Christine Valters Paintner's Blog, page 106
January 14, 2017
St. Ita and What is Most Essential ~ A love note from your online abbess
Dearest monks and artists,
Today is the feast of Saint Ita. She was a 6th century Irish saint and is the second most significant woman saint in Ireland after Brigid. Her hagiographer even called her a “second Brigid” and her name Ita means thirst. She established a church in Limerick called Killeedy, which means Church of Ita.
When she was young she received a dream in which she was gifted three precious stones. She was unsure as to its meaning and pondered it. Later, in another visitation, it was revealed to her that throughout her life she would receive many dreams and visions, and the three stones represent the gifts of the Trinity coming to her. “Always in your sleep and vigils the angels of God and holy visions will come to you, for you are a temple of God, in body and soul.” I love this affirmation of the multitude which God is as well.
When she is older she prays for a place to found her monastery and is again shown her direction in a dream. She is told to leave her native land and come to a new place at the foot of a hill.
At the monastery she founded, many young people are sent her way for education and she becomes teacher to St. Brendan, who will later go on his great voyage. She tells her students to follow the “Rule of the Saints of Ireland” because she felt strongly about the Celtic value of soul friends, and saw those across the veil as guides as well.
St. Brendan once asked Ita what were the three things most pleasing and displeasing to God. She replied that what pleases God were “true faith in God with a pure heart, a simple life with a grateful spirit, and generosity inspired by charity.” What is most displeasing is “a mouth that hates people, a heart harboring resentments, and confidence in wealth.”
The multitudes are many. In addition to our own inner communion, God is a multitude of presences. The communion of saints offers us another multitude of wisdom and grace to draw upon. We can seek soul friendship from these guides just beyond the veil.
With great and growing love,
Christine
Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE
Dancing Monk Icon © Marcy Hall (prints available in her Etsy shop)
January 10, 2017
Monk in the World Guest Post: Keren Dibbens-Wyatt
I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Keren Dibbens-Wyatt's reflection Shining for God.
I may not be a Catholic, but I have had the honour, once or twice, of adoring the Christ as he is held within the monstrance. One particular time, sitting in the Cloister Chapel at Aylesford Priory, this was quite overwhelming. It was heart-warming and awe-inspiring, and my soul sang inside me even as I kept silence and held gaze with the moon-wafer in the golden sun.
It felt for those precious minutes like everything in the world was pointing to that host, that Christ, whether represented or incarnate there (it didn’t seem to matter to me which, though it felt like both), the very bread of heaven, was the only thing in the universe.
When we gaze at Christ in adoration, lost in wonder, awe and some knowledge of his beauty and grace, we are lost indeed. We are becoming smaller and he greater, and we are also, if we stay long enough, feeling a pull to unity with those equally lost in love within our congregations, our neighbourhoods, and asking what our tiny hearts can do to praise him, to worship him, to point the way to him. We cannot partake of this divine joy without also wishing it for others. This love cannot not be shared, not be lauded, we want it both for ourselves and for everyone. There is no danger of there not being enough to go around, as we might imagine with the love of our own frail hearts, the very idea, once we begin to get to know love, is laughable.
And when we come back down to earth, indeed, when we find our experience of love has made us more part of this earth than we could have dreamt, in solid rootedness, our question of how we can live out that love is answered thus: Love one another. And so to love God and do his bidding, we come together to serve him by serving one another, and in this his own love shines and he becomes and remains the centre of everything.
“Love one another” then is the job of every monk in the world. But it could stand, in the light of day, when we are in the kitchen wondering what we came in for, exasperated by ourselves, our significant other, or the kids or grandkids playing up, some explanation. Because it is easy to imagine that love is some kind of wishy-washy, airy-fairy, pie-in-the-sky lovely feeling, something akin to what I felt in the chapel, but you know, watered down, because after all, this is real life.
