Abbey of the Arts

Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts

  • Welcome
    • 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
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    • Monk Manifesto
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  • 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
    • Walk the Ancient Paths: Pilgrimage
      • Monk in the World (Ireland)
      • Writing on the Wild Edges (Ireland)
      • Poetry and the Sacred Garden of the World (Ireland)
      • Vienna Monk in the World (Austria)
      • Hildegard of Bingen (Germany)
    • Live Programs and Spiritual Retreats
      • 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)
      • Sacred Time: Embracing an Intentional Way of Life (Spring 2021)
    • 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
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Cycles and Seasons

Life Impulse and Death Impulse

viriditas - yvonne luciaTo receive this love note from your online Abbess direct to your in-box, click here:

“And how would God be known as the Eternal One if brilliance did not emerge from God?  For there is no creature without some kind of radiance–whether it be greenness, seeds, buds, or another kind of beauty.”

—St. Hildegard of Bingen

Dearest wondrous monk and artist souls,

Thank you for all the beautiful replies I received from last week's love note about following the thread to Mary and the gift of pears.  Many of you had similar stories to share connecting the Black Madonna and the call to fruitfulness.  One monk and artist friend, Yvonne Lucia, sent me a painting she had done recently of Hildegard's principle of viriditas, which is the greening life force energy which sustains all creation in vibrancy, and she had depicted it with pears (see her beautiful art above). I smiled to receive this both because of the abundance of pears, and because one thing I did not share in last week's story was that when I went to Germany in October to visit St. Hildegard's land, the thing that struck me so deeply was the lushness of the landscape and how it spoke to Hildegard of this power of fruitfulness at work in the world.  I hadn't yet made the explicit connection in my mind, but those pears appearing to me have been fundamentally about viriditas.

For Advent, my husband and I have taken on a practice of daily lectio divina together in the mornings.  Only three days in and I am savoring this space of heart connection together to begin the day.  Yesterday we prayed with the first reading, from Isaiah 2:1-5 which contains the passage about turning swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks.  My mind almost skipped over these images because I have heard them so often, looking for something more mysterious in the passage.  But as I continued praying my heart kept going back.  What I heard in the silence of that time was a call to remember that we each have within us a life impulse and a death impulse.  With each choice we make in the day we can move toward the things which bring us life and juiciness, or we can move toward that which drains us of life and brings us to dryness.  And the death impulse can be transformed.

The challenge is that these two principles are sometimes hard to distinguish.  I can be so easily seduced into believing that what is destructive is really life-giving.  For example, when I am tired I am inclined to spend hours in front of the computer watching silly shows and believe that I am resting.  There isn't anything wrong with watching TV or movies, but it is not renewing of our souls, and when we use it to numb out rather than really replenish it becomes a problem.  We wonder why we are so drained all the time.

Our life impulse calls us into community and connection with ourselves, with others, with the divine.  Our life impulse leads us to nourish ourselves exquisitely well, knowing that this beautiful body is the vessel for our work in the world and it is essential to treat it with the profound dignity it deserves.  We are grounded in our wholeness and make choices from this place.

Our death impulse pulls us to retreat from the world, or to separate ourselves from others through dividing ideas. It is those moments when we identify with St. Paul's words to the Romans: "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do."  Our death impulse leads us to numb ourselves through poor quality nutrition, through mindless television programming, and always feeling hurt and betrayed by life. We withdraw into our woundedness and make choices from this place.  We lash out at others, or internalize this wounding and continue the pattern. This is a different movement than the nourishing withdrawal into silence we sometimes need.  The intention is key.

At any given time, we are usually operating from both impulses.  We are human.  We feel tired or lonely, rejected or angry.  We also experience profound joy and delight, spontaneous laughter, deep compassion.

The call of the monk in the world is to stay awake to our own patterns of life and death.  When we experience the death impulse arising, we can reject this part of ourselves and push it further underground, or we can turn toward it with compassion and recognize our own humble struggles.  This doesn't mean we embrace the direction it wants to take us, it means we meet it as a fundamental part of ourselves.  This is the first step toward transformation.  Advent is a season to awaken.  The monk's path is to always begin again, even when we keep falling back to sleep.

The call is to give ourselves again and again to the impulse toward life.  To remember that what is fruitful and life-giving and fecund is what nourishes us for the great work we each need to do, what is uniquely our own.  Giving ourselves to the life impulse engenders itself.  The more nourished we are, the more we seek out what feels nourishing.  The more depleted we are, the less able we are to make wise choices on behalf of our own deepest care.

I am listening to this call to the life impulse as I move forward on my own unfolding journey, listening for how pears lead me to a life that is deeply replenishing and full of sweetness for myself, and in my service to others.  Listening for how I might offer myself nourishment beyond my limited imagining so as to strengthen my capacity to give. I want to create spaces where people can follow their own life impulse and learn to recognize the death impulse at work, so that they move more fully toward the gifts awaiting them.

Where is your life impulse, your own greening flourishing, calling you toward?
How might you meet the death impulse in you with some tenderness and compassion?

*Art Credit: "Viriditas", Acrylic on Canvas by Yvonne M. Lucia, 2012, Photo by vzphoto.com (part of a series on the divine feminine – please contact Yvonne directly for more information or to view the rest of the series)

This month's theme at the Abbey is kinship with creation.  Please join the Photo Party where we explore this theme visually.  Creation offers us the primary revelation of God's greening power at work.  To become kindred with nature means to see our own flourishing as intimately woven together with all creatures.

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3 Comments December 5, 2012

Upcoming Programs

The Way of the Hermit:
A Spiritual Survival Guide for Dark Times

January 22-24, 2021
with Kayleen Asbo, PhD

The Spiral Way:
Celtic Spirituality and the Creative Imagination

Hosted by the Rowe Center
February 1-21, 2021
with Christine Valters Paintner, PhD

Recent Reflections

  • 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
  • Celebrate the Earth Monastery Prayer Cycle podcast with us!
  • Join us for A Midwinter God & Epiphany! ~ A Love Note from Our Online Abbess

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