Abbey of the Arts

Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts

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  • 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
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      • 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)
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Monk in the World Guest Post Series

Monk in the World Guest Post: Tara Shepersky

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Tara Shepersky's reflection "Anxiety & Radical Hospitality."

I'm alone this weekend, on retreat above the Pacific. Sitting beneath a fuchsia hedge, the loudest sound is the vrzzzzz! of the bright-green hummingbirds, who've grown used to my presence. I heard something very faint half a minute ago, and it took me these thirty seconds to parse it as the musical approach of geese.

If you value silence, as I do – cultivating it within, and breathing relief at its outward manifestation – this probably sounds wonderful. I find it so – and also, it's a frightening challenge. Silence is not easy. But something else tests me harder.

***

The sun this noon is warm, the slight breeze cool. There's a bank of fog lolling about the headland. I am deeply content. And also, I'm afraid.

I struggle with aloneness. Although I enjoy being alone, I hate to live that way. Anxiety is my unshakeable companion. It wanders near or far, but when I am long alone, it sits close. It reminds me that my husband is on a plane to a far-off city. That airplanes fill me with terror. That I am, since first I fell in love, inhabited by waking dreams of my dear one's death.

I've tried all my adult life not to dwell on these fears. Not to give them strength – or admit weakness. I've pursued distraction, barred the inner gate. Of course, that's exhausting. And no, it hasn't worked.

This weekend is only the fourth time in my 35 years I have not just traveled alone, but lodged and lived that way, to a purpose. What's opened me to this new beginning is another: the disciplined study of writing. I realized I wanted to schedule blocks of time in which to think and write uninterrupted, to wander the natural tides of body and mind. To do this, I needed to remove from other voices. I needed to retreat – alone.

I've done this three times now, and guess what? My solitude is haunted. Once open to what is, in David Whyte's beautiful phrase, "just beyond [my]self," I am even more closely accompanied by unbanishable fear. It's happened every time.

This weekend's encounter is new, though, because I've started recently trying to welcome my difficult emotions as guests.

***

Celtic spirituality drew me strongly in my teens. I've heard its resonance echo in my adult life, but I haven't sought it. I've paused to listen, as to a distant bell. Recently, something – my Lutheran upbringing suggests grace – has changed that occasional attendance to a passionate yes.

Choosing this path, I've known I would encounter a principle my privileged introvert self reels away from: hospitality to the stranger. I thought the hardest part would be people, though. In fact, what's challenged me most is inner hospitality: the way hospitality entwines with silence, and opens it further.

The practice of Welcoming Prayer asks us: what if you took time to identify what you feel when fear strikes? What if you name it, know where it sits in your body? Then what if you welcome it – not because you're happy it's there, but because it is there? And sit with it, listening?

In my anxiety this solitary weekend, I have done this three times. I spoke aloud, envisioning my terrors as physical strangers, gesturing them closer, inviting them to draw up a chair and talk with me. As I listened, they didn't leave. They did lean back in their chairs. Their postures eased.

***

Contemplative practices lead me toward graceful acceptance that sometimes being human is just hard. Acknowledgement has not empowered my anxiety. An open heart may not conquer fear, but it seems to offer a wide, forgiving context.

I can't say if my embrace of inner hospitality is "working." The word implies finality, solutions. And there is no "fix" for the beauty, difficulty, and uncertainty of life.

I'm a little easier, though, more of the time. This weekend I am still living with anxiety, but I notice that verb: living. Not existing, not denying, not hiding. I do not get over my fears, but I get used to them. Consistent welcome is a radical way to do that – but it's either that, or they'll pound on the door all night, so that none of us sleep.

Another Celtic practice I love is blessing. Calling down, is how I think of it: summoning the powers of all good things in life upon another.

I write blessings mostly as gifts. I wrote one recently for the birth of a niece I have yet to meet, but already treasure. Yesterday I composed one for myself, as I motored down the freeway, fizzing with anxiety. And I felt it settle.

Blessing for the Anxious Traveller

May your fears and your anxieties
walk easily beside you.
May they point out
what you need to know
and rest
when their wisdom is no longer required.
May you breathe freely,
wonder fully,
and wander well in your travels.

***

Perhaps you know someone who needs a blessing? Maybe it's you. It feels odd, formally addressing yourself or another. But it eases something. It opens some door of kindness or understanding or just witness. To bless is to be present in a way we so rarely embrace. It's another act of radical hospitality.

May you be present. May you accept even anxieties with soul-deep compassion. May you receive with grace, bless with love, and live with radical welcome.


Tara K. Shepersky is an Oregon-based taxonomist, poet, walker, & essayist. Her work has appeared in Cascadia Rising Review, Empty Mirror, Mojave Heart Review, and Sky Island Journal, among others. Find her on the trail, or at pdxpersky.com, and on Twitter @pdxpersky.

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Leave a Comment December 5, 2018

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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