Christine Valters Paintner's Blog, page 53

New Poetry Video – Sabbath + Summer Sabbatical ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Sabbath by Christine Valters Paintner from Abbey of the Arts on Vimeo.

Dearest monks and artists,

Every summer we try to step back from this wonderful work and take a bit of time off for planning, dreaming, and resting. Sabbath is one of the profound gifts of a generous and abundant divine presence who says that work is good and rest is necessary.

We are so grateful for all the ways this community supports our work in the world and we are eager to listen more deeply in the coming weeks to what new things want to be birthed through the Abbey in the coming year.

We will be taking a break from our weekly love notes and daily quotes and questions starting tomorrow and will return on Sunday, August 1st with more Abbey goodness. You are still welcome to email us (or register for programs) we might just be a bit slower to respond than usual.

Here is a short excerpt from my book Sacred Time on the invitation of Sabbath in our lives:

Theologian Walter Brueggemann has a brilliant little book titled Sabbath as Resistance. He describes the origins of the practice of Sabbath in the story of the Exodus in which the Israelites are freed from the “Pharoah culture” of endless productivity and relentless labor into the “Yahweh culture” where rest is essential and we reject our slavery to perpetual anxiety. He writes:

"Into this system of hopeless weariness erupts the God of the burning bush (Exod. 3:1-6). That God heard the despairing fatigue of the slaves (2:23-25), resolve to liberate the slave company of Israel from that exploitative system (3:7-9) and recruited Moses for the human task of emancipation (3:10). The reason Miriam and the other women can sing and dance at the end of the exodus narrative is the emergence of new social reality in which the life of the Israelite economy is no longer determined and compelled by the insatiable production quotas of Egypt and its gods (15:20-21)."

The God who is revealed in this story is completely unlike any they have known before, a God committed to relationship and rest. It is worth imagining for a moment the revolutionary power of this revelation and how strange the Israelites seemed to other cultures in their radical commitment to a day of rest each week as an act of resistance to the endless systems of anxiety. Everyone rested, no matter what gender or social class, because God saw that as very good.

It is worth further imagining the ways that each of us is enslaved by the current “Pharoah culture” of perpetual overwork and exhaustion, of busyness and relentless doing. We may have our freedom, but how many of us choose to exercise that in favor of our own nourishment and replenishment?

I love the image of Miriam and the other women dancing in celebration because a new story has emerged. In the scripture text one of my favorite details is that they carried their tambourines with them in their flight from Egypt. In the mad rush to flee death and destruction, one of the essentials they carried with them were their musical instruments, what allows them to revel and dance.

I leave you with this poem I wrote about the gift of Sabbath (published in Dreaming of Stones) and the poetry video created by Luke Morgan.

Sabbath

Even as the subway car hurtles
into the tunnel and calendars heave
under growing weight of entries,
even under the familiar lament
for more hours to do

a bell rings somewhere
and a man lays down
his hammer, as if to say
the world can build without me,
a woman sets down
her pen as if to say,
the world will carry on
without my words.

The project left undone,
dust on the shelves,
dishes crusted with morning
egg, the vase of drooping
flowers, and so much work
still to complete,

I journey across the long field
where trees cling to the edges
free to not do anything but
stand their ground,
where buttercups
and bluebells sway

and in this taste of paradise
where rest becomes luminous
and play a prayer of gratitude,
even the stones sing
of a different time,
where burden is lifted
and eternity endures.

-Christine Valters Paintner, Dreaming of Stones

May the gift of Sabbath rest be yours in the days ahead.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Walter Brueggemann, Sabbath as Resistance (Westminster John Knox Press, 2017) Kindle edition.

Video Credit: Morgan Creative

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Sandi Gaines

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Sandy Gaines' reflection on praying with money.