And if we start to dilute it, this is our first step away from love. For we do not get to give ourselves nor those around us second best, for Jesus said, “. . . Love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15:12 ESV) For myself, I have come to the conclusion that the only way to pull myself back to what God means, is to find the Christ in everyone, myself included, and treat them accordingly. I think it is going to take the rest of my life to practise. I think I am going to continue to make some mistakes. I know that there have been and are people in whom my judgemental sight is going to struggle to see anything remotely good, let alone Christ-like. And yet, I also know that I entertain angels unawares, that what I do for the least of these is what I do for him. So, continuing to develop that sight is going to be imperative.
And how does such love play itself out, become real, in the day to day business of life? I think in the end, Blessed Mother Teresa had the best advice. She said that no matter how we were treated in return, we must always be kind. Part of this will be always try to see things from the other person’s perspective. And we must be very, very slow to condemn. So slow that we never get there. Kindness begins in our hearts, or it will not flourish. We cannot mean to be kind from our minds alone, this way we shall make the mistake of meaning well and causing harm. Kindness, sister-kindred of Love, is an attitude that becomes action, a small seed that grows into compassion.
One of the worst mistakes I know I will continue to make as I try to live love, is thinking that everyone is like me, and needs the same kind of loving acts and words that I do. So, birthed in kindness, the first thing I imagine that real love does, is that it listens; it pays attention, and it keeps notes. To love someone we need to take the time to discover how they tick, find out what lifts their heart, what to them is beauty, grace and truth. And we offer them love in a form they can embrace, in a way that can mirror Jesus.
For in the end, we are the monstrances. We are where the living host chooses to make his home, and we are the place the Light of the World shines from, reflecting him into each hungry heart. We each decrease in every way except loving service, egos cracking apart, and as we do so his Body increases and coheres. Praise God!
Keren Dibbens-Wyatt is a mystic in the Christian tradition with a passion for prayer and creativity. She writes and paints to encourage others into deeper relationships with the Lord. You can find Keren’s books on Amazon and Lulu or connect with her on these websites:
January 7, 2017
My Word for 2017: Hermit
Dearest monks and artists,
I have been grateful for this last season, a time of descent into the outer darkness and then the stillness that comes during those in-between days from Christmas to Epiphany. There has been a bronchial flu going around Galway which I came down with a couple of weeks ago. It amplified the mood of going inward and just embracing the gift of rest. We had a very full fall with four wonderful groups on pilgrimage, including in our beloved Vienna. Then we bought an apartment in Galway and moved house. Even though it was within the same building, just two doors down, this move felt really significant.
We also have a foster dog over the holidays, a little Jack Russel/Chihuahua mix we have named Sisi (yes, after the former Empress of Austria). In Ireland the pounds all close for two weeks over Christmas and New Year’s so the rescue groups put out a plea for folks to foster during this time to make more room for incoming dogs so they don’t have to be put to sleep. This is our quiet time of year, so two years ago we fostered little Ginger Nut (who was then reunited with her owners), last year was Melba (who found a wonderful new home), and this year is Sisi. Those of you who have animal companions in your life know the gift and grace they offer, the witness to another way of being. They are definitely the original monks. My favorite moments have been her sweet snuggly presence while I journal or nap.
In the midst of all of this, I have been listening for my word for 2017. It almost always arrives slowly for me. I had thought it might be “nest” as being in our own home feels like an important threshold in our journey here in Ireland. A deep rooting down. But it wasn’t landing fully, so I waited. I tried on several other words, including my word from last year, “surplus” which I don’t think is done with me yet, but still didn’t feel like *my* word for the year to come.
Finally it came one afternoon during a long nap, in that place between waking and sleeping, I realized I was savoring my hermit time. When I heard “hermit” in my mind I remembered being at Holy Hill Hermitage in Sligo last fall and how I loved their rhythm of life which allowed for hermit days while also days when they could tend to the demands of life and earning a living. I was inspired by the balance they committed themselves to, and thought that was something I could do. So in this dream space, “hermit” shimmered. I also felt some resistance to the challenges it offers which makes me believe even more strongly it has a lot to teach me in the year to come.
