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
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    • 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

Abbess love notes

Worlds Coming Together (a love note from your online Abbess)

Cong forest

Dearest monks and artists,

This has been an incredible couple of weeks with our renewal of vows for our 20th anniversary where American friends and Irish friends gathered with us together to celebrate. It felt like our worlds were coming together in a beautiful way.

Then, just before the pilgrimage began, a shipment of our things from Seattle which had been in storage for the last two and a half years, arrived. This included two pieces of furniture from my father's family in Austria, an oil painting of my grandmother, lots and lots of family photos, and some other mementos from my parents like the wool cape my mother sewed and the hiking stick my father used in the mountains of Austria. We were finally ready to make the commitment to be here in Ireland long-term and so had everything shipped over in late August. The unplanned timing of arrival to fall during the week of Samhain and All Saints/Souls was very poignant and sweet. It felt again like my worlds were coming together, to bring these things which connect me to my ancestors here to our new home in Galway.

I love the Irish monastic tradition of peregrinatio, of setting out on a pilgrimage without destination and following the currents to the place of resurrection. In many ways, our setting off from Seattle for Europe felt in deep kinship with this tradition and longing – to be guided to the soul's true home and landscape without knowing exactly where that would be. I have been falling more and more in love with Galway the longer we live here and it has become clear that this is our place to set down anchor for a long while.

I also love the Benedictine tradition of stability, of committing to a place and a community and not running away when things get difficult or challenging. We have been in a season of peregrinatio, but now are called to enter a new season of stability. We no longer need to wander and seek, and are deepening into the gifts and mysteries of this place we now call home. We celebrate the friendships formed here and our slowly growing local community.

Sometimes in life we are called to be pilgrims, and sometimes we are called to stand firmly in one place and say "here." It is only in listening to the wisdom and guidance of the Spirit that we can discern which one it is the season for. There have been many struggles along the way, times of doubt and resistance, of loneliness and restlessness, and yet now I feel like we have fully arrived and Ireland has an abundance of riches to keep offering to us. My joy overflows.

We have a pilgrimage group with us this past week, and it has been incredibly powerful to sit at this threshold of entering the dark half of the year, the time when the Celtic imagination believes the veil is especially thin between worlds. With the arrival of all these physical ties to my ancestors, I am feeling surrounded by a multitude all whispering: "you are home now."

This past Friday we went to Brigit's Gardens, always a favorite with our pilgrims. Jenny Beale, who is the founder and visionary behind this magical place led us in a Samhain ritual. "You can rest now" she said to the gardens, it is the season of incubation ahead, of dreaming and replenishing. "You can rest now" is the invitation to each of us living in the northern hemisphere.

Next week I travel to the UK with Betsey Beckman to teach our Awakening the Creative Spirit intensive with another amazing group gathering. It is an incredible gift to spend time with dancing monks. Then I return mid-November for four contemplative months at home working on my upcoming book Coming Home to Your Body and our series of online retreats from Advent through Lent. See more details below.

Consider joining us for our Advent & Christmas online retreat where we will focus on a different mystic/saint each week and the archetype they invite us to embrace. Reflections, songs, poetry, SoulCollage, dance, and herbs will all be a part of this journey. We have an incredible group of artists and teachers offering their gifts to the community.

If you will be shopping for the holidays with Amazon.com at all, we would be very grateful if you would use this link. When you shop through that link we receive a very small percentage of your purchase price and no extra cost to you. These funds help support our scholarships to those who can't afford to join our programs otherwise.

For those of you who might have missed it last week, see below for my gift to you as we enter this season of new beginnings and the remembrance of ancestors.

With great and growing love,

Christine

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

Photo: Forest at Cong Abbey

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Leave a Comment November 6, 2014

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

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