Christine Valters Paintner's Blog, page 141

Monk in the World guest post: Alexander Gilchrist

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Alexander Gilchrist's wisdom about finding contemplative moments on the commuter train:

As much as we complain about the service, the trains generally run on time. That means the express train to New York’s Grand Central Terminal is going to be pulling into my station around 6:21 a.m. and pulling out at 6:23 a.m. – whether I’m on it or not. That dependability has sometimes forced me to sprint through the parking lot like a 50-plus year old schoolboy in order to make the train. On those mornings, it almost takes until the next stop to catch my breath between cars (it’s a long parking lot), and then find a seat. It’s worth the effort however, because the next train is a local and it gets into the city 40 minutes later than the express. A 40 minute extension of a two-hour commute used to make me pretty ornery.

What has this to do with being a Monk in the World? Pretty much everything. You see, I’m a recovering Type-A personality. My false self’s need to continuously prove my worth drove me to try to achieve a lot and achieve it quickly. For a variety of reasons, as I reached adulthood, I had a drive to demonstrate my value; to show that I could do something well, and that I was worthy of respect. Over the years, that need for respect almost got me fired, almost ruined my marriage and estranged me from my wife and three sons for a very painful period of time. Something had to give.

My current pastor, an emissary of God, introduced me to contemplative faith and another friend introduced me to The Abbey of the Arts. Though I read voraciously about contemplative living, the practice was and is difficult for my ego and me. But the Monk in the World course was a long soaking rain in the parched summer of my soul. I return to its teachings and reflections quite frequently, as my brittle edges need reconditioning. The Monk Manifesto has been like a handbook, and in this particular season of my life, the first (silence and stillness), second (hospitality) and seventh (conversion) principles are especially helpful to me.

The early morning is critical. I claim it as my own. The early hours are when I find silence and solitude, when I make space for another voice to be heard. My two-hour commute to the city required long ago that I embrace the morning, and it has set my body-clock to that rhythm. Now I look forward to that time even on weekends and vacations. The wee, pre-dawn hours invite me into liminal moments, that beautiful blending of time and space where Man and The World are quiet, and the sacred breaks in and roams unfettered. I am my candlelit self then, known to God as I have always been, deep down. The Day is also itself, unaffected yet by events or activities. In the morning, I am able to center myself without the bias and baggage of my ego, and my grace receptors are unfurled for the day. In the morning, I am reminded that life on the surface is, by definition, shallow – easily affected by external ripples.

The Manifesto names Hospitality as a guiding principle, and as that sank in a part of me was touched by a new light. As the youngest of eight, and an eyewitness to the events on the morning of 9/11, I am especially moved by those who are or who feel unwelcome. I was often excluded from my siblings’ games and activities when I was growing up because I wasn’t big enough or old enough. More recently, I recall all too vividly the story of the New York City cabdriver who, in the wake of 9/11, was pulled from his cab and beaten to death because he had dark skin and was wearing a turban. Unfortunately, some of that still exists in the world. As the day is awakening, thoughts are clearest. Good sleep has a way of sweeping away the residual effects of the previous day’s judgments and battles. Yet unjaded by the world or my false self, I sit in the mornings with an expansive flow of outward and inward hospitality in my heart. Being able to draw from that flow, as I enter into one of the most densely populated places on the planet, converts the experience from being obligatory to being a practice of faith.

Each person on the street is just like me; she carries a weight or at least a story that I do not yet appreciate. Through my desire to be hospitable, I am reminded that curiosity and perception can replace speed and efficiency. My former yardsticks for rationality and success become less meaningful.

I mentioned at the outset that missing my normal train used to make me pretty ornery. I look back with inward hospitality at how long it took me to realize missing the train was actually MY fault. There was a long stretch of my adulthood during which I did not see well (much less acknowledge publicly) my own failings, and I struggled with how to treat anger. I still slip down that slope occasionally, but those whom I love report that my ongoing conversions are gaining some traction. The phrase “reformed, and always reforming” now seems less boast and more plea. The humility of ongoing conversion is probably the most liberating concept that this aspiring Monk in the World has stapled to his heart. I am already loved, warts and all, and that has allowed me to dance even if someone is watching.