While I feel incredibly privileged to lead the life I do and to live in Ireland and be able to travel for work and lead groups, I am being drawn more and more to a stability of place again. To really commit to this landscape, the stories, the people, the plants. I will still travel to my beloved Austria and Germany, but the balance will be shifting for me. I don’t have any teaching trips planned to the U.S. for the foreseeable future. I am being drawn more deeply home. And like the hermit, to seek time of solitude and silence to simply listen.
I am excited about my word’s arrival and invitations. I already try to keep Sabbath each week with John, but I am being called to a full hermit day each week for time alone as well, as much as possible, and schedule in some longer silent retreats before my time fills up. To make this my first priority again. Time to really enter into the gifts of silence and solitude.
There is a quote I love from Meister Eckhart: “I need to be silent for a while, worlds are forming in my heart.” I have often leaned into these words before when I feel the longing for a retreat rise up.
I am trusting all of this, trusting that it is leading me in a holy direction. I will let you know what I discover.
The vision board for my word of the year above was created by one of our lovely long-time dancing monks Bard Judith. She is a graphic designer and offers this service at a very reasonable cost. Was really lovely to see it interpreted through her eyes and offers me more to ponder and receive.
Thanks to everyone who participated in our Give Me a Word mini-retreat (almost 1000 of you signed up!) and our drawing on the blog. We have picked the winners and have them at this post.
If you missed my reflection on the Feast of Epiphany – Follow the Star click the link.
With great and growing love,
Christine
Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE
www.AbbeyoftheArts.com
Image © Bard Judith at Graphictional Design
Give Me a Word 2017 Drawing Winners!
Thank you to everyone who participated in our 2017 Give Me a Word invitation! We had almost 1000 participants take the online retreat to help a word choose you. Above is a word cloud made from all the words submitted by January 6th. Please note some appear larger when they were submitted more frequently. Some are quite tiny but are there in the spaces between.
We have done our random drawing and are delighted to announce the winners:
One space in our upcoming New Year's online retreat – Spiraling Inward: Seven Celtic Spiritual Practices – Carol Moyle (Openings)
One signed copy each of Illuminating the Way , Soul of a Pilgrim , Eyes of the Heart , The Artist's Rule , and Water, Wind, Earth, and Fire – Karen Moore Smith (Abide), Ally Markotich (listen), Richard Kennel (contentment), Betsy Retallack (open), Beata Rydeen (incorrigible)
One space in our online program Sacred Seasons: A Yearlong Journey through the Celtic Wheel of the Year – Evelynne Thompson (solitude)
4 people will win their choice of our self-study online retreats – Kate Munson (transformation), Mary Coffey (speak peace), Susan Strouse (intention), Cara Stultz Costello (honor)
If your name is listed above please contact us to claim your prize. If it involves a physical product like a book, please make your choice from the list and provide your snail mail address as well.
January 6, 2017
Feast of Epiphany – Follow the Star
The Feast of Epiphany is celebrated today. It is one of my favorite scripture stories as it offers us a series of powerful invitations.
The last few lines of the gospel text, offer us a template for an archetypal journey, that is, one we are all invited to make. We can find ourselves in the text if we have ever longed to follow an inkling into the long night knowing there were gifts awaiting us.
Follow the star to where it leads
The story begins with the magi calling upon the grace of night vision. Navigation in ancient times was largely by stars and constellations. Travelers had to know the night sky and trust the path through darkness and unknowing. As you cross this threshold into the New Year, what is the star beckoning you in the night? As you stand under a black sky of unknowing which star is shimmering? The star might be a particular practice, which when you commit to following it, will guide you in a holy direction. It might be a word to guide you for the year.
