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
    • 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)
    • 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)
      • 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
  • Contact

Earth Monastery Project

Earth Monastery Project: Hospitality Grounds Community Garden

earthmonasteryprojectAbbey of the Arts sponsors a small grant program called the Earth Monastery Project. We began the program in 2014 and so far we have funded six wonderful projects which nourish an earth-cherishing consciousness in our world.

It is exciting to us to see the creativity at work in the world and how dancing monks are offering their gifts on behalf of the earth. Our second round of grants have just completed their cycle so for the next three weeks we are featuring each of their final reports to share with you and inspire you to creative action in your own communities.

The third project we feature is Hospitality Grounds Community Garden, shepherded by Aimee Altizer. Here is an excerpt of her reflection (you can see the whole report below):

The mission of Hospitality Grounds Community Garden is multifaceted, encompassing community building through a greater awareness of our interconnectedness with our neighbors as well as with the marginalized in our community. The community garden challenges the binary that exists between the church and the world. This is a false binary that confines the Divine to the church building and the people there in, and all that is outside the church as belonging to the profane. This binary fails to encompass all of creation as belonging to the Divine, and claiming the sacred in all that exists. This identification keeps humanity from seeing the earth as sacred space.

Hospitality Grounds Community Garden seeks to be a sacred space of radical hospitality, providing opportunities through the gathering of community for people to develop compassion for one another and the earth. There can be no better place than the garden, the root of sustainable life, as the locus from which to understand reconciliation of ourselves, our community and humanity with the earth. Nourishing an earth cherishing consciousness begins with the hospitality of the table. It is in the cultivation, preparation and sharing of abundant harvest that we have the opportunity to discover and explore our interconnectedness with one another and all of creation. The earth as a monastery is the source of spiritual and physical sustenance simply stated – it is putting food on the table.

EMP - aimee 2Through the garden we hope to teach an earth cherishing consciousness, and an awareness of the earth as our primary monastery, understood through compassion – compassion for oneself, our neighbors – those local and global, and for the earth as our present and future home. It is in compassion that we might rediscover the power of story. Humans need story to survive, thrive, and create change – this is one of the great offerings that myth and faith bring to human lives. It is through compassion, which cultivates curiosity, and invites us into the beauty of mystery, that we hear the story of our interconnectedness.

The garden is a creative space; each person's bed is an individual creative project as well as the larger creativity and connection of the gardening community in spatial design, maintenance, and visioning new growth. Hospitality Grounds is a project that brings more earth awareness and spiritual direction to the parish and larger community, by bringing the ministry of the church outside into direct contact with the earth, deconstructing the false binary that exists around sacred space.

EMP - aimee 1The Earth Monastery Grant was used to provide opportunities for gardeners at Hospitality Grounds Community Garden, in Park City, Utah, to discover their own deeper identities & spiritual connection with the earth and in this develop a greater understanding of the interconnectedness of all beings. To expand this work, making it more accessible to future gardeners and individuals contemplating a gardening experience, I worked with the garden committee to design and build a website for Hospitality Grounds Community Garden that fosters a greater connection between the community gardeners and the earth as our primary monastery. In the project development time leading up to the launch of the website I actively worked in the garden with the gardening community, and then led a day retreat designed, with clergy Mother Claudia Giacoma and Deacon Sandra Jones, to invite the gardeners to reflect on & record their gardening experiences through yoga, art & story; writing meditations, prayers and blessings for the cycle of the liturgical gardening season that are now website content.

Visit the Hospitality Grounds website here>>

Click here to read the full report of the project>>

Click here to read more about the Earth Monastery Project and make a donation>>

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1 Comment February 17, 2015

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

  • 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
  • Hildy Tales One: Dia dhuit, is mise Hildy! by John Valters Paintner, Your Online Prior

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