Alexander Gilchrist is an avid birdwatcher, and an amateur photographer who hikes, paddles and spends as much time as possible in the woods with his wife and three sons. An aspiring Monk in the World, he is an economist by training who lives in New York state and works in New York City.

Click here to read all the guest posts in the Monk in the World series>>

Ritual Cup of Tea (guest post by Tonja Reichley)

For the last several months, we have been embarking on an exciting creative project and collaboration.  It started with choosing 12 dancing monks to be a part of the original Dancing Monk Icon series painted by Marcy Hall.  These icons were meant to depict some beloved monks and mystics in a joyful and colorful way, reminding us of our call to dance through this life.

We had the inspiration to feature a dancing monk for each week of our Advent/Christmas and Epiphany/New Year's online retreats. My dear friend and herbalist Tonja Reichley will be offering recipes for creating ritual teas to accompany each of the archetypal invitations. Read on below for her insight into this process.

If you would like to join us for these online retreats you can find the registration info here:

Birthing the Holy: Advent & Christmas Online Retreat with Monks, Mystics, and Archetypes
Illuminating the Way: Epiphany & New Year's Online Retreat with Monks, Mystics, and Archetypes

A Blessing for the Senses

May your body be blessed.

May you realize that your body is a faithful and beautiful friend of your soul.

and may you be peaceful and joyful and recognize that your senses are sacred thresholds.

May you realize that holiness is mindful, gazing, feeling, hearing, and touching.

May your senses gather you and bring you home.

May your senses always enable you to celebrate the universe and the mystery and possibilities in your presence here.

May the eros of the earth bless you.

—John O’Donohue

Celebrating our body and the senses that help us experience fully this beautiful package that ensconces our soul is one of the great delights of being human. As an herbalist and a monk I dance with the herbs and the sensual pleasures they ignite as a threshold to deepen into my experience of the Divine.

In many of my herb classes I invite my students to work closely with an individual herb, to open up their intuition to the wisdom of the herb, to remember. To do this I suggest ways to spend time with an herb getting to know it just as we get to know people.

One of my favorite ways to connect in a sensually intimate way with an herb is through a ritual cup of tea. This is a simple and intentional process, an active meditation, that connects us to the gifts of the herbs and receiving the blessing they have for us. Enjoying a cup of tea is an ancient tradition, an act that monks would have practiced, an act that my Irish ancestors would have practiced. A ritual cup of tea connects me not only to myself and the Divine dancing there but also to my spiritual and genetic lineages.

To connect ritually through the process of creating and enjoying a cup of tea, begin by turning off all distractions and focus solely on what you are doing. Bring your full presence to your task. Share this time solely (soully) with yourself and your herb(s) or your favorite tea. I adore and drink many herbs and, too, one of my favorite moments of the day is first thing in the morning making my pot of Barry’s Irish tea and indulging in the first sip.

Allow the entire process of the tea-making and drinking to be a meditation. Be totally present and intentional with all aspects of filling the kettle, bringing the pot to boil. Of gazing upon the beauty of the herb as you put it in the pot or in your special tea cup.

Pour the water, directly off the boil, over the herb. Breathe in the steam, feel it caress your skin. Engage your senses. As we do in the Druid tradition, invite your senses to be thresholds to a deeper knowing, a deeper connection. When you take a drink, follow the path of the tea as it moves over your tongue, igniting your taste-buds and then down your throat. Experience it moving into your body. Notice where it flows and where the nourishment and healing are received within your body.

Be with the herb, feeling your own spirit dance with its spirit. Receive the gifts. Give of your gratitude. Be in the stillness that happens in this authentic exchange. Be in the beauty and power of simple ritual.

I am delighted to prepare ritual tea blends and reflections for the upcoming online retreats Birthing the Holy: Advent & Christmas Online Retreat AND Illuminating the Way: Epiphany & New Year's Online Retreat with Monks, Mystics, and Archetypes. Each week as we journey with a monk or mystic, the ritual tea will give us an opportunity to slow down, sit with the archetype and reflect, with our senses as thresholds, into the wisdom of each.