One of my contemplative practices involves praying with money. Not praying for money, rather praying with money. It began on an ordinary Monday morning in August 1997 when I found a dime at the bottom of the shallow end of the pool where I swam laps. As I placed the dime on the edge of the pool for the lifeguard to retrieve, I began thinking about how often I find money on the ground. “What value does a loan dime or penny have?” I wondered. So, I decided to start saving the coins I found to see how they might add up over a few years.

As I took my evening walk that same Monday in August, I found a penny on the sidewalk. At that moment I felt an invitation from God to use the penny as a token for prayer.

Put the penny in your pocket, give it the name of someone you know and pray for that person throughout the day. Thus, began my contemplative journey of praying with money.

The following are excerpts from the Prayer Pennies journal I kept over the years.

If I am with a person when I find a coin that is who I choose to pray for that day.

The most ordinary places become holy once I find a penny on the premises.

This is more than just a story about lost and found coins. It's about my desire to expand my intercessory prayer life and God's grace in helping me do so.

At this time with $6.51 worth of people having been prayed for, I think I've covered everyone in my family several times, all of my friends, many church members, several neighbors, and a few dollars' worth of strangers.

Yesterday, I found a one dollar bill at the grocery store. I sit quietly and ask God, why a dollar bill? Immediately, I hear-think-sense a response….100 days-100 people. Am I up for this type of commitment? With God's help, I believe that I am.

This journey that began with a dime and led to a dollar, now feels worth a million bucks.

In hospital waiting area while Adrienne has ear surgery. I overhear a lady at the desk ask, “Does anyone know why these pennies are here?” I am tempted to jump up and say, “I do!” Instead, I silently pray for everyone who passes through this same-day surgery unit, patients, employees, and families who anxiously wait.

I have prayed a pocket full of pennies for Mike at this point.

Grace appeared on two sides of the same coin today when I found a penny as I stepped out of my car to meet Ann for breakfast.

I often feel overwhelmed by all the prayer needs there are in the world, however, to immerse one person at a time in prayer feels quite manageable to me.

Occasionally God prompts me to reach out to the person that I'm praying for. This morning, after praying for Ashley, I sent an email of support and encouragement to her.

As part of my praying-with-money practice, I keep journals where I write the names of those I pray for, along with some of my prayers. Most often, I just sit quietly holding the imagine of a specific person in the light and love of God and wait for the prayers to surface.

I have saved all of the money, $43.00 after twenty years. It's a treasured reminder of my time with God and all of the people who have been along for the journey. Every penny, every person, every prayer has been a gift upon my life.

Sandi Gaines lives in Northern Kentucky where she enjoys reading, writing, making quilts, doing Soul Collage work, spending time at a local Benedictine monastery and walking with others on their spiritual journey.

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Iona Poetry Reading with Kenneth Steven

On June 21, 2021 Kenneth Steven offered us a poetry reading which told the story of Iona from both personal and mythic perspectives.

Poems Read from the Iona Collection
Light p. 21
Place p. 38
Coll p. 40
The Illuminated Manuscript p. 33
The Death of Columba p. 37
Salt p. 52
Hebrides p. 55
The Summer House p. 59
The Harp p. 6
Iona p. 41
The Road p. 72
The Sacred Place p. 81
Finding p. 3

Order Iona by Kenneth Steven
Kenneth and Kristina's Celtic retreats on Iona
The Well of the North Wind by Kenneth Steven (novel about the Celtic Christian story)
The Road by Cormac McCarthy (book mentioned by Kenneth)

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New Poetry Video – Crossing the Divide ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Crossing the Divide by Christine Valters Paintner from Abbey of the Arts on Vimeo.

Crossing the Divide

She walks, as if from a dream, into your life,
ribboned hair unraveling, brown eyes
like cups of tea, come to whisper
a secret into your trembling ear.

You try hard not to listen, clinging
to your calendar, your achievements,
your loneliness, until the silver ache
of it all spreads through your limbs

and she holds out her hand across
the ravine, and you see how the chasm
is not empty, but filled with a rushing
river, and you can swim until

you become fish and flow, until
you are the ancient stream
emerging from stone,
until her face becomes yours.

