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

Mystics and Saints

Happy Feast of St. Hildegard!

Underneath all the texts, all the sacred psalms and canticles, these watery varieties of sounds and silences, terrifying, mysterious, whirling and sometimes gestating and gentle must somehow be felt in the pulse, ebb, and flow of the music that sings in me. My new song must float like a feather on the breath of God.
—attributed to St. Hildegard of Bingen

Happy feast day of St. Hildegard! 

This is an exciting year for those of us who love this fiery, powerful medieval Abbess.  She was finally canonized by the Catholic church on May 10th and on October 7th will be made a Doctor of the Church (one of only four women with this title) and certainly fitting for the amazing depth and breadth of wisdom she offers.  I fell in love with Hildegard while in graduate school, and consider her my doorway into Benedictine and monastic life. (Here is a link to a previous article at the Abbey on her. I will be in Ireland next weekend presenting as part of a celebration for her.)  For me she is the exemplar of being both monk and artist, of allowing her flourishing creativity to emerge from the place of contemplative stillness.  She is really the unofficial patron saint of Abbey of the Arts (something I should perhaps make official soon!)

This month at Abbey of the Arts our theme is silence inspired by the first principle of the Monk Manifesto: "I commit to finding moments each day for silence and solitude, to make space for another voice to be heard, and to resist a culture of noise and constant stimulation."

We began our exploration last week with a Photo Party inspired by silence, and the images shared were spectacular.  I selected several of the images to create a video meditation as a gift to you, dear monk friends.  You can view it here.  Give yourself the gift of a five-minute pause today and soak in the grace of silence.

Silence is the first principle because I believe that everything else flows from this place which is not an absence of sound, but presence to something wiser, deeper, more grace-filled.
Our theme this month has inspired me to deepen my morning practice of sitting in silence, to extend my time given over to the great Source of life's music as Hildegard writes. In that space I am also experiencing silence as my deepest nature and home.  When I cultivate this practice of silence each day, I discover more moments of silence throughout the unfolding of my life.  When I make time to seek out silence, I find that more and more silence comes to seek me when I don't expect it.

Last weekend, my beloved and I took a marvelous hike in the Vienna woods.  I find the silence of nature brings its own kind of healing and revelation.  We hiked to a wide, grassy field that looked out over the city of Vienna in the distance.  We sat there for a long time in the silence together.  Grateful for being with one another, savoring the experience of sinking into the moment.  Something about gazing over a wide vista makes my own heart feel expansive.  After some time we began to share the dreams just beginning to be birthed from our time living abroad.  They are like fragile, tender buds, and there is so much we don't know about how we are being called forward from this experience, but out of the silence and the vastness of sky before us, we could begin to feel into the shape of things to come.

I have come to recognize that my call right now is to rest in the radical uncertainty of my life, an often uncomfortable place to be.  So often I want to make plans for the future, but we do not know what comes next.  Only by showing up moment by moment will we discover what beckons to us.  Only be being present to the "terrifying, mysterious, whirling and sometimes gestating . . .pulse, ebb, and flow of the music that sings in me" will I discover my soul's song.  It will be out of the great mystery of silence that the shape of things to come will emerge.  Silence is the great teacher of mystery, of resting into unknowing.

Please join this week's Poetry Party on silence (several jewels have been offered there already) and read my latest reflection at Patheos on Silence as the Union of Opposites.

*icon of St. Hildegard from Our Lady of Kazan Monastery

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1 Comment September 17, 2012

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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