Abbey of the Arts

Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts

  • Welcome
    • Prayer Cycle
    • 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
    • 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)
  • Calendar
  • Reflections
  • Contact

Monk in the World

Orchard and Forest (a love note)

Dearest monks and artists,

This is proving to be a powerful Advent season for me.  My husband and I have made the discernment to move to the west coast of Ireland at the end of December and so this threshold time left here in Vienna has become a profound opportunity for retreat, turning inward, savoring our experience of these days, and sharing with one another the dreams being birthed within us.

We have taken on a shared rhythm of life for Advent that has become deeply nourishing and such a gift.  Part of that rhythm is a time of praying lectio divina together each morning.  For Advent we are praying with the Isaiah texts, letting them work on us, and then having a conversation about what we are discovering.

Last Friday the phrase "the orchard (shall) be regarded as a forest" (Isaiah 29:17-24) shimmered for me.  Pears and woods have been calling to me this autumn season. In my recent rereading the story of the Handless Maiden, I was so touched by her solitary journey through the forest to come upon the pear orchard and imagining those pears heavy with sweetness bending down to nourish her. Here in the scriptures orchards and forests were again dwelling together in the poetry of the text.  Images rose up in my prayer: ripeness, lush, sweet, fruitfulness, greenness, savoring, the beautiful vineyards of Vienna which nestle against the woods, the cultivation of orchards and vineyards to bear fruit, the wildness of forests as a space beyond the confines of cultural expectations.

As I listened for the invitation, I saw how orchard and forest together form a symbol for the monastic life.  They invite us into the balance between creating rhythm and structure through the cultivation of fruit and the orderliness of orchards, and the freedom and instinctual power we find in the heart of the woods.  In east Indian culture, the forest was considered "beyond the pale," which means beyond the rules that normally restrict us.  The ancient monks fled to the desert and off to the wilderness to find this place "beyond the pale" of established society.  But they brought with them scriptures and shared wisdom which offered the trellis of support for their practice.  The two together is what allowed them to flourish.

I am called to the wild edge of the sea in Ireland because it shimmers for me as a place to explore what being a monk "beyond the pale" might mean.  I want to live in this holy landscape and see what it teaches me about the dance between rhythm, Rule, wildness, and dancing freedom.

As the year comes to a close I am reflecting on the incredibly rich movements I have experienced, both inner and outer, and how these are calling me to move into the coming year.  To think that a year ago our "plan" was to come to Austria for only the summer to study German and explore the possibilities for a future move.

I am listening for a word to guide me in the coming year.  Clearly pears and viriditas are shimmering for me.  My word this past year was "savor" which has been very meaningful.  The root of the word savor is the same as the root of wisdom.  I have been reminded again and again to slow down and linger over these incredible moments I have been given.  To savor life's moments.

Now a new word is rising up.  I think it is suffused, but I need to let it ripen a bit longer.

So much of my life I have lived with the subtle fear of not having enough – enough food, enough money, enough love, and the fear of not being enough.

I think these fears for many of us are at the root of the compulsions we grasp at to fill ourselves, to seek satisfaction.

But of course, we are only left hungering again, or numb to life's grace.  The achievements, the feasting, the toys, the seeking after love, all leave us empty.

It is only when we remember that the branch of the pear tree is already bending herself to us so no reaching is necessary that we are satisfied.

But even more than that.

When we realize that everything, everywhere, including ourselves, is already suffused with the greening life force of the one who sustains us.  And all we have to do is breathe that in and know ourselves sustained, suffused, spread through with the love we so desperately seek.  This has been the gift of this first leg on my pilgrimage.  To know this not just with the mind, or even the heart, but a fully embodied knowing so there is no gap between knowing and the truth of it.

And even more than that, as Rilke writes, this heavy ripening fruit which exceeds all measure, must be given away, offered freely with no fear of depletion.  Not in a self-sacrificing kind of way, but one which honors my own gifts and real physical and emotional limits, and makes no apologies for radical self-care of my body vessel, time when I dip back into this suffusion of love and grace which of course is already there.  It is our forgetting that exhausts us.  The monk in the world practices remembering this sacred rhythm of inward and outward extension again and again.

What the pear is offering to me is a deep trust that I am suffused already with "a paradise of light" and through cultivating my own growing sweetness, I bear fruit which must be offered to others.

Each of us has a particular kind of heavy sweetness to give to the world.  The kind that overflows naturally when we experience ourselves as nourished.

May you cultivate sweet fruit and sweeter wildness and offer it freely, no holding back,

Christine (your online Abbess)

«
»

1 Comment December 12, 2012

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

Connect with the Abbey

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
JOIN THE HOLY DISORDER OF DANCING MONKS
SIGN UP FOR UPDATES
DONATE TO SUPPORT OUR MINISTRY

Copyright © 2021 BY ABBEY OF THE ARTS · WEBSITE PRIVACY NOTICE

Copyright © 2021 · Flourish Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in