I will be providing recipes for each ritual tea and the herbs we will be working with are common and should be easy to find if you have a local health food or herb shop that sells loose-leaf herbs. Another option is to purchase the entire kit of ritual teas from my shop MoonDance Botanicals. You can purchase five teas for each course or the entire series of ten. Purchase the teas for Birthing the Holy here and Illuminating the Way here and a combined set here.

Herbalist (BS, MBA) Tonja Reichley spends her time in the urban alleyways of Denver and on the windswept coast of western Ireland foraging for wild herbs to nourish, heal and revitalize the whole self.   She loves the power and connection of ritual and ancient Celtic monastic traditions.  She created MoonDance Botanicals, a herbal boutique where all products are handcrafted by a collaborative herbal community and is the author of The Way of Brighid Oracle Cards, a 33-card deck dedicated to Irish goddess and saint, Brighid offering reflections, meditations and affirmations..   Her new book The Holy Wildness: Awakening to Ancient Rhythms of Sacred Irish Landscape  explores how the turas, the holy journey, offers thresholds to sensual secrets, deep yearnings and spiraled awakenings.   Visit her website at www.dancingwiththewild.com .

Monks, Mystics, Archetypes and SoulCollage® (guest post from Kayce Stevens Hughlett)

For the last several months, we have been embarking on an exciting creative project and collaboration.  It started with choosing 12 dancing monks to be a part of the original Dancing Monk Icon series painted by Marcy Hall.  These icons were meant to depict some beloved monks and mystics in a joyful and colorful way, reminding us of our call to dance through this life.

We had the inspiration to feature a dancing monk for each week of our Advent/Christmas and Epiphany/New Year's online retreats. My wonderful teaching partner Kayce Hughlett, is a trained SoulCollage® facilitator and will be offering this gift as a part of our creative experience and shares below about what this process means for her.

If you would like to join us for these online retreats you can find the registration info here:

Birthing the Holy: Advent & Christmas Online Retreat with Monks, Mystics, and Archetypes
Illuminating the Way: Epiphany & New Year's Online Retreat with Monks, Mystics, and Archetypes

From Kayce: Opening into the threshold of this new day and season, I awaken for the second or possibly third time from a restless and jet-lagged sleep. In this moment, the sun is making lace-like patterns on the shades of my bedroom window. Aslan, my golden muse, is draped across my side, his feline paw gently touching my face. It is morning. Time to arise.

Today I’ve set aside time to write and be creative. I feel dry as a bone. I can’t even imagine writing this piece I’ve promised to Abbey of the Arts. Edging toward frustration, I close my eyes and listen to the sounds around me. A foghorn echoes in the distance. Aslan rolls off my lap. The clock clicks over to 8:00 a.m. Something inside me shifts as I sink into the images floating through my mind.

My memory turns to the rugged west coast of Ireland from where I’ve recently returned. Together with other pilgrims, I stood on sacred ground in the world of ancestors and saints. In my mind, I see our Inismor guide, Dara Malloy, speaking of saints and signs, dreams and symbols. He mentions Carl Jung and I smile as I recall the magic of SoulCollage®. I think about Advent and the upcoming journey with Hildegard, Brigid, Mary, and more. I am honored that I have the privilege of sharing this journey and the SoulCollage® creative process with seekers around the world.

SoulCollage® is a process for accessing intuition and creating incredible cards with deep personal meaning that help the creators explore life's questions and transitions. Images speak to us in ways that words cannot. By dropping into image, we step through a portal in the mind. We find new ways of seeing and finding meaning for topics and areas of our life we may be pondering. In the Abbey’s upcoming online classes, we will be exploring Advent and the New Year through monks, mystics, and archetypes.

I didn’t grow up with monks, liturgical seasons, or even much creativity. My journey with the mystics and saints is being pieced together like images in a collage. Perhaps yours is too. This makes SoulCollage® a perfect companion for our journey. I’m looking forward to seeing what we create together.