Embark on the journey, however long or difficult
Herod gathers all his chief priests and scribes to find out more about this holy birth. Instead of searching out for himself, he sends the magi on his behalf. While Herod seeks outside advice and send others, the magi make the journey for themselves. Where are you tempted to trust others to make the journey for you, perhaps in reading books about the spiritual journey but never practicing yourself? How might you own your journey more deeply in the coming year?
Open yourself to wonder along the way
The scriptures tell us the magi were “overjoyed at seeing the star.” I like to imagine them practicing this kind of divine wonderment all along the journey there. Moments which spoke to the sacred call. When we lose our sense of wonder our hearts become hardened and cynical, we forget to believe in magical possibilities. As you enter into a new cycle of the earth’s turning, how might you embrace the gift of wonder? What practices open your heart.
Bow down at the holy encounters in messy places
When the magi enter the messy, earthy place of the manger, it says they bow down and prostrate themselves. Prostration is an act of humility and honor, as well as full-body connection with the earth. As you encounter the sacred in the most ordinary of places, how might you express this embodied appreciation and honor?
Carry your treasures and give them away freely
The magi reveal the gifts they have brought of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Gold represents the honor brought to a King, frankincense is a connection to the divine by raising our prayers heavenward, and myrrh a holy oil of anointing. What are the treasures you carry with you into the New Year? How might you offer them even more generously to others in the months to come?
Listen to the wisdom of dreams
The magi are warned in a dream not to return to Herod and they listen to this night wisdom. The scriptures are filled with stories of dreams delivering important messages and facilitating discernment. Our own night dreams arrive unbidden laden with mystery and meaning. In the new year, how might you honor these stories which emerge from the darkness and surrender of sleep?
Go home by another way
After receiving the gift of the dream, they choose another way home. In truth, after any journey of significance, there is no going back the same way as before. We always return with new awareness if we have been paying attention. What is the usual path you have traveled which has become suffocating? How this year call forth new directions in your own life? Is there something symbolic of the new way home which you could carry with you like a talisman?
These stories carry ancient treasures for us: guidance and wisdom along the way. Ultimately we turn inward to discover our own call, our own treasures to share, the dreams emerging in silent spaces.
I invite you to find a window of time in these next few days to ponder this story and these questions in your heart and see what insights they awaken for you.
January 3, 2017
Monk in the World Guest Post: Teresa Blythe
I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Teresa Blythe's reflection on finding God in desire.
Desire is not something I was brought up to respect.
To insist on fulfilling one’s own desires was seen as selfish, petty and certainly not Christian. Still somewhere deep within me from the earliest of times I can recall I knew that if I operated out of desire, I was joyful, and if I did something because someone made me or pressured me—I was miserable.
This is important information for spiritual discernment, but I didn’t learn that until, in my early thirties, I was taught the basic elements of discernment in spiritual direction. My relationship with desire came to consciousness as I related a story from my childhood to a spiritual director.
I was raised to be a fundamentalist Christian in the deep South, where my church entertained, on a regular basis, energetic itinerant youth ministers who would breeze into town for revivals leaving a wave of stunned teenagers in their wake. One of these preachers insisted that all Christian teenagers should carry their Bibles to school every day “as a witness to their faith in Christ.” It was the last thing I wanted to do, and didn’t do it.
What I did was spend the next four years or so feeling guilty that I was not a good enough Christian to carry my Bible to school.
The reality was I didn’t want to be associated with fundamentalists because—at heart—I wasn’t really one of them. I had doubts about their manipulative methods for getting people to pledge allegiance to Christ and felt they were many times motivated more by meanness than love. These were not attitudes I was comfortable sharing with my church “family,” but they were real for me. Carrying a Bible to school would brand me as something I wasn’t.
The guilt persisted.
So, I did the only thing I felt right doing. I prayed that if God wanted me to carry that Bible to school, God would give me the desire to do so. I prayed this honestly and waited. No desire. I prayed some more. Still no desire. I knew that if I did this Bible-toting out of guilt I would be a big hypocrite so I stuck with my prayer and kept my Bible at home.
