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: Anne Marie Walsh

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Anne Marie Walsh's reflection, "Deep Within."

Silent retreats, generally considered "time apart", also point a way for me to be contemplative in the world moment to moment. Sometimes I arrive in exhaustion, feeling there is no time even for this retreat, what was I thinking, how on earth is this going to help? But allowing the sure footedness of the decision to come, now after many such retreats, I know it is a great gift to enter silence so intentionally in a space that honours and prepares for such a way of being together. I trust it and what might be quietly leading me.

Silence seems to open into a space of erasure: even if I bring them, I usually abandon books, screens, speech, plans, projects, even contemplative possibilities like knitting or painting while at the retreat.  Especially at the beginning, I find myself walking slowly outside, often stopping, or sitting quietly, in many ways “doing nothing”.  One director guided us before the silence, to attend to what is already being offered: to listen for it, to expect to gently, quietly be led to the gift that is already prepared for you in this time apart.

In retreat (but also at home in daily walks, or in sitting in stillness) it means, for me, attending with a kind of soft alertness, letting go of any tendency to control or “work at” composing the time. Slow walking (this is not exercise or fitness), frequent stopping,  allows a meditative reception of what is given. The senses are open. Sounds, even of tiny leaf movements, are present to me.  My eyes perceive the delicacy of forms, letting them be as they are, no thought, no judgement, no science, no art: just lingering with these manifest things. The scaly bark of trees and shelves of unexpected fungi; the curved crux of black branches; dark hidden spaces and strewn shafts of light down a steep cedar slope; the insect-eaten oak leaf, a skeletal lace. All in their own silence somehow seem to reveal to my silence their infinite variety and fecundity, the hand of great Artistry.

And that shared silence in itself is healing. The slow being-with "things" as they are, softens me, lets me feel the depth of my own being IN the same world, also one of the million forms, alive at the same time, part of some infinite extension of mystery.  For what can we say about all of this? What is given exceeds us. It is unsayable and yet we walk in its midst, breathe the same air, unfold into the spacious openness which is always with us, yet so often veiled by our busy preoccupations and cares.

Sometimes a tree (or a flower or a fox) will reveal itself as mystery. The tree can stand, powerful, towering, yet silent and majestic, through hundreds of years, through harsh winters, the dark cold nights, the scorch of long summers. Standing near such a created being, I find my own desire to join the tree, to find a way to be its kin: steadfast, strong, quiet, yielding, beautiful, and patient in slow growth from a deep heart- certainty, true to my given nature. If Nature be our first Scripture, then this hearkening to our deep nature, whether tree or person, is reflected, I think, in our second, written Scripture: “Deep within, I will plant my law. Not on stone, but in your heart.”  Deep within , we are already seeded with the life of Life, with our own wild and precious desires which are rooted in the divine urging us into ever more fullness of life.

Deep Within

How can we say what silence and quiet attention reveal to us?
In every moment, we are presented with arrays of some assorted light,
too complicated to name or fully notice.
Yet in an instant we can rest upon a small pointe vierge
and there be born anew,
able to glimpse how we are always raised to some infinity,
We can regard the vastness of our world in a single upside-down reflected sky
in the puddle of a rainy deck’s dark wood.

We are so small, so brief.
The majesty and terror of creation is far beyond our ability to contain.
Yet we are made in such a way that the Infinite dwells in us;
Brief and small, we are made vast
inscribed by the in-dwelling Holy Mystery.
Love, the Heart of All, holds us
even in destruction.
We will say: we did not know what we were doing.
But held, we are held
every leaf proclaims the love in which we are held.


Anne Marie lives north of Toronto, Ontario in Canada. A painter and writer, she has recently retired from teaching and working within the helping professions. In recent years, silent retreats have sheltered and guided her in accompanying her long-time companion as he experienced the difficult descent into Alzheimer’s disease.

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Leave a Comment April 10, 2019

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

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  • Monk in the World Podcast + Harriet Tubman Mysticism ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess
  • Lift Every Voice: Contemplative Writers of Color – April Video Discussion and Book Group Materials Now Available
  • Hildy Tails 12: Is ait an mac an saol ~ by John Valters Paintner

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