During the Advent and Christmas retreat as well as the New Year journey, SoulCollage® will help us listen and learn in creative ways. The invitation will be for each of us to step intuitively into what we need to hear, see, and learn. There is no right or wrong way to create collaged cards, but following the simple guidelines I’ll provide will help give shape to your own intuitive process.

Each week I’ll provide a brief commentary on our featured monk, mystic, and archetype followed by an invitation to create your own SoulCollage® card. We will begin with basic guidelines and information on creating cards then move into ways of exploring more deeply what you’ve created. Finally, we can share and talk about our creations on the class forum. It’s going to be great!

If you haven’t already signed up for the retreat(s), I hope you will today. Start gathering magazines, catalogues, and photographs. Get your glue sticks and scissors ready. You’ll also want 5” x 8” cardboard bases for your collaged cards. Cut your own, have your local frame shop do it for you, or order pre-cut cards from www.soulcollage.com.

Kayce Stevens Hughlett, MA LMHC is a soulful and spirited woman. In her roles as ponderer extraordinaire, spiritual director, life muse, author, creative coach, and speaker, she invites us to playfully and fearlessly cross the thresholds toward authentic living. A strong proponent of compassionate care in the world, Kayce's live and online work focuses on the principle that we must live it to give it.

Invitation to Poetry: Honoring Saints & Ancestors

Welcome to Poetry Party #81!

I select an image and suggest a theme/title and invite you to respond with your own poem. Scroll down and add it in the comments section below or join our Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks Facebook group and post there.

Feel free to take your poem in any direction and then post the image and invitation on your blog (if you have one), Facebook, or Twitter, and encourage others to come join the party!  (If you repost the photo, please make sure to include the credit link and link back to this post inviting others to join us).

We began this month with a Community Lectio Divina practice with a story from the Letter to the Hebrews and followed up with our Photo Party on the theme of "Honoring Saints & Ancestors." (You are most welcome to still participate).  We continue this theme in our Poetry Party this month. What are you continuing to discover about how your ancestors speak across the veil? (This photo is of Christine's great grandmother with her second husband.)

You can post your poem either in the comment section below*or you can join our Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks Facebook group (with more than 2400 members!) and post there.

*Note: If this is your first time posting, or includes a link, your comment will need to be moderated before it appears. This is to prevent spam and should be approved within 24 hours.

Monk in the World guest post: Angela Doll Carlson

Another wonderful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Angela Doll Carlson's wisdom on living as a monk in the world:

11:11

A number of years ago I took a silent retreat at the Abbey at Gethsemane near Bowling Green, Kentucky. At that time of my life my four children were still very young. I was burned out and overwhelmed.  The trip to the monastery was rest and nurturing. I remember the lush grounds and the quiet early morning chanting. I remember the feel of the sparse quarters, comforting, completely adequate. I was alone for the first time in quite a while and I drank that in. The monk who welcomed us gave us a quick lesson on the monastic life as a sort of orientation, telling us many things about the order to which he belonged and about the history of the place but it was the rule of prayer that stood out to me.  It was probably that trip that awaked my own inner monastic and I took home some pieces with me that day. I tried them on like clothing whenever I would feel overwhelmed, the rule of prayer becoming a constant companion, a warm sweater on a cold day, a reminder of the monastery amid the fast moving world of parenting and urban life.

But there are some habits I had nurtured already before I visited the Abbey at Gethsemane, some practices I did without really thinking about them to help me navigate my growing list of responsibilities, anxieties and fears.

At 11:11, if I’m cognizant of it, I pray. I pray three things. I pray the first three things that come to mind. I feel the pressure of it, 11:11 only lasting one minute, maybe less if I catch it late. Whether a.m. or p.m., at 11:11, I pray the first three things that come to mind.

My husband.

My children.

My writing.

A minute later I think to pray for other things- world peace, starving children, government elections, equal rights, fair trade, my health…maybe my health.