Then one day several years later I was walking across the campus of the University of Alabama Huntsville where I was doing my undergraduate work and saw a guy coming straight toward me and – oh my God!—it looked like he had a Bible with him. I wanted to run in the other direction because the last thing I needed was someone hounding me to do what they deemed necessary for me to “get saved.” The guy approached. I held my breath. “Which way is the library?” he asked with a polite smile. I gulped and pointed him in the right direction. No Bible in his hand. No talk of salvation. Just a guy who needed directions.
As I stood in the middle of the familiar campus, everything in my spiritual life shifted.
In some ways, I suppose, I actually was saved at that moment. I felt the light of the living God shining within me, providing a clarity that I had not before experienced. I knew then, in the deepest part of my soul, that I had done the right thing following my desire not to tote the Bible around like a salvation salesman. I knew that to do that would not just be hypocritical but would be frightening for people who had been figuratively beaten over the head with it there in the Bible Belt. I would end up repelling the very people I might want to connect with—other seekers with open minds.
In that moment, I began an honest, active spiritual relationship with desire. It would be another twenty years before I would understand the theological and historical “rightness” of associating God with our innate and deep desires.
The Diploma in the Art of Spiritual Direction program at San Francisco Theological Seminary that trained me to be a spiritual director requires first-year students to read Phillip Sheldrake’s Befriending Our Desires, a book which makes a persuasive case for paying attention to our desires. The book caused quite a stir that year because a few of the more conservative ordained-types felt there was a danger in indulging our desires. “How do we know what is our desire and what is God’s?” they asked. The idea of finding God in desire flew in the face of their own call Jonah-like narratives, which usually went like this:
“I knew God was calling me to the ministry and I fought Him all the way. I ran and ran but God wouldn’t let me go. Finally, I had nowhere to run to and I gave in to God even though I still didn’t want to become a minister. It was the best thing I ever did.”
If they had followed their desires, they wondered, where would they be?
Where would they be, indeed? That’s the question. And it’s one I frequently ask people to come to me seeking spiritual direction. Many of them, especially women, are silenced by the question since no one, at least in a long time, has asked them what they want or need out of life. No one has cared much about their desire.
I found God in my desire and now I am on a journey that is about fighting cynicism, fear and anxiety, not about fighting a God that is stalking us like some deranged lover. The relationship is one of partnership and trust.
A relationship built on desire. And that is how I live as a monk in the world.
Teresa Blythe is a Phoenix, AZ based writer and spiritual director who runs the Hesychia School of Spiritual Direction in Tucson. An ordained United Church of Christ minister (UCC), Teresa founded the Phoenix Center for Spiritual Direction at First UCC Phoenix. Find out more about spiritual direction as a practice or spiritual direction formation and training by contacting Teresa or visit www.phoenixspiritualdirection.com.
December 31, 2016
New Year Blessings! What is your word for the year? ~ A love note from your online abbess
To the New Year
With what stillness at last
you appear in the valley
your first sunlight reaching down
to touch the tips of a few
high leaves that do not stir
as though they had not noticed
and did not know you at all
then the voice of a dove calls
from far away in itself
to the hush of the morning
so this is the sound of you
here and now whether or not
anyone hears it this is
where we have come with our age
our knowledge such as it is
and our hopes such as they are
invisible before us
untouched and still possible
—W. S. Merwin
Dearest monks and artists,
I offer you a reprise of my reflection on Embracing Mystery in the New Year: Ten Essential Practices.
Let mystery have its place in you; do not be always turning up your whole soil with the plowshare of self-examination, but leave a little fallow corner in your heart ready for any seed the winds may bring, and reserve a nook of shadow for the passing bird; keep a place in your heart for the unexpected guests, an altar for an unknown God.
