the offering.  Those voices of criticism and judgment are just ways you hold yourself back from receiving the fullness being offered, just ways of rejecting the love so generously poured out.  I was being called to consider all the ways I reject this love, all the ways these inner voices serve me by keeping me from the deep call in my heart, the one that feels so liberating, but also terrifying.  It is amazing how hard we work to keep ourselves from freedom.

". . . of the life you have been given," meaning the one, brilliant, beautiful, and unique experience of being me in this moment of time.  I was reminded of the poet Rilke and his invitation, again and again in his poems to savor the inner landscape of our lives, to recognize that we are here to experience the fullness of ourselves in ache and in joy, to welcome in the entirety of who we are.

In some ways, this phrase that was gifted to me seems so simple, so basic, something I knew already.  In other ways, I am struck by how hard it is to live a life of not holding ourselves back from God and of giving ourselves so freely to the one wondrous existence we have been given.

Each day on the retreat, in the morning and evening, we lit a small fire as part of our ritual of reminding ourselves that another 12 hours had passed.  Sr. Ishpriya would ask again and again, what choices had we made?  How would we live this next 12 hours?  Each time I was reminded of my own experience with a pulmonary embolism over a year and a half ago, here in Vienna.  The experience that would thrust me into a deep relishing of life, in ways I hadn't before and really which was the seed for making this journey to live in a foreign land.  How will I drink freely in the hours to come?

How quickly we fall asleep again and again to this truth: that life is extraordinarily precious, that each of us is a unique expression of the divine, and there is the paradox that within the felt limits of chronological time, there is a generosity beyond our imagining pouring forth life into us.  The question becomes: how do we stay awake?  how do we drink freely and abundantly? how do we stop holding back?

For the rest of the retreat I returned to the forest whenever I could, making that climb up the mountain again and again so that I could feel the brilliant beating heart of being alive and return to the cold refreshment of that fountain.  In the clearings along the way I danced a "rededication of my life" with joyful abandon.  No one there to witness me except for the wisdom of trees and the wise Spirit accompanying me each step.

And as I return home, I will struggle again and again to remember these moments, to feel their gravity in my bones.  So much conspires to make me forget, so many forces and thoughts want me to hold back.  This is being a monk in the world: to stay committed to awakening each moment to the truth of life's generosity, to give myself over to the immense love beating through me, to allow it to spill over into everything I do and with everyone I meet.

Every threshold in life is an invitation to this kind of rededicaton.  As we cross over into something new, we pause, we commit ourselves anew.

Is there a threshold in your own life beckoning to you?

Do you want to join a community where we help each other remember the generosity of Source in our lives?  Where we can celebrate the one unique life we have been given and practice drinking freely from it with no holding back?

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Leave a Comment August 28, 2012

Upcoming Programs

Dancing with Fear in Troubled Times
March 13, 2021
with Drs. Jamie Marich, Kellie Kirksey, and Christine Valters Paintner

Novena for Times of Unraveling
Becoming a Monk in the World

March 17-25, 2021
with Christine & John Valters Paintner, and Simon de Voil

Recent Reflections

  • Hildy Tales 7: An Nead by John Valters Paintner
  • Sacred Time and Slowing Down ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess
  • Hildy Tales 6: Céim uile an domhain ~ by John Valters Paintner
  • Join us on a Desert Journey for Lent ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess
  • Hildy Tales 5: Níl aon tinteán mar do thinteán féin ~ by John Valters Paintner

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