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
    • 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
    • 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
    • Lift Every Voice: Contemplative Writers of Color Book Club
      • God Alone is Enough: A Spirited Journey with Teresa of Avila (Book Club – February 2021)
    • Community Online Retreats
      • Dancing with Fear in Troubled Times
      • Novena for Times of Unraveling
      • Sacred Time: Embracing an Intentional Way of Life (Spring 2021)
      • Sky, Sun, Sea, & Stone:
        Celtic Spirituality and Creative Writing
      • The Two HT’s-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
    • 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 (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)
  • Calendar
  • Reflections
  • Contact

Monk in the World Guest Post Series

Monk in the World Guest Post: Barb Morris

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Barb Morris' reflection on the wild flow of the soul.

Parker Dam, the deepest dam in the world, sits on the lower Colorado River, on the border between California and Arizona. Both states siphon hundreds of trillions of gallons of water each year from Lake Havasu, the impoundment created by Parker Dam. California water travels more than two hundred miles west through a complex system of pumping stations, tunnels blasted through mountain ranges, and canals, all the way to Los Angeles. Arizona water travels more than three hundred miles east to Phoenix and Tucson. Colorado River water also irrigates tens of millions of agriculture acres in seven Western states. By the time the Colorado reaches Mexico, it’s virtually dry. Policy-makers at the turn of the last century wanted the Colorado River this way. Their stated goal was to siphon 100% of the river, and they succeeded. As a child growing up in Arizona, I took all of this for granted. These diversions are so embedded in the landscape that I simply didn’t see how the wild Colorado has been tamed to slake the thirst of human culture.

The Deschutes River, near where I live in Bend, Oregon, is similarly domesticated. Dams and irrigation diversions turn this unique spring-fed river ecosystem into an irrigation canal, reversing its natural flows with little concern for the wild organisms who depend on it. Fish and frogs have been sacrificed to meet the desires of humans who want to grow commodities and water their lawns. Many rivers in the West have suffered the same fate.

What do dams, diversions, and the domestication of wild rivers have to do with being a monk in the world?

Imagine your soul as a wild river, and imagine culture as the Army Corps of Engineers. Culture turns us from wild rivers into impounded, channelized canals, worrying more about what others think of us than the dictates of our true selves. Culture gives us rules to follow and promises us that if we follow the rules we’ll be safe.

Unlike rivers, we humans have a choice. We don’t have to placidly submit to being impounded, channelized, and siphoned off by the culture in which we are embedded. We can demolish the dams, block the diversions, and heal ourselves. We can be wild rivers again.

One downside to rewilding ourselves, though, is that perfection and “getting it right” are no longer possible. If there are no rules, there are no benchmarks for perfection. This is scary for those of us who are perfectionists. (But there’s an upside: if there are no rules, there are also no mistakes!)

Can we trust ourselves if we’re free from the constraints of culture’s rules? A wild river follows the dictates of nature and the laws of physics. Our wild soul follows the direction of deeply-held values and deeply-held desires.

Here’s where my metaphor connects to being a Monk in the World. Our unique values and desires arise from that place deep within us where we connect to God, what Parker Palmer calls our “taproot.” That’s mixing my metaphors, so let’s imagine the soul as a spring connected to a deep aquifer called God. Clearing obstacles to the water’s flow from the aquifer to the world’s surface is what monks do. Contemplation, followed by action, is how we stay connected to our Source and let God move through us to a thirsty world. When we practice discernment rooted in Monk in the World disciplines, we can trust ourselves to follow our hearts.

Listen to the words of our own Christine Valters Paintner, from The Soul of a Pilgrim:

“We are brought into the world with what many indigenous cultures call ‘original medicine.’ This means that we are unique creations. We’ve never been in the past and won’t be in the future. No one carries the same combination of gifts, talents, resources, opportunities, and challenges. This unique alchemy is our ‘original medicine.’ St. Ignatius of Loyola, a sixteenth-century mystic, said that the deepest desires of our heart are planted by God.

‘Medicine’ is not just referring to a healing balm or potion. Our unique abilities contain our power to act in the world. They enable us to explore, discover, express, and heal. Our original medicine emerges from our ‘true self.’ Thomas Merton, in New Seeds of Contemplation, describes this concept as our deepest selves when we have stripped away self-deception, self-criticism, self-inflation, masks, expectations, and judgments: ‘For me to be a saint means to be myself. Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem of finding out who I am and of discovering my true self. God leaves us free to be whatever we like. We can be ourselves or not, as we please. We are at liberty to be real, or to be unreal. We may be true or false, the choice is ours. We may wear now one mask and now another, and never, if we so desire, appear with our own true face.’”

We live and move and have our being in the heart of a wild God. When you are radically rooted in Monk in the World disciplines, you’ll acquire the discernment to chart your own course. Trust your wild nature, and flow!


Barb Morris is a life coach, writer, and freerange naturalist living in Bend, Oregon with her Episcopal priest husband. You can connect with her at BarbMorris.com.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • Print
«
»

Leave a Comment October 28, 2020

Upcoming Programs

Dancing with Fear in Troubled Times
March 13, 2021
with Drs. Jamie Marich, Kellie Kirksey, and Christine Valters Paintner

Novena for Times of Unraveling
Becoming a Monk in the World

March 17-25, 2021
with Christine & John Valters Paintner, and Simon de Voil

Recent Reflections

  • Hildy Tales 7: An Nead by John Valters Paintner
  • Sacred Time and Slowing Down ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess
  • Hildy Tales 6: Céim uile an domhain ~ by John Valters Paintner
  • Join us on a Desert Journey for Lent ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess
  • Hildy Tales 5: Níl aon tinteán mar do thinteán féin ~ by John Valters Paintner

Connect with the Abbey

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
JOIN THE HOLY DISORDER OF DANCING MONKS
SIGN UP FOR UPDATES
DONATE TO SUPPORT OUR MINISTRY

Copyright © 2021 BY ABBEY OF THE ARTS · WEBSITE PRIVACY NOTICE

Copyright © 2021 · Flourish Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in