-Henri-Frederic Amiel
Who doesn't love the promise of new beginning the New Year offers? St. Benedict described his Rule as a Rule for beginners, reminding us to always begin again. In Buddhism, an essential practice is beginner's mind. When we think we have become an expert at things, especially the spiritual life, we are in trouble.
Living into the mystery of things helps us to release our hold on needing to know the answers. One of the things the monk and artist have in common is a love of mystery, a willingness to sit in the place of tension and paradox until it ripens forth.
New Year's resolutions often come from a place of lack, or of thinking we know how to "fix" ourselves. Unfortunately, they are often fueled by a consumer culture that is eager to have us buy more and more things to improve ourselves. Embracing mystery, on the other hand, honors our profound giftedness and depth and acknowledges that coming to know ourselves and God is a lifetime exploration.
So my invitation to you, dear monks and artists, is to shift your thinking this year. Welcome in ambiguity. Learn to love the holy darkness of mystery. Dance on the fertile edges of life. Let what you love ripen forth.
Breathe deeply – our breath is our most immediate and vital connection to the life force which sustains us moment by moment. Let yourself be filled with awe and wonder at the marvels of this intimate gift. Sit for three minutes savoring that you are breathed into.
Embrace night wisdom – one of the great gifts of dreams is that they upend our desire for logic and immerse us in a narrative which reveals the shadows we must wrestle with and the joys which call to us, whether or not they make sense to the waking world.
Dance freely – we live so disconnected from our bodies. Dance has been part of human culture for thousands of years as a way to experience union with ourselves, one another, and the divine. Each day put on one piece of music that you love, close the door, and dance. Pay attention to what rises up in the process. If you resist, even better – dance with your resistance!
Follow the thread – each of us has a unique unfolding story and call in this world. We don't "figure this out" but rather we allow the story to emerge in its own time, tending the symbols and synchronicities which guide us along.
Trust in what you love – following the thread is essentially about cultivating a deep trust in what you love. What are the things that make your heart beat loudly, no matter how at odds they feel with your current life (and perhaps especially so)? Make some room this year to honor what brings you alive.
Let the rhythms of nature guide you – we live our lives in a constant state of stimulation and productivity. We are often exhausted and overwhelmed. When we turn to the natural world we find with each day, each moon cycle, and each season a rhythm of rise and fall, fullness and emptiness. Trying to live all the time in rising or fullness is exhausting. Make some time to embrace the falling and emptiness of life which immerses us in an experience of mystery.
Release what is no longer necessary – we accumulate so many things in our days, perhaps you have discovered at Christmas that you have a new pile of stuff which now requires energy to maintain or worry about. Reflect on what is most essential. Then ask yourself, what are the thoughts, attitudes, or expectations about life which keep you from freedom? How do you try to control the direction of your life rather the yielding to grace?
Remember that you will die – St. Benedict writes in his Rule to "keep death daily before your eyes." This is never an act of morbid obsession, but a reminder of life's incredible gift. Any of us who have brushed near death, or had loved ones pass away, know this wisdom in profound ways. This is another paradox of the spiritual life: a vibrant relationship to our mortality is essential to a vibrant relationship to life.
Ask for the wisdom of your ancestors – each of us is the inheritor of generations of stories which beat through our blood. Each of us has mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, who wrestled mightily with living a meaningful life. We can call upon this great "cloud of witnesses" to support us in our own wrestling. We can listen across the veil between worlds.
Open yourself to receiving a word for the year ahead – in quiet moments what are the desires you hear being whispered from your heart? Is there a word or phrase that shimmers forth, inviting you to dwell with it in the months ahead? Something you can grow into and don't fully understand? (If so, please share it here>> If not, Abbey of the Arts is offering a free 12-day mini-retreat to help you).
Imagine if your New Year's wasn't about fixing or improving, but about deepening and transforming, about embracing the holy mystery at the heart of the world.
