Christine Valters Paintner's Blog, page 62

The Wisdom of Wild Grace: A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

The Wisdom of Wild Grace from Christine Valters Paintner on Vimeo.

Dearest monks and artists,

In these dark and difficult days the one thing that continues to offer me solace and strength is time spent in nature, in growing intimacy with Earth and her wisdom. We try to make time during our weekly Sabbath for a walk in the forest and I am blessed to be able to stroll daily by the sea. Inevitably I return feeling more grounded and centered, more certain how important this Earth-cherishing work is.

It has been the dominant theme in my writing this past year as I published Earth, Our Original Monastery this past spring and my second poetry collection, The Wisdom of Wild Grace is being released this October (If you are in the U.S. you can pre-order your copy here). The Christian contemplative tradition, rooted in monasticism, has many gifts to offer us in discerning a way forward. This time of pandemic has asked us to examine our willingness to act in ways that are compassionate to the whole community (and I extend this beyond human to all of Earth) and it has lifted the curtain on systemic oppression which is rooted in a mindset of exploitation of both human and natural resources. All of these things are deeply connected. We desperately need to listen to good science and the urgency with which our lives and patterns of consumption need to change. But accompanying this, we need inner ways to navigate so that we fall more deeply in love with Earth and this fuels our drive to protect and cherish her.

Poetry is an essential part of this. Poetry asks us to slow down, to look at the world in a different way, to receive the gifts being offered at every moment. Poetry moves us into an intuitive space where we rely less on the old patterns of doing and achieving, and rest more fully into new patterns of listening and reverencing.

You can read the Table of Contents for my new poetry collection and read a couple of sample poems at this link. The video above is a book trailer and includes brief excerpts from a series of six poem videos we will be sharing over the next six weeks.

A brief excerpt from the introduction to The Wisdom of Wild Grace:

These poems are invitations.

When I long for expansiveness and connection to something far greater than my own daily concerns and struggles, a walk by the sea or in the forest expands me.

We live in a time when Earth is threatened on so many fronts by human development. Slowly we seem to be awakening to the truth that our personal well-being is intimately woven together with the well-being of all creatures and plants. Many of us might have been taught by our religious traditions that humans have dominion over nature or that animals don’t feel pain or have souls.

The more we cultivate our own intimacy with the wild, the more we open to different truth. Wildness doesn’t mean we have to go out into the forest or travel long ways, the wild is a place within us.

Each poem here is a doorway into this inner wilderness, a call to sit and be present to what we discover beyond the borders of our neatly controlled worlds. Wildness is vulnerable, risky, spacious, and full of possibility. And this is where I invite you to sit and rest awhile dwell with me…

And we currently have a special gift if you order 2 or more items from our Shop (until the end of September)!

I have a short and fun interview over at Impspired (where I’ve had several poems published). Click over if you want to know what my last meal would be, the name of my memoir, and what Sourney thinks of me. ?

I am also delighted that my poem “Original Poetry” is published in the Ogham Stone journal published at University of Limerick. You can download the whole journal here (my poem is on page 107) with lots of other wonderful reading.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Video credit: Luke Morgan at Morgan Creative

Monk in the World Guest Post: Kathleen Deyer Bolduc

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Kathleen Deyer Bolduc's reflection, "Beauty From the Ashes."

I walk around the south pasture of our retreat center grounds, waiting for a photograph to capture my attention. All I can see is the mess behind the barn. I don’t “see” the barn itself—this beautiful, 1880’s barn that we’ve restored for retreats, contemplation, and worship.

The mess overshadows the beauty of this place called Cloudland. The burn pile, which is so big we’re afraid to light it. The sagging, sun-bleached tarp bunched over the overflow from the barn. The tree limb, blown down in a windstorm, crushing a piece of fence.

My heart burns with irritation as my mind says, Ignore the mess. Keep walking. Maybe there’s a photo waiting for you under the boughs of the pine tree.

But no. I’m drawn, like a magnet, toward the mess. I stand in front of the burn pile. Contemplate this, my heart whispers.

I snap the photo and walk back to the prayer room, where Brea, a college student I’m mentoring, awaits me with her own photograph. I am aware of a question swirling in my mind. How much am I willing to share about this mess in my life?

We sit in the quiet for a few minutes, soaking in our images, asking God to illuminate what longs for the light of day.

What needs to be burned away, Lord?

The answer is instantaneous. Let’s start with this broken image of who you are in the world.

Hmm. I pick up each piece of who I am as if it were a piece of wood in this pile. Follower of Jesus. Contemplative. Spiritual Director. Writer. Wife, Mom. Daughter. Friend.

