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
    • 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

Solstice Blessings + How to Be a Pilgrim (a love note from your online Abbess)

To receive this love note straight to your in-box, subscribe here (and also receive gifts!)

Jurmala-225x300How to Be a Pilgrim

Air travel is like
ancient pilgrims walking on their
knees, flight delays and narrow seats
offer their own kind of penance.

You jettison excess baggage,
leaving behind the heavy makeup case,
knowing the rain will
wash you free of artifice.

Books you wanted to carry left too,
no more outside words needed,
then go old beliefs which keep
you taut and twisted inside.

Blistered feet stumble over rocky
fields covered with wildflowers and you
realize this is your life,
full of sharp stones and color.

Red-breasted robins call forth
the song already inside,
a hundred griefs break open under
dark clouds and downpour.

Rise and fall of elation and exhaustion,
the tides a calendar of unfolding,
a bright star rises and you remember
a loved one waiting miles away.

A new hunger is kindled by the sight of
cows nursing calves in a field,
spying a spotted pony, you forget
the weight and seriousness of things.

Salmon swim across the Atlantic,
up the River Corrib’s rapids to the
wide lake, and you wonder if you have
also been called here for death and birth.

This is why we journey:
to retrieve our lost intimacy with the world,
every creature a herald of poems
that sleep in streams and stones.

“Missing you” scrawled on a postcard sent home,
but you don't follow with
"wish you were here."
This is a voyage best made alone.

—Christine Valters Paintner

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

I wasn't planning on writing to you again so soon, and yet I couldn't let the Solstice go by without a mention as I so love the wisdom of the seasons. Here in Galway last night the sun did not dip below the horizon until after 10 at night and full darkness did not descend for another hour. The golden glow of the sun's light so late in the day was beautiful to behold and a reminder of how far north we live. As someone who loves the quiet of darkness, I am glad that the earth is shifting today and beginning the long slow journey back toward the womb of night.

Of course, in the southern hemisphere, our fellow monks are experiencing quite the opposite as the descent to winter has reached its peak in terms of sun hours lessening, and now the shift is moving toward welcoming in the growing light. It is amazing to think that our planet is experiencing such diverse movements at the same time.

I think of all of these seasonal shifts as a cosmic pilgrimage. The sun's journey across the horizon, her arc over the sky, always shifting and changing and reminding us that the journey is ongoing. Sometimes we might think of pilgrimage as a voyage to a destination, but the ancient monks knew it reflected something much deeper, the always unfolding quality of life.

The solstice also reflects the call to pause in this midst of the journey. It is a threshold, a resting place in the midst of life's ever onward flow, a place to reflect and savor all that has come until that moment. A time to let go of the busyness which sweeps us in its clutches and commit again to a more slow and present way of being where other wisdom can emerge from beneath the productive and logical mind.

I have a great fondness for this time of the summer solstice as my birthday is on Monday, June 23rd and John's is Tuesday on the feast of St. John the Baptist. We are actually born a day apart on the same year, so our birthdays are usually a two-day long celebration of us. :-)

Even more remarkable is that several years ago in our early travels to Europe together, we discovered that the solstice here is often celebrated on June 24th because of St. John's day, and begins the night before, on the 23rd for an all-night festival. In Latvia, where my father was actually born, it is their biggest national holiday, so the year we turned 40 we made an ancestral pilgrimage there for our birthdays as the whole country celebrated.  Many other European countries hold this Christianized tradition as well.

These pilgrimages we made to places like Latvia, Austria, Germany, Belgium, England, and Ireland over the years were all journeys to make ancestral connections. But they also opened up inside of us a deep appreciation for the way that pilgrimage calls us back to ourselves and helps us to "retrieve our lost intimacy with the world" as the poem above says. These journeys help to awaken a new kind of attentiveness to the way the world acts as inner catalyst and calls forth our inner transformation. And even if you make the journey with a loved one, it is ultimately something which calls us to our own solitude and search for inner meaning, our unique gifts to be broken open.

Pilgrimage also leads us to surprising places, to make other journeys we didn't expect. Certainly when John and I began our soulful travels together we didn't imagine ourselves one day living in Ireland and we definitely didn't imagine at the time the grace of welcoming other pilgrims to this place we have now rooted ourselves.

What journeys are calling to you? How might you awaken to the way the world is inviting you deeper into yourself? Can you offer up a holy pause at this threshold time to savor and remember?

Sheila Massey Connor, one of our pilgrims from our May journey has been writing wonderful reflections on her experience at her blog, you can see some of her posts here and here. (Click here for more details on the pilgrimages we offer – spaces available in some of our 2015 dates.)

The next time you hear from me will be in mid-July (July 11th is the Feast of St. Benedict!) when we announce the lineup of online classes for the coming year. We are very excited about what we are dreaming up in the spaciousness of our summertime, plus there will be an opportunity to subscribe to the series of online retreats for a discount and with extra gifts. (Hint: the dancing monk icons will be featured for Advent!)

In celebration of the solstice and our birthdays, we are releasing some new self-study classes below, along with free gifts for registering (now through June 24th)! See below for more details.

And if you live in Ireland, John and I are also holding the possibility of starting some monthly gatherings for monks in the world here, so please email me if you are interested in finding out more.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE
www.AbbeyoftheArts.com

Photo by Christine (Christine and John on the beach in Jurmala, Latvia on the eve of St. John's Day)


New Self-Study Classes Available and Solstice / Birthday Sale!

We have some new self-study classes available. Our Soul Care Institute is changing format and so we are making some of the classes which have been a part of that program available to a wider audience.

Register for any one of these by the end of Tuesday, June 24th and also receive a free digital art journal titled Season by the Sea. This was one of the favorites of the series when I had them printed.

Register for two or more and receive Season by the Sea plus a $20 discount coupon good toward any future program (including live retreats).

To claim your gifts register for the class(es) you want by the end of June 24th and then send Christine an email with your request.

Choose from:

  • Earth as Soul Care Matrix: The Wild Heart of Ministry**
  • A Midwinter God: Making a Conscious Underworld Journey**
  • Live it to Give it: Essential Practices of Soul Nourishment and Self-Care (with Kayce Hughlett)**
  • Exile and Coming Home: An Archetypal Journey through the Scriptures (register now and receive access starting August 1, 2014)
  • Honoring Saints and Ancestors: Month of Remembrance (now available as a self-study class which you can start at any time)

Register now and start them at any time in the future.

**For these first three classes, you also have the option of adding individual spiritual direction (with Christine) or individual coaching (with Kayce) for an additional fee.

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2 Comments June 21, 2014

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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