What if the year ahead wasn't about growing more certain about things, but about releasing the hold of your thinking mind so something deeper and more fertile could rise up?
What might bloom from such rich soil of your imagination? How might you create an altar for an unknown God and for the unknown depths of your own beautiful being waiting to be freed?
With great and growing love,
Christine
Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE
Photo © Christine Valters Paintner
December 24, 2016
Christmas Blessings from Ireland! ~ A love note from your online abbess
The Risk of Birth
This is no time for a child to be born,
With the earth betrayed by war & hate
And a comet slashing the sky to warn
That time runs out & the sun burns late.
That was no time for a child to be born,
In a land in the crushing grip of Rome;
Honour & truth were trampled by scorn-
Yet here did the Saviour make his home.
When is the time for love to be born?
The inn is full on the planet earth,
And by a comet the sky is torn-
Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.
—Madeleine L'Engle
Dearest monks and artists,
All of us at Abbey of the Arts want to wish you the most joyful of Christmas blessings. As the 17th century German mystic Angelus Silesius wrote: "“I must be the Virgin and give birth to God.”
The heart of the Christian tradition is the incarnation, the belief that God dwells in tender flesh and continues to be birthed again and again.
With this feast we celebrate the risk of birth arising from the impulse of love. In the midst of so much sorrow and suffering in the world, to bring forth our own deepest dreams takes courage. To believe that when we follow the leadings of the Spirit that we can contribute to a world of deeper peace and reconciliation requires hope. To bring forth the vision, the seed of new possibility, demands great love.
May you find yourself inspired by courage, infused with hope, and embraced by love.
(*Please note: We will be taking a break from the daily emails this week and will be back on New Year’s Day.)
With great and growing love,
Christine
Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE
Photo © Christine Valters Paintner
December 17, 2016
Winter Solstice and the longest night ~ A love note from your online abbess
A major obstacle to creativity is wanting to be in the peak season of growth and generation at all times . . . but if we see the soul’s journey as cyclical, like the seasons . . . then we can accept the reality that periods of despair or fallowness are like winter – a resting time that offers us a period of creative hibernation, purification, and regeneration that prepare us for the births of spring.
—Linda Leonard, The Call to Create
Dearest monks and artists,
This reflection is excerpted from our Sacred Seasons online retreat for the Celtic Wheel of the Year:
The Winter Solstice is another profound moment of pause and turning in the great cycle of the year. In Galway our apartment windows face east and south, so one of the great gifts I experience through the seasons is watching the sun make her pilgrimage across the horizon from summer solstice to winter solstice. It is quite a long journey, and on December 21st she will rest at her point furthest south, appearing to stand still for three days before making the return journey again in the long walk toward summer. It is a rhythm of journey, pause, and return, again and again. It reminds me a great deal of walking a labyrinth and the way I follow the path inward, pause and receive the gifts at the center, and then begin to move more fully out into the world carrying the light that is growing.
I love winter, especially Irish winters which are so rainy and grey, so conducive to lighting candles and making a cup of tea. I adore the bare branches that reach up to the sky, their stark beauty, the way they reveal the basics. I love the quietness of winter, fewer people outside.
Linda Leonard’s quote above speaks right to the heart of the gift of honoring the seasons. When we recognize that spring and summer always lead to autumn and winter, in our own lives we will perhaps resist the times of releasing and resting that come to us.
To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.
—Wendell Berry
This poem speaks to me most pointedly about what embracing the darkness means. It does not mean carrying a light into the dark, it means walking right into the darkness and exploring its landscape so that our other senses become heightened and attuned to the sound of seeds jostling deep beneath the black soil, to hear the slow in and out breath of animals in hibernation, to feel our own heartbeats and the heartbeats of those we love, to experience the pulsing of womb-sounds within us just before the water gets ready to break.