Christine Valters Paintner, The Wisdom of Wild Grace

Dearest monks and artists,

This poem is about all those places inside of us where we feel divided, especially when the planning and achievement-oriented part of ourselves encounters the part of us that invites us into a more organic and spacious relationship to life. We might feel it is an either/or, but there is always a pathway of both/and. We can hold the gifts of the left-brain and the right-brain together.

Does the creative life ever feel far away from your reach? Do you ever feel like you have settled into a pattern of doing and have forgotten a rhythm of being?

See if you might reach for the hand extended to you across the perceived chasm between your different parts. The point is to fall freely into the river’s flow until you are carried to a new awareness of what is possible in your life.

I invite you to read the poem first slowly, then watch the video twice with a soft gaze. See what moments especially shimmer for you. When do you recognize a part of yourself? Listen for how you are being invited through this prayer into a new awareness.

We are at a turning point in the year as well where the days will become shorter or longer depending on where you are on this beautiful Earth. Give yourself the gift of some time of retreat and reflection. As the world shifts, what might shift within you?

If you are in the Northern Hemisphere and want to read about the Summer Solstice please click here >>

If you are in the Southern Hemisphere and wish to read about the Winter Solstice please click here >>

With great and growing love,

Christine

Video credit: Morgan Creative

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Spiritual Direction Supervision

One of our Wisdom Council members, Lita Quimson, is now fully trained as a supervisor of spiritual directors.

She finished an 18-month training in the practice of supervision of spiritual directors early in 2021. She can be contacted by email.

Her fee is 20 € for each hour long session zoom.  She is based in the Philippines.

What is Supervision and Whom is it For?

Supervision is a form of accompaniment for Spiritual Directors who want to learn about their skills as someone who accompanies others. Accompaniment is not an easy task because people are complicated and we feel either inadequate in how we accompany the person,  or sometimes we fill the issues brought to the spiritual direction session had triggered some of our own unresolved issues.  This is when it is good to have a supervisor.

Our spiritual directors, who have just come in out of training would benefit much from monthly supervision so that the director may notice and value their giftedness and at the same time be aware of their growth points. We help the spiritual directors notice interior movements and to notice and practice self reflection.

Supervision provides the director with

A space for consultation on questions on how to help their directee.Open themselves up to receiving new skillsTo learn a kind of presence for the directee that would stretch the director.

We help the director recognize their growth points:

This can include noticing the possibilities of transference and counter transference

            Code of ethics issues

            Boundaries

            Burden bearing

Lita hopes to be able impart Education, Consultation and Self Reflection to her Supervisees.

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Simon Ruth de Voil

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Reverend Simon Ruth de Voil is a member of the Abbey Wisdom Council and longtime creative collaborator. Read on for his reflection on creating a version of Mary's Magnificat for the Abbey.

Back in 2020, an email from our abbess Christine landed in my inbox on Good Friday. She said her heart longed for a version of Mary’s Magnificat for Abbey of the Arts, would I accept a commission?

I don’t know why I didn’t say OMG I can’t do that. I think if anyone else had asked me to do this I probably would have hid under my pillow. No way could I take on such a bold task! But this was my friend Christine; she wouldn’t ask me to do something unless she genuinely believed it was something I could do. So without even a second of a doubt I said Yes.

There was some divine timing at work. For months I had been praying with Joy Cowley’s setting, Modern Magnificat, and I knew in my heart that the Magnificat was a key in opening the pathway to our unitive consciousness—a key that the world urgently needs right now. I had also been captivated by Jan Richard’s poem, “Gabriel’s Annunciation”. Jan writes,

Yet when the time came,
when I had stammered
the invitation
(history would not record
the sweat on my brow,
the pounding of my heart;
would not note
that I said
Do not be afraid
to myself as much as
to her)
it was she
who saved me—
her first deliverance—
her Let it be
not just declaration
to the Divine
but a word of solace,
of soothing,
of benediction
for the angel
in the doorway
who would hesitate
one last time—
just for the space
of a breath
torn from his chest—
before wrenching himself away
from her radiant consent,
her beautiful and
awful yes.

