Abbey of the Arts

Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts

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    • 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
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      • Monk in the World art series by Kristin Noelle
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    • Lift Every Voice: Contemplative Writers of Color Book Club
      • Embodied Spirits: Stories of Spiritual Directors of Color (Book Club – March 2021)
      • God Alone is Enough: A Spirited Journey with Teresa of Avila (Book Club – February 2021)
    • 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
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      • 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)
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Monk in the World Guest Post Series

Wisdom Council: Guest Post from Dana Reynolds of Sacred Life Arts

I am so delighted to be starting a weekly series of guest posts from each of the Wisdom Council members, with their reflections on what being a monk in the world and an artist in everyday life means for them, in the context of their own work and ministries.

It is with great pleasure that I host Dana Reynolds of Sacred Life Arts for our first installment.  I have worked with Dana as both a participant in Abbey retreats, as well as a collaborator and co-creator of Abbey programs (she helped to create the Advent 2011 retreat and the wonderful Women on the Threshold program.  Dana's work shares so much heart and soul with my own, and so I share her wise reflections here with you:

Twenty years ago I was blessed to discover a fragment of ancient wisdom, while reading about my girlhood heroine, Jeanne d’Arc. My accidental encounter with her testimony recorded during the Middle Ages inspired my understanding of the relationship between human creativity and divine inspiration. Her simple statement eventually contributed to the impetus and formation of Sacred Life-Arts, an online sanctuary, classroom, and resource center devoted to bringing creative inspiration and spiritual illumination to women.

Here is the text depicting a potent and portent momentary interaction between young Jeanne d’Arc and her inquisitor during her trial for heresy.

One of Jeanne’s many inquisitors accuses…“You say God speaks to you, but it’s only your imagination.”

Without reservation she responds…. “How else would God speak to me, if not through my imagination?”

Jeanne’s clear and uncomplicated statement succinctly defined the deepest possible meaning of the human imagination in relationship to divine inspiration. Her statement continues to hold relevance centuries later.

The imagination is sacred territory. The cultivation and exploration of the sacred imagination’s landscape is at the center of my work as a monk in the world, a spiritual director, and contemplative sacred life-artisan.

I believe the potential to engage and inhabit the wild and mysterious terrain of the sacred imagination, as a co-creator with God is not a phantasmal, numinous occurrence reserved only for saints and mystics of long ago. Rather, it’s a very real gift knitted into each of us before birth, as a faculty of inner vision, and conduit to the divine. The sacred imagination, as I imagine it, is the place where our inner creative gifts merge with intuitive inspiration from the Source.

When creative longing takes hold and we are open to receiving inspiration, our sacred imaginations fuse with the Source of unlimited potential for creative expression. We are inspirited with the fire of possibility and provided with a new lens through which our initial visions becomes clear and within tangible reach. If intuition and inspiration are the voice of the soul, the sacred imagination and creative expression are the hands of the soul.

For me, the experience of living life as a monk in the world offers many opportunities to practice the sacred life-arts. By my definition, a sacred life-artisan is a contemplative spiritual practitioner, who brings her sacred imagination and conscious awareness to everyday, ordinary moments. She is a purveyor of beauty and a seeker of opportunities for authentic, personal and collective transformation through creative expression and sacred intention. It is the work of the sacred life-artisan to be in conscious and continual relationship with the Source (God’s creative and generative presence within) through prayer and spiritual practice.

In co-creation with the Source, the sacred life-artisan discovers pathways to alter seeming routine tasks, and challenging situations into opportunities of learning, blessing, and beauty.

As a monk in the world, and a contemplative by nature, I draw inspiration for my daily life from my passion for medieval monasticism and the themes of prayer, prophecy, and pilgrimage. I believe there is great value in looking to the wisdom of the past to inform life in the present. I carry the bone deep belief that ancient feminine wisdom is hidden away in various places in the world, awaiting uncovering, and the reclaiming by the women of today.

How might the unearthing of this long forgotten knowledge, the age-old stories of women and their communities, inspire and transform our spiritual and creative understanding?

The particular wisdom I’m referring to isn’t the educated thought of well-known scholars.

Rather, these were women who lived by their wits and their prayers while they navigated the challenges and dangers of their patriarchal world.

My fascination and quest to discover and reclaim ancient feminine wisdom inspired the story that became my first novel, Ink and Honey, a depiction of a radically independent spiritual sisterhood of women, the sisters of Belle Coeur. They were midwives, visionaries, herbalists, prophets, and sacred life-artisans. They were sacred life-artisans who forged beauty in everyday moments, and through selfless service, in the midst of chaos and challenge.

While writing Ink and Honey I sensed a thinning of the veil, and an invitation from the spirits of our ancestors. Perhaps they are calling us to begin an inner and outer pilgrimage to explore, gather, and reclaim the inspiration and beauty of ancient forms of expression, crafts, prayers, rituals, and wisdom to inform and reinvigorate our lives today.

The call from women for spiritual and creative community is growing louder. In autumn, 2013, I will gather with twelve women in Colorado to co-create the formation of the first Belle Cœur sisterhood, a contemporary spiritual/creative order, inspired by the example of the way of Belle Cœur, as depicted in Ink and Honey. A companion guidebook for Ink and Honey, The Way of Belle Cœur: Soul, Sacrament, Sisterhood, and Service, will be released later this year.

I invite you to contemplate your creative spirit, as a sacred life-artisan. The landscape of your sacred imagination awaits your exploration with the invitation to become a co-creator with the divine. If you doubt such things are possible for you, I remind you to reflect on the words spoken with faith and conviction by young Jeanne d’Arc. Perhaps, you too one day will embody her truth and say…“How else would God speak to me, if not through my imagination?”

To learn more about Dana's wonderful work click here>>

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7 Comments June 15, 2013

Upcoming Programs

  • The Two HT’s Harriet Tubman and Howard Thurman on Being Free with Therese Taylor-Stinson
    • Apr 17, 2021
  • Writing Into Bloom with Christine Valters Paintner
    • May 1, 2021
  • Revelations: The Mysticism of Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe
    • May 13, 2021
  • View All Upcoming Programs

Recent Reflections

  • Monk in the World Guest Post: Greta Kopec
  • Monk in the World Podcast + Harriet Tubman Mysticism ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess
  • Lift Every Voice: Contemplative Writers of Color – April Video Discussion and Book Group Materials Now Available
  • Hildy Tails 12: Is ait an mac an saol ~ by John Valters Paintner
  • Easter Blessings + An Elemental Journey ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

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