Winter invites me to rest and contemplation, to making time for quiet walks in the few hours of light. The God of winter invites me into a healing rhythm of rest and renewal, of deep listening in the midst of stillness, of trusting the seeds sprouting deep within that have been planted. There is a harshness to this winter God as well, winter speaks to me of loss, it is the landscape of my grief in all its beauty and sorrow.
With great and growing love,
Christine
Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE
Photo © Christine Valters Paintner
December 13, 2016
Monk in the World Guest Post: Melinda Emily
I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Melinda Emily's reflection In Protest.
It’s been a difficult year. And not just for me. Too many friends and family have been put through the ringer. Marriages crumbled. People moved. Children got sick. Addictions took over. Dreams were shattered. A mother died. A sister died. A baby died.
These are just the personal tragedies I am privy to. To say nothing of the state of the nation, the wars of the world, the thousands displaced, and the too many abused.
The world is on fire.
Sometimes I think my body forgets that the trauma and stress of the first nine months of the year has passed. I left my husband. My son and I moved into a beautiful, humble town-home surrounded by towering oaks which dropped their acorns with such gusto the week we moved in that I had to keep reminding myself “it’s just acorns, no one is trying to break in.”
Sometimes I am still gripped by anxiety. I have to root around in my brain to pinpoint the monster that provoked the shaking and the fear and ask if it is true, then give it a little hug and send it on its way. Sometimes I get this sudden feeling that I am about to be swallowed by a hideous void. My ribcage swings inward, collapsing my breath. I stare wide-eyed at the black and terrifying unknown. But for the most part, I am breathing better now. For the most part my ribcage swings outward and the wings beneath my shoulder blades unfurl. Shake off dew. Get ready to fly.
In church on Sunday, the rector told a story about a man in the 1960’s who sat outside the White House everyday and lit a candle in protest of the war and violence in Vietnam. One day a man came up and asked, “Do you really think sitting here like this day after day is going to change the world?”
The man replied, “I don’t sit here to change the world. I sit so the world won’t change me.”
When I was a girl I did not understand how once bright and smiling young people could grow old and bitter and mean. I did not believe that the world was broken.
And then I grew up.
Compared to the displaced, the abused, the trafficked, my personal struggles have been very first world. But they have been significant. They have been mine. And they have broken me. Still, I don’t want to be bullied by the cynicism and bitterness I often feel when I look back on the things that didn’t work out and see them as predictors of future failure.
I’ve been fighting to keep mySelf alive ever since the day I graduated High School full of hope and optimism and as much self knowledge and esteem as an eighteen year old can muster. Each time I put on a scarf, or cut my hair, or read fiction I am sending my fist up in defiance against the onslaught of forces bent on beating it out of me. Writing time becomes a statement to my Soul that I will not abandon her.
There are lessons to be learned from this world. The oak and maple and pine around my home speak slow and deep, telling me not to worry. The world is held in an embrace and I am part of that world.
Blessings abound.
My soon to be ex-husband and I remain on good terms. The friend who lost her seven month old baby to cancer is on a healing month in New Zealand – a trip funded by an outpouring of support. The Standing Rock Sioux in North Dakota won a temporary stay on the construction of an oil pipeline that would run under their water supply and along their sacred ground. Our church welcomed and helped settle three refugee families this year. My son’s godmother just sent me a picture of her newborn riding home from the hospital in our old carseat.
The rain falls. The sky remains. The trees hold down the earth, keep it from blowing away.
Last night I set my alarm. This morning I got up and practiced asana, moving my body into shape after shape with only the vaguest agenda. I breathed. I lit my candle. I sat.
A monk of the world in protest.
Of cynicism and bitterness and fear.
This world is going to change me. But I am going to choose how.
Melinda Emily lives in North Carolina where she is mommy to an exuberant two year old, a yoga instructor, and a novelist seeking to break into publishing. She also formats the Abbey Newsletter, Daily Nourishment E-mails, and Monk in the World Guest Posts, a role which she is deeply honored to play. You can visit her blog archives at TheHouseHoldersPath.com.