After saying Yes to Mary’s Yes, I did what I always do when I set prayer to music: I placed myself inside the prayer and listened, deeply listened, to the words and feelings. I don’t try to write anything for a long time, instead I make a space ready within me in case the song wants to take form. That takes its own time, and sometimes quite a lot of time! It was close to a year later, in February 2021, when the song arrived. I remember I was listening to some French nuns singing Gregorian chant to Psalm 4, accompanied by a classical guitar. I decided to learn the guitar part, for no particular reason… and as I did, the entire melody and structure for Magnificat suddenly arrived, along with most of the words. I was, and still am, pretty astonished and delighted, and very grateful to those French nuns. I made a rough recording of the song-sketch and emailed it to Christine. I think she told me it made her cry, which I took as a sign that the prayer was ready.

The first time I publicly shared the Magnificat was during the 2021 Abbey of the Arts Novena on the feast of the Annunciation. Something vital started flowing through me; I felt so fragile, with my voice and guitar holding this cosmic prayer. Luckily I made it through the whole song and the 300 or so folks on the Zoom went nuts! I have never had a reaction like that to a song before or since, and while I soaked up all the love and blessings, what they were reacting to wasn’t truly my song—it was the blessing held within the song. All I can say is: Thank God for that, because if there was ever a prayer that deserved a good song it’s the Magnificat!

My faith has changed since I took on this task of translating the Magnificat into my own authentic song. For once thing, Mary is no longer just a mystery. Her sacred heart touches my heart. When I pray with her I feel more connected to that pulse that beats in all things. She has become a companioning presence that carves a path of healing and renewal where before there was only pain. I pray that others who listen and love this song will meet the sacred mother, just as I did, and be transformed and strengthened by her divine ferocity and unwavering compassion.

I’d like to share one last amazing and everyday miracle that happened while I was recording this song. Because the song was so fresh in my heart, my Easter sermon was very influenced by the Magnificat. I talked about the way that Mother Mary’s witness and presence of the Crucifixion and resurrection births the Christ in Jesus and in us today. I described her as the “mama bear” of Christianity, a face of Godde so desperately needed. Less than two weeks later, as I was arranging the strings for the recording of Magnificat, a lean young black bear passed by my window and proceeded to circle my house! I do live in the woods, but this has never happened before and I felt the blessing of her steady, graceful beauty.

Thank you Godde, for asking me to pray with the Magnificat, Mary’s radiant consent, her beautiful and awful Yes.

Reverend Simon Ruth de Voil is an interfaith/interspiritual musical minister, trained to be a sacred presence outside the conventions of traditional religion. As a musician, spiritual mentor and worship leader he incorporates chant, ritual, poetry, storytelling, and mindful practice to create a space for profound connection and sacred witness.

Simon is an accomplished musician and songwriter with 20 years of experience as a performer. Originally a folk musician, he still very occasionally tours in Australia, Canada, and Scotland, as well as the US.

For the last 14 years, though, Simon’s focus and calling has been in sacred music. This grew out of his work at Iona Abbey, and has since led him to provide music for worship, ceremony, and prayer in a wide variety of churches and non-religious spiritual communities. He particularly loves to create music for meditation, healing services, and rites of passage.

Simon is currently serving as a bridge pastor for Suquamish United Church of Christ in Washington State.   He’s also a youth mentor, a maker of sacred objects, and a YouTuber. He considers his livestream channel and online community worship services to be among his most creative and vibrant musical offerings.

You can find out more about Simon and hear his music at SimondeVoil.com

The Magnificat is available on both the Pre-paid CD or get the digital download now at SimondeVoil.com/music

Until August 25% of all CD sales will be donated to Covid relief.

