Abbey of the Arts

Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts

  • Welcome
    • 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
      • 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

Abbess love notes, Pandemic Resources

Let art, poetry, and music hold you in the paradox of these times ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

In a Dark Time

Do not rush to make meaning.
When you smile and say what purpose
this all serves, you deny grief
a room inside you,
you turn from thousands who cross
into the Great Night alone,
from mourners aching to press
one last time against the warm
flesh of their beloved,
from the wailing that echoes
in the empty room.

When you proclaim who caused this,
I say pause, rest in the dark silence
first before you contort your words
to fill the hollowed out cave,
remember the soil will one day
receive you back too.
Sit where sense has vanished,
control has slipped away,
with futures unravelled,
where every drink tastes bitter
despite our thirst.

When you wish to give a name
to that which haunts us,
you refuse to sit
with the woman who walks
the hospital hallway, hears
the beeping stop again and again,
with the man perched on a bridge
over the rushing river.
Do not let your handful of light
sting the eyes of those
who have bathed in darkness.

—Christine Valters Paintner

Dear monks, artists and pilgrims,

Ireland went officially into lockdown mode a week ago although we are allowed to go to the grocery store, to medical appointments, and exercise within 2 km of home. Thankfully our daily walk with our dog Sourney is 2 km up the canal and then 2 km back down the river.

I certainly never imagined we’d be spending the last few weeks of our sabbatical time in quarantine. The actual retreating is not hard for us as we both love to spend time alone at home, John and I can write for hours at our desks and then meet in the kitchen for dinner and to watch a movie or series in the evenings.

When all this started unfolding a couple of weeks ago, the call to offer the free Novena came with such clarity. It was such a gift for me to really remind myself how much these ancient mystical and contemplative practices have to offer us in the uncertainty of our lives. The other gift was being reminded what an amazing global community the Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks is.

As I sink back into quieter rhythms again, I feel tremendously blessed to have my days filled with writing, art, music, and movement. A typical day for an online Abbess certainly begins with some journaling, poetry writing, meditation, and yoga.

From there I’ve been spending time writing my next book commitment due to the publisher at the end of summer, doing final edits for my poetry collection this fall, working with an artist for some illustrations for my book on Sacred Time due next spring, giving interviews in writing and on podcasts to promote Earth, Our Original Monastery – my book just released(!), promoting our new album of 14 songs to accompany it, working with our designer to create a full color postcard book of the 12 beautiful images created to accompany some of my poems in the fall collection, working with John to carve some art in lino blocks for a Mary book that I will be writing next, printing up the St Muirgen mermaid icon card and considering how to make that available for folks, praying with a series of songs we are considering for an album in spring 2021 of blessings and songs inspired by scripture, dancing with some of the gesture prayers created by my dear friend Betsey that will go in a series of videos, gathering the files for a spoken word album of me reading my poems, creating a series of poetry videos (one of which is above), and of course times of rest and stillness in between.

My days right now are filled with visual art, poetry, prose, dance, and music, and it is the perfect antidote to the climate of anxiety and fear in the world right now.

Rather than a distraction from those things, immersing myself in imaginative possibility and the creative vision of other artists helps me to see something much bigger and vaster than myself, beneath the surface are endless possibilities coming into birth.

When you feel anxiety rising, find a poem you love and sit with it. Read it again and again until it becomes knit into your bones and memory. Let a phrase become your prayer and a compass for your days.

Play a song you love and let it carry you into the river of grief, releasing all that has been resisted until it flows no more, dance with it, and then rest back into the stillness.

Find a piece of art you adore and enter into its landscape in your imagination. Let it carry you to new places.

Art helps us sit in the uncertainty, the mystery, the paradox of being human without needing to resolve anything. It calls us into the heart of grief and joy, co-mingled. The longer we can rest there and resist our need to control and plan, the sooner we live our way into a new way of being that has its own gifts for the future we are creating. We are in this together. I am weeping each day and laughing each day.

In addition to the new poem and poem video above, as well as the many resources below including our next installment in the Monk in the World series, the final in A Different Kind of Fast series for Lent, another Monk in the World guest post, I have a few links to other places on the web you can find my work:

  • This week I led a free hour-long webinar for Paraclete Press on Celtic spirituality and the practice of threshold. You can watch the recording here. The scripture passage I use for the meditation is Jeremiah 6:16 – Stand at the crossroads and look, and ask for the ancient paths, Where the good way lies, and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.
  • My poem “Ross Errilly Friary” was published in the Irish literary journal Crannog. Because they were not able to do a live launch this time of the issue, they invited contributors to record themselves reading their poem for a virtual launch. You can find mine along with a number of other wonderful poems being read at this link. Pour a cup of tea and let poetry steady you.
  • Virtual Book & Album Launch – on Earth Day, Wednesday, April 22nd at 12 noon eastern time, I will be joined by Betsey Beckman, Simon de Voil, and Richard Bruxvoort Colligan for a live webinar session where we will be formally launching Earth, Our Original Monastery book and album. Reflections, poems, songs, gesture prayers and more! Register here to join us.
  • Ave Maria Press is still having a big sale on the e-book versions of most of my titles with them including my newest Earth, Our Original Monastery ($7.99 on Amazon.com) and other titles as low as 99 cents.
  • From the Abbey Archives – a reflection on Holy Saturday: The Space Between and resting in the paradox. Click here to read.
  • I was interviewed this week at the wonderful podcast Encountering Silence about my newest book Earth, Our Original Monastery and wild silence and the cloister of the earth. Tune into Part 1 here.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Video © Christine Valters Paintner (text/voice) and Travis Reed (video)
You can share the video at this link>>

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Leave a Comment April 5, 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 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
  • Celebrate the Earth Monastery Prayer Cycle podcast with us!
  • Join us for A Midwinter God & Epiphany! ~ A Love Note from Our Online Abbess

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