It might be Fibromyalgia or it might be Iodine deficiency or Thyroid issues but there is this constant but dull pain, a sort of throbbing in my legs and neck and upper back. There is this fatigue that drapes over me, pressing down on my now stooping shoulders. There is this fog that creeps over my face, like a mask, clouding everything.

“Poet, heal thyself,” the voice inside of me whispers.

At 11:11, if I am awake and aware, I pray the first three things that come to me and though the fog and the pain and the fatigue are constant companions they never make it to the gate.

My parents.

My friends.

My book.

Poet, heal thyself.

All parents feel tired, I’m told. I have four children in four different schools. That must be why I feel so tired all the time. I’m getting older so, the aching is natural. On the backside of 40 and sliding headfirst into 50 means that my brain will, of course, be less sharp than it was.  This is aging. This is parenting. This is the effect of stress on the body or gluten intolerance or chemicals in the plastics I use. I heated one too many meals in the microwave. I used shampoo with toxins. I ate non organic, fully GMO foods. There’s a reason.

Poet, heal thyself.

At 11:11, I pray three things and my health never makes it to the gate. My fatigue, my pain and my brain fog stand back from the line, pressing up against the wall and trying to remain unseen. “Take these first” they say as they shoo other needs, other people, other causes, to the front of the line. “Be ready,” they say to the others, “be ready for 11:11.”

I can’t remember how I started the practice of prayer at 11:11. It might have grown from the practice of wishing on the first star I saw at night but instead of wishing I’d pray. I was young, just a child, spotting that first star while I sat in my room waiting and watching. I’d scan the square of black night I could see outside my window. I’d press my cheek against the pane and let the cool glass register my breath. When the star appeared I’d pray; one wish, one hope, whatever came to me first. When I was young and just a child it was always about me, about being popular, being understood, being famous, being happy, being free.

And now at 11:11, I pray- part habit, part luck, part superstition. It feels wrong to pray for my health, as though it is some cross I’m meant to bear, an illness I’m meant to embrace and suffer, whatever the cause.  I’m tempted to think that I’m living only to wait for 11:11, as if that is the only stop and breathe in the day and if I miss that stop and breathe then my body will simply lose that oxygen. I’m tempted to think that life is the water moving, the stream flowing, the constant motion and colder closer to the mountain, the source, the cloud cover. But if life is a stream moving and flowing, in perpetual motion then the stop and breathe times are by default rocks around which I will either flow or upon which I will stop and breathe. I’m tempted to think this is my only chance to notice all the good, all the clear, all the air ready to revisit my overworked mind and exhausted cells.

It’s a trap and I built it.

The reality is that life is the stream flowing and the rocks rising up and the dirt that holds the rocks in place. Life is the mountain above and the sea below. It’s all here, the sum of the parts, more than 11:11, more than stop and breathe moments because I cannot rely on the clock alone or my awareness of the time or the clouds or the cold of the water.  Every moment is 11:11 no matter what the clock might say.

And the words of my inner monastic ring clear to me finally, the praying without ceasing, the life of the world, the stirring of the wind in the trees on the grounds of the Abbey at Gethsemane. But I am away from the monastery now. I am here in the world, moving in the stream, letting the water flow around me so I carry my inner monastic forward, cradling her in my arms as we go and it keeps me afloat somehow.

Poet, heal thyself.

Angela Doll Carlson is a poet and essayist whose work has appeared in Burnside Writer’s Collective, Image Journal’s Good Letters, St Katherine Review, Rock & Sling Journal, Ruminate Magazine’s blog and Art House America. You can also find her writing online at Mrsmetaphor.com,NearlyOrthodox.com and DoxaSoma.com. Her book, "Nearly Orthodox: On being a modern woman in an ancient tradition" is now available.

Angela and her husband, David currently raise their four chaos makers in the wilds of Chicago with some measurable success.

Click here to read all the guest posts in the Monk in the World series>>

St. Brigid and the Fruit Tree (a love note from your online Abbess)

St. Brigid and the Fruit Tree

There was the moment

you could bear it no more.

Your eyes brimming with

great glistening drops

summoned by the hunger of

the world, the callous and

terrible things men and

women do to one another.

