Abbey of the Arts

Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts

  • About
    • 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
    • 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
  • Icons
  • Music & DVD
  • Videos
  • Programs
    • Walk the Ancient Paths: Pilgrimage
      • Monk in the World (Ireland)
      • Writing on the Wild Edges (Ireland)
      • Honoring Saints and Ancestors (Iona)
      • Vienna Monk in the World (Austria)
      • Hildegard of Bingen (Germany)
      • Sacred Rhythms of Sky, Sun, Sea, and Stone:
        An Embodied Writing and Voice Retreat (Ireland)
      • The Soul's Slow Ripening (Ireland)
    • Live Programs and Spiritual Retreats
      • Awakening the Creative Spirit: Experiential Education for Spiritual Directors in the Expressive Arts (Northwest)
      • Earth Monastery Intensive:
        Nourishing Intimacy with Nature for Soul Care Practitioners (Scotland)
    • Community Online Retreats
      • Jubilee Year Community Retreat:
        Exploring Sacred Rhythms of Time
    • Self-Study Spirituality Online Classes
      • 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
      • 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 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

Monk in the World Guest Post Series

Monk in the World guest post: Judith King

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Judith King's reflection on a soulful entry into the day:

Soul Breakfast

Preparation time: 1 Good Night's Sleep
Cooking Time: 45 mins-1hour
(For best results try 3-5 times per week)

Ingredients
1 Gratitude statement per foot on the floor first thing
1 Mindful Minute at back door or best view window
I Lemon Cleanse (glass of hot water, good squeeze of fresh lemon and 2-3tbsps cider vinegar)
1x The-Way-of-the-Three-Steps (Sr Jose Hobday, Plains Tribe Prayer) *
10-15 mins of Body Pleasing (Tai Chi/Yoga/Dance/Betsey Body Prayer)
1 verse of a Poem/Psalm proclaimed aloud (a personal preference Mary Oliver's 'Good Morning' from Blue Horses) or a sung chant
15-20 mins of Silent Meditation
1 round of remaining Morning Prayers (personal favourites John O' Donohue's Morning Offering.  Macrina Wiederkehr's The Awakening Hour prayers from Seven Sacred Pauses, Thomas Keating's Welcome Prayer, Our Father, Charles De Foucauld Prayer of Abandonment)
1 hot, aromatic shower
Serving Suggestion: Follow the above with fruit, porridge and a cup of hot tea or whatever might be the culturally appropriate body breakfast where you are!

As often as I can, I attempt to make a slow, soulful entry into my day.  I trace this need back to the millennium.  In the summer of that year I was involved in an accident, literally knocked down by a bus, (yes, the proverbial actually happens to some people!!). Thankfully, none of my injuries were life-threatening but recovery nonetheless took many months.  A few weeks in hospital was followed by a necessary return to my family-of-origin home to be cared for.  At first, even when doing simple tasks like showering or making a cup of tea, I required help.  Gradually I recovered my independence and began to track each little milestone with quiet cheers and deep gratitude.   It was humbling to realize how much I had taken for granted.  I was in my mid thirties, I was on a particular trajectory with work and life, busy with all kinds of commitments and suddenly it was like I just fell off the side of the world! As I hobbled about awkwardly on crutches, I used to watch people walking and truly marveled at their ease and grace.

Eventually, I was strong enough to consider a return to work.  I began part-time at first, mostly because it took me so long to get ready in the mornings!  The limitations posed by my injuries and pain at first meant that my morning rituals were a long-drawn out affair.  As my strength recovered I continued to take my time in the mornings and it was more than a year later before I realized that what was once an involuntary necessity had gradually become a desired practice and so I began to guard zealously the day's precious beginnings and daily prepared myself a soul breakfast.

Prior to that 'turnaround' summer I had dabbled in meditation and journaling practices now and again but the drag of habit and routine meant that many weeks might pass between these bouts.  Equally, I made intermittent, enthusiastic attempts to do some yoga classes or tai chi or 5Rhythms but I never managed to commit to any of them enough to weave them into my daily life.  After the accident, however, when my whole being began to thirst for ways to lift and regulate my energy levels and my spirit longed to integrate the meaning of this eruption into my life, I returned to these body and soul practices with a completely new mindset.  It was almost easy to commit to a daily routine because my need for their healing power was so great, like the deer that yearns for running streams.

The first springtime after my accident I was introduced to the practice of keeping a gratitude journal – recording, just before sleep, the five things you are most grateful for in the day gone by.  A soul supper, if you like! Fifteen years later I have a shelf full of such journals and can attest to the transformative power of this practice! It is extraordinary to me how this simple practice has since received such global attention in the intervening years.

The street on which I was knocked down was called Exchange Street and I have often thought what an exchange indeed came to pass.  An instant on that fateful July day, 2000, became the seedling for an inner transformation, by the end of which I had exchanged my previous life of ego-striving, petty anxieties and completely taken-for-granted physical vigour and energy, for a new life of consciously and daily attending to gratitude, humility and mindful embodiment.  I know in my body and bones that we are soul pilgrims on a journey and the quality of that journey and the interactions with those whom we meet on the way is just about all that truly matters.  The gifts I have received in the intervening years have been abundant and manifold.  Among them I include finding this community of other monks in the world with whom to share this pilgrim road, guided as we are by our dear Abbess who writes us love notes, for God's sake! As an Irish person it is especially meaningful to me that we are working together to embody these eight ancient and new practices into our daily lives – a fitting and living tribute to the hundreds of beautiful monastic ruins that dot our landscape.  These days, all that is within me rails against the kind of mornings where I am in a rushed grasping for food, transport and last minute work preparations.  Some days, unless I rise extremely early – and sometimes I do – I have to settle for the Feet on the floor pause for gratitude, the Mindful Minute and the Way-of-the-Three-Steps Prayer – a mini soul breakfast, as it were.  But Ah! The full breakfast is as satisfying to me as "the full Irish" might be to my fellow citizens.


JK016Judith is a psychotherapist, teacher and group facilitator, living and working on the east coast of Ireland.  She has also begun to write more publicly in the past year, thereby attending to a long-seeded desire to do so.   She finds the Abbey of Arts and its resident Holy Disorder of Monks a most inspirational source of companionship and creativity.

 

 

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • Print
«
»

7 Comments February 3, 2016

Upcoming Programs

Jubilee Year Community Retreat:
Exploring Sacred Rhythms of Time
(ONLINE)

June 2019-June 2020
with Christine & John Valters Paintner and Wisdom Council members

The Wisdom of Mary and the Sacred Feminine:
A 30-day self-study retreat
(Use code Mary20 for 20% off in December)
with Christine & John Valters Paintner, Betsey Beckman, Jamie Marich, and Sibyl Dana Reynolds

Recent Reflections

  • Featured Poet: Mary C. Earle
  • Monk in the World: Kinship with Creation 1 ~ Reflection by Christine
  • Dancing Monk Icons on Sale!
  • Give Me a Word 2020
  • Monk in the World Guest Post: Linda Parrington

Connect with the Abbey

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
JOIN THE HOLY DISORDER OF DANCING MONKS
SIGN UP FOR UPDATES

Copyright © 2019 BY ABBEY OF THE ARTS · WEBSITE PRIVACY NOTICE

Copyright © 2019 · Flourish Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in