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New Poetry Video – God Among the Pots and Pans ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

God Among the Pots and Pans by Christine Valters Paintner.mp4 from Abbey of the Arts on Vimeo.

God Among the Pots and Pans
(After St. Teresa of Avila)

Sifting flour for daily bread
white mist rises
dough multiplies before my eyes

Chopped carrots
form a broken string
of orange prayer beads

The sharp knife cuts through
any confusion
bone gleaming exposed

Sizzle of steak
onions and mushrooms
alchemy of steel and flame

My cup of coffee
is of course
always a revelation

And the glasses of wine
waiting on the table
a wonder of earth and time

Magpie caws outside
an apparition in black and white
among russet leaves

The sun descends slowly
in violet reverie recalling
the beauty of endings

The timer bell rings
calling me back again
to this prayer

To the miracles
of dinner and dishwater
and our long slow sighs.

-Christine Valters Paintner, Dreaming of Stones

Dearest monks and artists,

St. Teresa of Avila famously said that “God walks among the pots and pans” and St. Benedict writes in his Rule that the kitchen utensils are to be treated with as much care and reverence as the vessels of the altar.

One of the things I have missed most during this time of pandemic is inviting friends over for dinner. There is something magical that happens while preparing food with love and sitting down to leisurely conversation. This is as much an act of communion for me as the ritual meal we partake of in church. Jesus sat down at table with so many others. Of course, why wouldn’t this most fundamental act of nourishment become a place of holy encounter? There are miracles at work through the alchemy of cooking and eating.

I love savoring the meal together and after the food has been eaten, the wine has been drunk, and we shift to the comfort of the living room with our coffee and tea in hand. We feel the loveliness of time enough and spaciousness, of the joy of friendship.

I miss the games we would pull of the shelf to play together and the deep laughter that erupts in those spontaneous moments. Or the moments of more gravity when someone shares something that is weighing on their hearts. I miss hugs, lingering  and loving embodied expressions of care.

The poem above was written in pre-pandemic times and is also a prayer of hope for what is still to come. What are the things you have been missing the most? What do you cherish about cooking, eating, or gathering?

I am grateful to Morgan Creative here in Galway for creating this video for us.

With great and growing love,

Christine

PS – You can read a lovely review of my new book Sacred Time at the Englewood Review of Books

PPS – If you’ve been interested in joining us for Awakening the Creative Spirit October 31-November 5, 2021 in the Pacific Northwest, please note there is only one space left!

Video credit: Morgan Creative

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Lerita Coleman Brown

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for an excerpt from Lerita Coleman Brown's book When the Heart Speaks, Listen—Discovering Inner Wisdom on listening to the "little Voice."

I straddled the edge of the examination table in the doctor’s office. The news was terrifying and devastating. I would need a heart transplant in 18 months or less. As a single, African American female professor living in Boulder, Colorado; USA in 1994, I could not fathom where this uninvited journey would lead me. I prayed ceaselessly for miraculous healing or some detour. With help from friends, I located a therapist trained to assist people with chronic health conditions. As I shared the unraveling of my life and my apprehensions about a transplant, Dr. Carlos Martinez suggested that I talk with my heart.

At first I imagined Active Imagination to be some futile psychotherapeutic technique. After I wrote my first conversation using this Jungian process, I realized these dialogues with my heart might sustain me through the transplant and offer me wisdom that I could incorporate into a post-transplant life. In When the Heart Speaks, Listen—Discovering Inner Wisdom, both hearts, “Heavy Harvey” and “Grace” urge me to listen to the “little Voice.” Fairly intuitive, I understood the need for deeper and more frequent inner listening for my survival. In the following excerpt, Heavy Harvey attempts to describe the little Voice and why it is so important.