Your tears splashed onto

cold stony earth, ringing out

like bells calling monks to prayer,

like the river breaking open to

the wide expanse of sea.

From that salt-soaked ground

a fruit tree sprouts and rises.

I imagine pendulous pears,

tears transmuted to sweetness.

There will always be more grief

than we can bear.

There will always be ripe fruitflesh

making your fingers sticky from the juice.

Life is tidal, rising and receding,

its long loneliness, its lush loveliness,

no need to wish for low tide when

the banks are breaking.

The woman in labor straddles the doorway

screaming out your name.

You stand there on the threshold, weeping,

and pear trees still burst into blossom,

their branches hang so heavy, low,

you don’t even have to reach.

–Christine Valters Paintner

Dearest Monks and Artists,

This is a shorter love note this week as I am away teaching in the UK, but I wanted to send my latest poem in the dancing monk icon series. Brigid is a beloved Irish saint and I too have fallen more and more in love with her the longer I live in this sacred landscape. The stories and threads which tie her to ancient goddess tradition and Christian saint reveal a woman who is in love with life, who shows the most tremendous compassion for others who are struggling, and who offers us guidance and wisdom in our lives.

The monk is called to hold the tensions of life – to savor the grace and gift of it all while also welcoming in sorrow and grief. Our lives are like the rhythm of the sea, calling us to rise and fall, to feel the fullness of joy and the ache of loss.

If spending time with St. Hildegard, Brigid, Benedict, Brendan, and Mother Mary makes your heart flutter, please consider joining us for our Advent & Christmas online retreat where we will focus on a different mystic/saint each week and the archetype they invite us to embrace. Reflections, songs, poetry, SoulCollage, dance, and herbs will all be a part of this journey. We have an incredible group of artists and teachers offering their gifts to the community.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

www.AbbeyoftheArts.com

Photo top: Brigid dancing monk icon by Marcy Hall

Spiritual Formation with Music, St. Francis, and Frosty the Snowman (guest post from Richard Bruxvoort Colligan)

For the last several months, we have been embarking on an exciting creative project and collaboration.  It started with choosing 12 dancing monks to be a part of the original Dancing Monk Icon series painted by Marcy Hall.  These icons were meant to depict some beloved monks and mystics in a joyful and colorful way, reminding us of our call to dance through this life. I have been following with a series of poems I am slowly writing about each of these wondrous figures, choosing moments in their stories to illuminate.

Then we had the inspiration to feature a dancing monk for each week of our Advent/Christmas and Epiphany/New Year's online retreats. In conversation with my beloved teaching partner Betsey Beckman, we started to dream of having a song composed for each one as well, which Betsey would create gesture prayers and dances to accompany them.

So we enlisted the help of some musicians we love, including Richard Bruxvoort Colligan. One of the great joys of the Abbey is collaborating with other artists to create resources that support the life of this community.

I asked Richard if he might reflect on the process of creating the songs he was responsible for, as an insight into the creative process.

(You can read the first post in this series by musician David Ash here)

If you would like to join us for these online retreats you can find the registration info here:

Birthing the Holy: Advent & Christmas Online Retreat with Monks, Mystics, and Archetypes
Illuminating the Way: Epiphany & New Year's Online Retreat with Monks, Mystics, and Archetypes

Read on for Richard's reflection:

Have you heard? We’re making an Abbey album! A soundtrack for pilgrims and our adopted Dancing Saints. There’s nothing like it anywhere.

When Abbess Christine asked me to be one of the songwriters, I was tickled because making songs on behalf of a community is one of my favorite things to do. Plus, what could be better than spending time with Thomas Merton, Amma Syncletica, Rainer Maria Rilke, Benedict of Nursia and St. Francis of Assisi?

Can you imagine singing with these saints? Dancing together?

Music as a spiritual practice means we enter a song as a way to discover and stretch beyond and within.

Whether the music is contemplative or groovy, singing weaves the words and ideas into our consciousness using both brain hemispheres. What we upload in this way we test and often come to believe. What we believe, in turn, becomes part of our core.

