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
    • 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
  • Contact

Abbess love notes

With Gratitude (a love note from your online Abbess)

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dancing st benedict iconThanksgiving

I have been trying to read
the script cut in these hills—
a language carved in the shimmer of stubble
and the solid lines of soil, spoken
in the thud of apples falling
and the rasp of corn stalks finally bare.

The pheasants shout it with a rusty creak
as they gather in the fallen grain,
the blackbirds sing it over their shoulders in parting,
and gold leaf illuminates the manuscript
where it is written in the trees.

Transcribed onto my human tongue
I believe it might sound like a lullaby,
or the simplest grace at table.
across the gathering stillness
simply this: “For all that we have received,
dear God, make us truly grateful.”.

—Lynn Ungar, Bread and Other Miracles

Dearest monks and artists,

I am delighted to share the newest in the dancing monk icon series I am commissioning from artist Marcy Hall. Above you will find St. Benedict dancing with joy. The quote comes from his Rule and I am absolutely delighting in the freedom and playfulness of these images which evoke the spirit of our Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks. (You can see St. Hildegard here).

Those of you in the U.S. this week are celebrating the feast of Thanksgiving. I have always loved this holiday with its emphasis on gathering with friends and family and sharing gratitude and the harvest.  Of course, here in Europe it is just Thursday, but I have been keenly aware of the many profound blessings of my life. Gratitude is a practice I cultivate daily, and I think essential to being a monk in the world. It is deeply connected to simplicity and living lightly on the earth, because the more we honor the abundance of things the less we need to grasp and accumulate.

I have been traveling in Norway this past week for the first time. John and I began with four days in Tromso, which is in the arctic circle, and then three days at Lia Gard retreat center in Koppang, about three hours north of Oslo.

We traveled to Tromso because of a longtime desire to see the northern lights. Each night we went on a different outing to be under the wide sky and wait. This anticipation felt very much like preparing for the season of Advent, this hope, this growing sense of wonder. Nature does not adapt herself to our needs and desires and there is something refreshing about this holy indifference, a reminder that we are not the center of things. We humans, with all of our needs and wants, can't have absolutely everything at any moment just because we want it. We had to simply wait and hope.

There were many beautiful things that happened in the waiting. We arrived in Norway on the night of the full moon and each night she appeared, sometimes for only a few minutes and sometimes for several hours to reveal her silvery light reflecting on snow. Each time she elicited a depth of awe and each night she appeared in a new form as she was waning. We went dog sledding and had beautiful conversations about life in Norway with Norwegian locals as well as those from the U.K., Malta, Slovakia, and Japan who had all relocated. We talked about cultural differences, about religion, and about what makes life worth living. We rode for hours on a boat at night across the dark sea guided by moonlight. We wandered hand in hand down city streets in snowfall and snuggled into cozy cafes to warm ourselves.

I loved being embraced by the darkness there, entering the long nights felt like a perfect way to prepare for the season of holy birthing. We arrived only a few days before the time of the polar nights begin, when for two months the sun does not rise above the horizon. I loved that the cafes and restaurants were not brightly lit within to stave off the darkness, but all had dim lighting and dozens of candles as if to invite us to rest into the gift of this time and remind ourselves of a different rhythm called forth by this season.

The northern lights did not appear in our time there and yet we hardly feel disappointed with such riches. We are so grateful for the opportunity to behold so much beauty and are ready to return again and wait and hope. Attentive waiting is truly a spiritual practice. So often we grow impatient with the world around us not moving fast enough for our liking. We want to know the answer or have instant gratification. Advent reminds us of another way. It is truly a season for monks with its call to spaciousness, to slowness, to enter the mystery of things. Advent calls us into gratitude for the promise of things to come, as well as the abundant blessings right in our midst, if we only slow down enough to receive them.

Over the weekend we gathered with over twenty dancing monks, mostly from Norway, but also Sweden, Denmark, and the U.K. At first I was worried about the cultural and language barriers, about how well these ideas would translate, but that quickly dissipated as I witnessed how much they also hungered for this other way of living. It seems the whole western world suffers from rushing and busyness. I found great hope in our shared longing for the monk's path. I delighted in our shared joy over the artist's expression.

As you prepare for the start of Advent this coming weekend, what might you be able to set aside for more silence, more time to simply rest, less doing and more being?

If you would like to join the Abbey community for attentive and prayerful waiting through the gifts of Celtic spirituality, please join us for our online retreat which begins this Sunday.  You can find out all the details and register here.

My hope for you is that this season of birthing the holy invites you into a place of deep rest and yielding to the seed breaking forth deep within your own soul.

With great and growing love,

Christine

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1 Comment November 27, 2013

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

  • 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
  • Hildy Tales One: Dia dhuit, is mise Hildy! by John Valters Paintner, Your Online Prior
  • Celebrate the Earth Monastery Prayer Cycle podcast with us!

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