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
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    • About Christine Valters Paintner
    • About John Valters Paintner
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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
    • 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
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Uncategorized

Fear not the Strangeness (a love note from your online Abbess)

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You must give birth to your images. They are the future waiting to be born. Fear not the strangeness you feel. The future must enter you long before it happens. Just wait for the birth, for the the hour of the new clarity.—Rainer Maria Rilke

Dearest monks and artists,

I have arrived in our new home in Ireland and am slowly settling in while trying to be ever so gentle with myself in this transition.  The day we got here was also the day of the annual hunt and so there were dozens of horses parading through the streets of the village.  Then came a brief hailstorm which gave way to a brilliant rainbow across the bay.  We are feeling a sense of deep blessings on this time.

There are challenges too, as our internet connection is long delayed, making it challenging for your online Abbess to do her work.  And there are, of course, the anxieties that come with any transition, or crossing over another threshold, the longing to feel at home while trying to embrace the strangeness we feel.  We are indeed strangers here moving toward familiarity very slowly.  Coming to know a place and allowing it to come to know us is a process that takes time.  This is one of the gifts that threshold brings – an intimate encounter with the feeling of exile so that “home” becomes that much sweeter.

The first night in our new house I had a dream.  A figure of light handed me a stone and on it was written a single word: Breakthrough.  In my dream, I receive it in my palm as a gift, and I know it to be my word for the coming year.

When I awaken I feel a sense of strangeness. The word I have been holding these last couple of weeks is suffused.  I love the feel of it, I love how it evokes for me the sense of my greening life force and lushness with which I have been growing more intimate this past fall.  Suffused felt good to me and seemed in alignment with the recent movements of my heart.

Yet I wasn’t feeling the full ripeness of it, some uncertainty lingered, so I have held off claiming it.

Then this dream arrives with a word I would not have consciously chosen, a word I sort of bristled at upon awakening, the small voices within rising with their chorus of judgment. Breakthrough.  The word has too much hubris, too much expectation, too much. . .

I sat with it the whole morning after awakening, journaling my way into it, testing it out.  I picked up the book I was reading – God’s Hotel – by a medical doctor who also studies Hildegard of Bingen’s approach to medicine.  She is with a patient whose case is challenging and she asks herself how Hildegard might engage treatment.  She realized the answer was to remove whatever obstructed the flow of viriditas, whatever was impeding the freedom of life force to move freely.  And as I read those words, I felt a rush inside of me, a promise of breaking through all that stands in the way of my allowing the fullness of my own life energy to rise up.

I am called to make space for breakthrough, in whatever form it might take.  Certainly this journey to Ireland offers me a thousand new visions and ways of seeing my life and work.

Has a word been ripening for you?  If so, share it here (share before January 7th and be entered to win one of several wonderful prizes).  If not, join my free 12-day retreat by subscribing to the Abbey newsletter.

May the year ahead bring ripeness for you.

With great and growing love. . .

Christine

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5 Comments January 3, 2013

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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