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
    • Walk the Ancient Paths: Pilgrimage
      • Monk in the World (Ireland)
      • Writing on the Wild Edges (Ireland)
      • Poetry and the Sacred Garden of the World (Ireland)
      • Vienna Monk in the World (Austria)
      • Hildegard of Bingen (Germany)
    • Live Programs and Spiritual Retreats
      • Awakening the Creative Spirit: Experiential Education for Spiritual Directors in the Expressive Arts (Northwest)
    • Community Online Retreats
      • Dancing with Fear in Troubled Times
      • The Two HT’s-Harriet Tubman and Howard Thurman-on Being Free
      • Writing Into Bloom
        with Christine Valters Paintner
      • Novena for Times of Unraveling
      • Poetry and the Sacred Garden of the World:
        An Online Writing Retreat
      • 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)
      • Sacred Time: Embracing an Intentional Way of Life (Spring 2021)
    • 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

Featured Poet Series

Featured Poet: Mary C. Earle

Last spring we launched a series with poets whose work we love and want to feature and will continue it moving forward.

Our next poet is Mary C. Earle whose work is centered on embodied spirituality and aging. Read her poetry and discover more about the connections she makes between poetry and the sacred. Listen to her read "To Chama River Valley" below.

https://abbeyofthearts.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/To-Chama-River-Valley.m4a

To the Chama River Valley

I want to lie down
on your rocky hillside
and pull your dark skin up over my body
like one of my grandmother’s quilts.

I want to snuggle down
with the worms and the beetles
laying my flesh on your flesh,
skin to skin,
listening with a child’s hopeful heart
for an ancient lullaby,
an even older rocking sway,
a tender whisper,
a kiss goodnight.

Themes of Her Work

I turned 70 last November, and around that time I began to be invited to speak about aging. This has felt to me like a sacred call, because I did not go looking for these assignments! It is, in part, a natural progression of my interest in embodied spirituality, and in the marvel that is our singular physical habitat—the body that is sacred gift. So, I’m attending to aging—of bodies, of the earth, of relationships, of my own gardens, of nations and political interactions. I’m noticing anew people who are fresh and fruitful into their 80s and 90s.

Obituary

When I lie down that last time
upon the folds of hill country earth,
I want to hear the cypress lullaby
as my bones let go.

I want cardinal praise, red and raucous,
filling the air
as my dust returns to dust.

I want the breeze that whistles down the creek bank
to gather up my ashes in its eternal song,
to gather and cast in one sweet movement,
scattering those atoms that were briefly mine,
into the soil as old as the hills.

The Soul Has Seasons

Like blackberry brambles the soul has seasons
when its leaves grow scarce.

Even then, a smallish body will find shelter there,
deer mouse chittering, or the tiny wren, piping its song.

For what, if not that singing, does the soul dare
a new season’s greening?

Poetry and the Sacred

I have loved poetry since I was a young girl, in part because it sings. Even when there isn’t a rhyme scheme, poetry is the fruit of us humans listening for the melody of the Great Song that sings everything into being. Poetry reminds us to listen. So, when I encounter a poem whose images and phrasing stir something within me, I am both listening to that Song, and invited to share its sacred melody.

So often a poem names something that I need to have named, or focuses my attention on something I’ve failed to see. I write in order to pay attention. I write poems so that I may know what I see. Poetry enhances the practice of mindfulness. Just yesterday I read “Small Kindnesses” by Danusha Lameris for the first time. That poem made me stop, give thanks, rejoice, and resolve to attend to small kindnesses.

Poetry reminds us that language is gift. The poet calls us to remember that language shapes action, and that how we see shapes what we see (as John O’Donohue observed). Reading and writing poetry invites me to be open and vulnerable, to receive and to bow before great Mystery.

On the Road to Bardsey Island

Something new and old flows in me here.
Something as fresh as springs in the rock.
Something as aged as this craggy coast.
Something as elemental
as it was in the beginning.

On the road to Bardsey Island,
I can hear the tromping of pilgrim feet.
I hear the prayers of many,
and I wonder at this holy band,
these saintly presences who walk with us,
telling their stories, urging us to see,
tugging at our hearts and souls
and reminding us that the news is good.

I feel roots sprout from my feet
and leaves bud just below the surface of my skin.
Sap begins to flow within,
coursing through scorched veins,
easing pain and inflammation,
bringing new life so sweet it almost hurts.

About Mary C. Earle

Mary C. Earle is a writer, poet, gardener, knitter, teacher and retreat leader. She lives in San Antonio, TX with her husband Doug, their border collie Fiona and cat Leftovers. She is the author of seven books and co-author of two. Her first book of poetry, "Do You Sing Your Own Song?", is forthcoming from Material Media Press in December 2019. For more about Mary and her work, check her website: MaryCEarle.com. To order Do You Sing Your Own Song? or any of Mary's books, click here>> . All of Mary's books are also available through Amazon.com and other online vendors.

Dreaming of Stones

Christine Valters Paintner's new collection of poems Dreaming of Stones has just been published by Paraclete Press.

The poems in Dreaming of Stones are about what endures: hope and desire, changing seasons, wild places, love, and the wisdom of mystics. Inspired by the poet’s time living in Ireland these readings invite you into deeper ways of seeing the world. They have an incantational quality. Drawing on her commitment as a Benedictine oblate, the poems arise out of a practice of sitting in silence and lectio divina, in which life becomes the holy text.

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Leave a Comment December 4, 2019

Upcoming Programs

The Way of the Hermit:
A Spiritual Survival Guide for Dark Times

January 22-24, 2021
with Kayleen Asbo, PhD

The Spiral Way:
Celtic Spirituality and the Creative Imagination

Hosted by the Rowe Center
February 1-21, 2021
with Christine Valters Paintner, PhD

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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