John Bell of the Iona Community of Scotland says the songs we teach one another are about spiritual formation, that the songs we teach our children are preparing them for their death beds. Which is to say music gets life-giving stuff into our bones where we have access to them at any moment.

That’s been true for me, too. Family lore says whenever I was scared as a kid, I’d ask mom to sing the most happy song I knew: “Frosty the Snowman.” I still get teased about that, and I still insist Frosty is healing the world with his “thumpity thump thump.”

Imagine us singing together in a circle, looking at faces, feeling one another’s breath, listening carefully to the sound of humanity within and about us. The day after or the following week that song might pop into our heads in the shower, on the train to work or as our heads rest on the pillow after a long day. As that song carries that moment to us again, we will remember, resonate and integrate that experience of being together.

I’m excited about the Abbey’s adoption of these great dancing saints, the presence of whom are good company for our journey. Marcy Hall’s visual art for each saint is brilliant. We’re hoping these recordings will be another way to engage with them.

I want to tell you about one of songs and what happened to me in the process of making it.

St. Francis is one of my heroes because shows me what’s possible in a life. I love him and have been a student of his Tao since seminary ten years ago.

The phrase Christine has tagged on his icon is stunning and simple: “The world is my monastery.” Perfect for us monks in the world.

I decided to make a slow, walking song, and use these words and not much else.

At the same time, I felt the tug to risk adding something fresh. In the spirit of Francis who set aside the safety of his original home to discover the Christ, I wondered what it might be.

One of Francis’ gifts is a model of an integrated life deeply engaged with both one’s own unique spirit and with all of creation: “The world is my monastery.” An earth-wide church. A wide and wild field for prayer and service connected to a great cloud of witnesses.

I wondered how Francis might feel about adding, “The world is my home.” A place of anchoring and identity. A primary place of stretching and growth and pain and delight. A place to be open-hearted in order to discover our fullness.

What if our home planet is that sacred place of home?

And I wondered about adding the phrase, “The world is my heart.” The soul, the unique essence of the self, including some mysteries about how our thoughts, feelings, bodies and instincts even work.

What if planet earth is the heart of us?

We will sing with St. Francis:

The world is my home

The world is my heart

The world is my monastery

It’s harvest time in the Midwest where we live, and farmers are finishing in the fields. With the resonance of All Saints and a glimpse ahead to Thanksgiving and Winter solstice, it’s an intense season for many of us.

How great to be connected with one another as monks in the world in the monastery of the world.

Richard Bruxvoort Colligan is a Psalmist, husband, dad, son and brother, and a contributor to the Abbey of the Arts. He’s just completed his fourth album of songs based on the Psalms, “Love Stands With.”

Invitation to Photography: Honoring Saints & Ancestors

Welcome to this month's Abbey Photo Party!

I select a theme and invite you to respond with images.

We began this month with a Community Lectio Divina practice with our reflection on honoring saints and ancestors from the story in the Letter to the Hebrews.

I invite you for this month's Photo Party to hold these words in your heart as you go out in the world to receive images in response. As you walk be ready to see what is revealed to you as a visual expression of your prayer.

You can share images you already have which illuminate the theme, but I encourage you also to go for a walk with the theme in mind and see what you discover.

You are also welcome to post photos of any other art you create inspired by the theme.  See what stirs your imagination!

How to participate:

You can post your photo either in the comment section below* (there is now an option to upload a file with your comment – your file size must be smaller than 1MB – you can re-size your image for free here – choose the "small size" option and a maximum width of 500).

You can also join our Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks Facebook group and post there. Feel free to share a few words about the process of receiving this image and how it speaks of the harvest for you.

*Note: If this is your first time posting, or includes a link, your comment will need to be moderated before it appears. This is to prevent spam and should be approved within 24 hours.

Becoming a Monk in the World: Monk Manifesto

We are delighted to announce that our Monk in the World online course is now in a full-color booklet format including the wonderful illustrations from Kristin Noelle and reflections by Christine. You can order your copies directly through Blurb for $20 each, in a 7×7 inch format they make great companions for times of retreat and great gifts to help nourish the inner monk of someone you love.