HH: Discipline is key. You cannot do anything without discipline. And, OK, maybe I forgot to mention listening to the little Voice.
LERITA: The little Voice? Didn't you bring that up before?
HH: Yes, see if you were having this talk with your stomach or intestines, you might have talked about following your gut. The little Voice is the same as following your gut or listening to the deepest part of the heart.
LERITA: Is it like intuition?
HH: Yes. Yes.
LERITA: OK, so what does the little Voice do?
HH: The little Voice guides you. It usually manifests as a feeling. You feel compelled or moved to call someone or do something. Coupled with faith, you can start to set healthy boundaries and express your disapproval about a man’s behavior from a place of peace and strength. However, if I, your heart, is all clogged up with anger, resentment, anxiety, disappointment, and depression, it is very difficult to hear anything, let alone a quiet Voice.
LERITA: I understand the anger and resentment getting in the way, but how does carrying disappointment and depression in the heart block the little Voice?
HH: Being lighthearted, Lerita means just that. Think about it. Depression and disappointment are very heavy, thick feelings. They can pull you down so much that you are hardly aware of anything else. It's like being trapped in a dark cave. You cannot see the light outside nor hear the people on the surface trying to rescue you. The Voice is your rescue team calling to you, but the chatter in your mind is so full of doom and gloom that you cannot hear the help.

Throughout the pre-transplant period, my heart provided awe-inspiring enlightenment on a wide array of topics. My practice became a deep inner listening coupled with clearing away the noisy and heavy emotions as they arose so I could hear the Voice with greater clarity.

Grace, my new heart offered another perspective by asking me to engage with the “little Voice” by intentionally quieting my mind.

GG: When you focus on the stillness within you, you create more space in your heart to hear the Voice, the Guidance. It usually doesn’t communicate in words, although in circumstances of imminent danger or for urgent messages, you might hear a direct audible command. It's more like urges.
LERITA: Like the intuition that Heavy Harvey spoke about?
GG: Yes.
LERITA: The Spirit communicates through the “little Voice”?
GG: Yes, yes. The Spirit will guide you out of the hell you find yourself in if you listen attentively. Taking one day at a time or one moment at a time and taking time for solitude, will help tremendously.
LERITA: All I need to do is be still and listen?
GG: Yes, but it isn’t easy. In the stillness you begin to know when and where to go. You may need to talk about why you think life is hell with your therapist or a spiritual director, or you may need to take some anti-depressive-anti-anxiety medications. You might need to join a support group. I am certain that there are many patients who face similar challenges and they might have great insights to offer. Or maybe you need to read a certain book or call your sister. The guidance is not always the same, and it varies depending on the situation.

Grace suggests that the “little Voice” is a vehicle for the Spirit to speak to me and it sits within a grotto of stillness. It is this Inner Guidance that directed me as I maneuvered the unknown and occasionally terrorizing world of additional medical challenges including a month long hospitalization for organ rejection, a year of dialysis, kidney transplant, heart valve replacement and pacemaker. I also received counsel about mundane issues like food choices, rest, and visitors. In order to experience the Peace and Joy that resides in my heart my daily practice remains connected to listening to the “little Voice.” Five minutes before the hour, I stop, check in, and ask Spirit, “Am I following your Guidance in this moment? What am I feeling right now? Is there anything blocking my Peace and Joy?” Spirit’s Guidance is never wrong even though I may receive a request I don’t wish to fulfill (e.g., to have an uncomfortable medical procedure or difficult conversation). Carrying a sense of the Divine within me everywhere I go triggers both tranquility and jubilance. Wholeness and delight frame my days when I pause to listen for the Inner Wisdom that I know lies in every heart.

Lerita Coleman Brown, professor of psychology emerita, spiritual director, retreat leader, and speaker promotes contemplative spirituality and the renown mystic and theologian, Howard Thurman on her website, PeaceforHearts.com. She is the author of several articles, chapters, essays and the book, When the Heart Speaks, Listen—Discovering Inner Wisdom

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New Poetry Video – Listen ~ A Love Note From Your Online Abbess

Listen by Christine Valters Paintner.mp4 from Abbey of the Arts on Vimeo.

