Writing In Season
- Online retreat
- Self-study, start anytime
- Move at your own pace, in your own place
- Lifetime access
Registration Fee: $100 USD
Program Description
This is a series of four online writing retreats that were previously recorded and are now being offered together in one self-study series. Each session is about two and a half hours long. We explore writing in alignment with the seasons. The equinoxes, solstices, and Celtic cross-quarter days are all threshold moments and portals to a new season of life. Your are invited to listen to the new invitations being offered by the earth’s turning.
In this retreat you will engage in both free writing and poetry writing and all are welcome regardless of level of experience. Christine will guide you through different intuitive exercises to help you access writing as a process of discovery and honoring of your inner wisdom. In this way you can approach our writing practice in an organic way, not “forcing or holding back” as the poet Rilke once wrote but allowing what wants to emerge in the moment. She will share many examples of poems that explore seasonal themes as inspiration for your own writing. Along the way you will discover how your intuition and dreams might reveal a new way into creative practice that has less to do with goal-setting and visioning and more about allowing the unfolding within you and receiving the gifts that arrive.
This is a generative workshop, we are not here to edit our work, but to show up for the Creative Source when we slow down and listen to what is erupting in the silence. You will be invited to set aside your planning mind and enter into the playfulness of the creative heart, letting your writing guide you on a journey of discovery.
In addition to the writing exercises Christine will guide you in the contemplative practice of lectio divina, silence, reading of poems, song, gentle movement invitations to shift your energy and focus. These contemplative and creative practices help to stir the soul’s imagery and open you to be surprised by the holy movements within.
What's Included
Four, pre-recorded videos each about 2 and a half hours long. You have immediate, lifetime access to each session and can move the material at your own pace.
Writing Into Bloom
Originally offered on May 1st and the Celtic feast of Bealtaine, celebrate the fertility of spring. It is also a feast day of Mary and begins a month dedicated to her. Christine guides you through different exercises to help you access writing as a process of discovery and blooming. This organic unfolding is a practice of honoring the path of the sacred feminine. Along the way you will discover what wants to flower forth within you.
Writing Summer’s Abundance
Explore the abundant gifts of summer. Summer is a time of lingering, dreaming, and yielding to the mystery of things. It is a time to bloom and enjoy the growth around you. It is a season of long days filled with light and warmth renewing us with freshness and vibrant colors. This beautiful time is an essential part of the creative process and you will explore what summer is inviting you to consider more deeply.
Writing Into Autumn
Embrace the autumn equinox when light and dark come into balance around the world. Autumn is also a time of harvesting the bounty of summer and releasing into autumn’s call to slow down, turn inward, and embrace the slowly growing darkness.
Writing Into Winter
Explore the gifts of winter and the descent into darkness. Winter is a time of hibernating, dreaming, incubating, and yielding to the mystery of things. It is a time to slow down and trust in the seeds deep beneath the surface. It is a season of profound rest so you can be renewed for what is to come. This fallow time is an essential part of the creative process, and you will explore what winter is inviting you to consider more deeply.
Format
The sessions are available in video or audio and can be played at any time, so you are welcome to dip in and out of these as the year unfolds. It is worthwhile to return to these videos year after year, as your responses to the prompts will shift with each season of your life.
Each session is available with the option to watch with closed captions. A written transcript and PDF of the slide presentation are available for download.
If you previously registered for one or more of these retreats individually and would like to participate in the whole series at a discount, please get in touch by email.
Your Guide for the Journey
Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE
Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE is the online Abbess and director of AbbeyoftheArts.com, a virtual monastery exploring contemplative practice, creative expression, and ways to nourish an earth-cherishing consciousness. She is a spiritual director, teacher, pilgrimage guide, Benedictine oblate, and author of numerous books on spirituality and the arts. Her deepest belief is that the earth is the original monastery–a wisdom guide and mentor in living a soulful and vibrant life. Visit the “About Christine” page for more information.
Praise for the Course
Registration
$100
Registration Fee
Terms and Conditions
Please consider your purchase carefully and review the many free materials we have on our website to make sure the program will be a good fit or get in touch with any questions.
We ask that you honor our work by not sharing the program materials with others who are not enrolled.
Please contact us for permission to quote in settings beyond the program
Some self-study retreats include video or audio recordings of sessions that were recorded in a live community offering of the retreat and may make reference to forums or other modes of sharing. Please disregard these as self-study retreats do not have these available.
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If you choose a payment plan and stop payment before fulfilling the commitment without contacting us to make other arrangements, your access to the program will be removed.
