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

Monk in the World Guest Post Series

Monk in the World Guest Post: Joni Sensel

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Joni Sensel's reflection, "From Monk to Mummy and Back."

Monks have always interested me; my second novel is set in a tenth-century abbey, and as a long-distance hiker I’ve long considered myself a peregrina, not in medieval robes but in Gore-Tex. So when I discovered Abbey of the Arts a few years ago, I was immediately intrigued.

To explore my evolving identity as a monk in the world, I signed up for one of the Abbey’s five-day events called Awakening the Creative Spirit. The workshop became a way for me to secretly acknowledge my partner, Tony, who’d died abruptly a year previously and whose birthday fell during that week. I enjoyed the workshop immensely, but one activity especially bowled me over: Near the end of the week, we made plaster casts of our faces. I expected this to be among our least challenging projects. Hoo-boy, was I wrong.

My partner, Michele, would plaster me first. With a shower cap protecting my hair, I stretched out on a yoga mat and closed my eyes, feeling as vulnerable as a hospital patient. Plastic wrap protected my skin with only the tiniest gap at my nostrils for breathing. Michele began smoothing wet strips of plaster overtop.

When my eyes and mouth were sealed over, I thought, “Oh! This is like a mummification. I’m being prepared for the next life.” It wasn’t the first time the week’s activities had me thinking of symbolic deaths and rebirths. We were welcoming the emerging identities we’d try to capture as we painted our masks.

As the plaster stiffened, the mask felt increasingly isolating. I could still feel Michele’s fingers and soothing presence, but I couldn’t see, move, or even breathe deeply. The music in the room was trance-inducing. Trying to relax, I focused on each shallow breath.

And I thought about Tony. This loss of sensation, mobility, control—was it anything like what he’d felt as he died? I’d touched his face while I tried to revive him, not in these sweeping strokes but with great urgency. I imagined stroking his stubbled cheeks as Michele smoothed plaster on mine. This could be only the thinnest reflection of dying.

My heart ached intensely. Tears rose. No. Not now. Crying was one more thing I couldn’t do. If I got sniffy, my slim ability to breathe would be lost and I’d have to bail.

Michele whispered, “You okay?”

I gave her a thumbs-up. I can do this. It can’t be much longer. Pressing my hands to my overwhelmed heart, I tried to anchor myself to the music.

More warm, soothing hands touched my shins, feet, and hands. Our workshop leaders had a talent for reading emotion. Sensing my distress, they held me to the ground, a balloon—or a ghost—at risk of floating away.

The first teams done with their plastering began to speak above whispers, proof of life beyond my swirling mind and imprisoning mask. I wasn’t scared, just awash in emotion: curiosity and grief, uncertainty, gratitude for Michele’s tender help. After days spent expressing emotions through dance, those feelings were now trapped and roiling. Would my plastering never be done?

Light brightened beyond my eyelids. Good. Focus there. The clouds blocking the sun outside must have drifted. As I appreciated that glow, a sudden impression flashed—power, rushing just beyond my eyelids and my sense of self. It was like standing too close to a bison stampede: roaring, immense. That physical sensation struck me as a divine force, or maybe the flow of the collective unconscious. It was here, immanent, both reassuring and intimidating. I almost giggled into my mask because it showed me how utterly inadequate our conceptions of divinity are: We’re ants trying to understand a nuclear rocket.

With that, Michele finally lifted my mask off. Breathe. Try not to shake. Queasy, I wiped my face and focused on returning the favor for her. The cool glop of the plaster helped calm my trembling. Still, as soon as we’d finished, I had to escape into the woods. With the trees and Tony around me, I could finally cry.

Feeling like I’d been hit by a truck, I dropped flat to the pine needles, spread my arms, and let my emotions sink into the ground. Surrendering. And trying to understand what had happened.

After 10 minutes or so, one of our leaders appeared on the trail. A gift. Though this break in the schedule was her time off to recharge, Betsey kindly paused. She asked and then listened while I spilled my feelings about the mask work, which had veered so far from the lark I’d expected. After brief support and a hug, she walked on. I remained prone until the chickadees hopping through the leaves granted me enough energy to go find warmth and tea.

Though it took me days to recover from my pseudo-mummification, the experience pushed me closer to Tony. I consider it a not-very-near-death experience, one that confirmed a Divinity out there, an immensity both in and beyond our perceptions.

Monks and mummies share the assumption of such a Beyond. They also share a strong sense of purpose, a focus on approaching and experiencing the Divine that is helping me to find meaning after my loss. Together, they’re leading me forward, a hiking, art-making monk in the world who sees value in the mummy’s seclusion and darkness as well as in dancing and light.


The author of more than a dozen books, Joni Sensel explores creativity and monkish adventures from her home at the knees of Mt. Rainier in Washington State. Visit her online at JoniSensel.com

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Leave a Comment March 11, 2020

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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