I wake to a rising of robin voices,
their tiny chests puffed like ripe persimmons.
Acres of clouds strum across the day-blue sky,
wind breathes its endless score over heathered hills
and the sea beyond my window churns.

Somewhere a hazelnut drops rustling to the ground.
Peony peels herself open in a slow yawn
to reveal a multitude of pleasures.
Fox darts between hedgerows, breaking her silent reverie,
orange fur brushing against golden gorse profusion.

Beneath sirens and the perpetual groan of cars,
the march of trains and planes propelled by timetables,
beneath the endless clatter of your own mind, you can,
for a moment, hear the asparagus heaving headlong into spring.
My labor is to love this secret symphony.

You curl yourself around me at night,
song of your breath stuns me into the sweetest sleep.
And the blue glass vase sits on the table beside me,
holding roses you bought because they smelled like an aria.
When this is over, all I want to say is that I heard the music
of the very last petal

drop.

— Christine Valters Paintner, Dreaming of Stones

Dearest monks and artists,

This weekend we are hosting our last online community retreat until the late August. We always try to take time in the summer to step back from schedules and regular commitments to allow space to be and breathe.

I’ve been longing for more quiet space to listen. This past year or more has been remarkable in so many ways for all of us. There has been a tremendous amount of grief and loss – loss of health, loss of loved ones, loss of our sense of security, loss of jobs or dreams. And there has also been much grace erupting alongside these – the grace of finding new ways to connect to one another across the globe, I have felt Abbey of the Arts as a community more than ever before. That is a tremendous gift.

As the pandemic forced us to move everything online we experimented with all kinds of formats and possibilities – mini-retreats and weekend retreats in addition to our usual multi-week retreats, online small group experiences, our Novenas, and of course our Prayer Cycles as well. I’ve also received many invitations from various groups to teach or present now that everything seems more accessible. I have said yes to a lot of these, this year has been a grand year of experimentation, of seeing what worked well to serve this wonderful community.

I am thrilled to be moving into time when I have a clear no to outside invitations or demands on my time. I love the spaciousness of summers when there is nothing scheduled except time to write (I do always have another book project to work on!) and time to dream into how things might continue to unfold.

Mostly I want time to listen, to hear the music of life in new ways all around me.

I invite you to read the poem above and then watch the poem video as a way of entering into the images through another medium. See what calls to you out of this invitation to really hear how the world offers itself up to us when we clear the space for it to sing more clearly.

A few other places my work is appearing on the web this week:

Read my article about Life Stages and Discernment at U.S. Catholic Magazine online. This is an adaptation from one of the chapters of my newest book Sacred Time: Embracing an Intentional Way of Life.

I was interviewed on Desert Voices podcast by two lovely young women with a passion for desert spirituality. Listen in as we discuss the revolutionary power of stillness and how beauty will save the world.

One of the voices I have been listening closely to these days is Mary and the sacred feminine as I finish up writing my book about 30 of her names and titles (will be published in spring 2022). I have been incredibly blessed to work with block print artist Kreg Yingst who has created beautiful art pieces to companion each name (see them all below). If you’d like a print of any of these he is having a sale with free shipping in the U.S. until June 12th. See them all here.

If you are looking for some online retreats this summer we are having a sale of 25% off on all 18 of our self-study retreats! Click here to see the promotional code and details. Your registration helps to support our many free program offerings.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Poetry video above created by Morgan Creative

Mary images below created by Kreg Yingst

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Summer Self-Study SALE! (until June 28th)

Coupon Code: SUMMERSALE25 – 25% off all self-study retreats until June 30th! Choose from 20 different programs all with lifetime access to the content.

When you click the registration button on each retreat page it will take you to an enrolment page that asks for your email address (unless you are already logged into the learning system) and below that is a link that says “Apply a coupon.” Click that and enter the code SUMMERSALE25 into that field and the discounted price should appear.

See all self-study retreats here

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