The $3.41 profit from the sale of each booklet goes directly to support our scholarship fund and Earth Monastery Project.

We also plan to make a booklet with the dancing monk icon series (along with poems and song lyrics) available in the New Year.

 

Becoming a Monk in the WorldbyChristine Valters Paintner | Make Your Own Book

Worlds Coming Together (a love note from your online Abbess)

Dearest monks and artists,

This has been an incredible couple of weeks with our renewal of vows for our 20th anniversary where American friends and Irish friends gathered with us together to celebrate. It felt like our worlds were coming together in a beautiful way.

Then, just before the pilgrimage began, a shipment of our things from Seattle which had been in storage for the last two and a half years, arrived. This included two pieces of furniture from my father's family in Austria, an oil painting of my grandmother, lots and lots of family photos, and some other mementos from my parents like the wool cape my mother sewed and the hiking stick my father used in the mountains of Austria. We were finally ready to make the commitment to be here in Ireland long-term and so had everything shipped over in late August. The unplanned timing of arrival to fall during the week of Samhain and All Saints/Souls was very poignant and sweet. It felt again like my worlds were coming together, to bring these things which connect me to my ancestors here to our new home in Galway.

I love the Irish monastic tradition of peregrinatio, of setting out on a pilgrimage without destination and following the currents to the place of resurrection. In many ways, our setting off from Seattle for Europe felt in deep kinship with this tradition and longing – to be guided to the soul's true home and landscape without knowing exactly where that would be. I have been falling more and more in love with Galway the longer we live here and it has become clear that this is our place to set down anchor for a long while.

I also love the Benedictine tradition of stability, of committing to a place and a community and not running away when things get difficult or challenging. We have been in a season of peregrinatio, but now are called to enter a new season of stability. We no longer need to wander and seek, and are deepening into the gifts and mysteries of this place we now call home. We celebrate the friendships formed here and our slowly growing local community.

Sometimes in life we are called to be pilgrims, and sometimes we are called to stand firmly in one place and say "here." It is only in listening to the wisdom and guidance of the Spirit that we can discern which one it is the season for. There have been many struggles along the way, times of doubt and resistance, of loneliness and restlessness, and yet now I feel like we have fully arrived and Ireland has an abundance of riches to keep offering to us. My joy overflows.

We have a pilgrimage group with us this past week, and it has been incredibly powerful to sit at this threshold of entering the dark half of the year, the time when the Celtic imagination believes the veil is especially thin between worlds. With the arrival of all these physical ties to my ancestors, I am feeling surrounded by a multitude all whispering: "you are home now."

This past Friday we went to Brigit's Gardens, always a favorite with our pilgrims. Jenny Beale, who is the founder and visionary behind this magical place led us in a Samhain ritual. "You can rest now" she said to the gardens, it is the season of incubation ahead, of dreaming and replenishing. "You can rest now" is the invitation to each of us living in the northern hemisphere.

Next week I travel to the UK with Betsey Beckman to teach our Awakening the Creative Spirit intensive with another amazing group gathering. It is an incredible gift to spend time with dancing monks. Then I return mid-November for four contemplative months at home working on my upcoming book Coming Home to Your Body and our series of online retreats from Advent through Lent. See more details below.

Consider joining us for our Advent & Christmas online retreat where we will focus on a different mystic/saint each week and the archetype they invite us to embrace. Reflections, songs, poetry, SoulCollage, dance, and herbs will all be a part of this journey. We have an incredible group of artists and teachers offering their gifts to the community.

If you will be shopping for the holidays with Amazon.com at all, we would be very grateful if you would use this link. When you shop through that link we receive a very small percentage of your purchase price and no extra cost to you. These funds help support our scholarships to those who can't afford to join our programs otherwise.

For those of you who might have missed it last week, see below for my gift to you as we enter this season of new beginnings and the remembrance of ancestors.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

www.AbbeyoftheArts.com

Photo: Forest at Cong Abbey