Autism, depression, anxiety and dementia (youngest son, oldest son, middle son, and mother, respectively) make the Mom and Daughter pieces sharp and jagged. It’s hard to be a monk in the world with these kinds of issues piercing my boundaries.

Worry and questions about how I can make things better for those I love not only poke and prod me during the day, but wake me at 4 AM.

Again, I ask, Lord, what needs to be burned away?

I struggle to put it into words to Brea, who is looking at my photo as I talk. There is no holding back. I need to figure this out.

Comparison. No, my family does not look like so-and-so’s family. You know. That family at church that looks so close-knit. It doesn’t look anything like the vision my husband and I had when we started our family 42 years ago.

Control. If there is anything we are powerless over, it’s the mental health of adult children or the gradual cognitive decline of a parent with dementia.

Perfection. That yearning to be the mother whose children can’t wait to spend time with her because she is the perfect companion, listener, and wielder of wisdom.

In my mind I see the biggest logs in this burn pile embellished with these three words: Comparison. Control. Perfection. I imagine setting a match to the pile. The flames starting out small, creeping up the largest branches, before bursting forth in roaring flames. I imagine sitting next to the fire. I feel the flames warming my face. I imagine watching the stars come out, one by one, and the moon rising behind the barn. I imagine the pile burning down to ash, and dousing it with water before retiring for the night. I imagine a night of deep sleep, no anxiety dreams waking me at 4 AM.

And the next day? And the next?

New life looks like this. Walking toward the mess instead of avoiding it. Opening myself to the heat of the flames of grief for those I love. Admitting my powerlessness over autism, depression, anxiety and dementia.

New life looks like starting a new burn pile. Discarding unhealthy habits and ways of being before the pile gets so big I’m afraid to deal with it. It looks like burning that pile on a regular basis and allowing the flames of my grief to warm and soften my body.

New life looks like raking the ashes so that the grass underneath can sprout. The raking looks like meditation and writing, disciplines in which the chaos falls into a mosaic of beauty.

New life looks like standing up and saying This is who I am. I am a follower of Jesus, a contemplative, a writer, a spiritual director. Yes, I am also wife, mother, and daughter. I love those roles, but I am not a fixer. I can sit with these people I love, in God’s presence. I can cry with them and laugh with them. I can wait with them as we open the eyes of our hearts to the Holy that surrounds us at all times.

I imagine my family sitting together in the light of the fire that brings beauty from ashes; the mess no longer overshadowing the beauty that is my family.

Kathleen Deyer Bolduc is the author of The Spiritual Art of Raising Children with Disabilities and Autism & Alleluias. She and her husband are the owners of Cloudland, a contemplative retreat center in southwest Ohio, where she practices spiritual direction and going on daily God hunts. KathleenBolduc.com

Earth Monastery Prayer Cycle ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks and artists,

We are back after a monthlong break in our email newsletters. It is always good for us to have this sabbatical from our communications, to be able to turn inward a bit more and to give some time and energy to other projects.

We are thrilled to be launching our newest offering – a 7-day Prayer Cycle of morning and evening prayer on the theme of Earth as our monastery. Here is an excerpt from our Introduction:

Abbey of the Arts is a virtual monastery and global community of monks, artists, and pilgrims dispersed all over this beautiful globe. The Abbey was founded by Christine Valters Paintner in 2006 with a vision of supporting people to integrate contemplative practice and creative expression. In 2013 she and her husband John moved to Ireland and he joined her in co-shepherding this community. They are joined by a team of treasured Wisdom Council members who support this work with their own gifts.

We are not affiliated with any particular institution and open our doors to people from any denomination or none at all. We strive to create a place of welcome and hospitality where we might dialogue with one another and grow. Our spirituality is steeped in the rich Christian mystical tradition, and three strands of monasticism: desert, Celtic, and Benedictine, all of which profoundly influences our ways of praying.

We are an open and affirming community and strive to be radically inclusive. We delight in being joined by people like you, who are seeking to be monks in the world and artists of everyday life, seeking kindred spirits, a community committed to contemplative rhythms and creative expression.

Poetry is our nourishment.  Art inspires our souls.  We dance and sing for the joy of it.

Morning and evening prayer nourishes many monastic communities and we have integrated this rhythm of prayer into our live retreat and pilgrimage programs. Our participants expressed a hunger for a prayer cycle that could be used by community members no matter where they were, that reflected our values and emphasis.

We are thrilled to present you with the first week of our Abbey of the Arts Prayer Cycle which takes as its theme Earth as Original Monastery, inspired by Christine’s recent book. Nourishing an earth-cherishing consciousness is central to our vision and practice.

Each day you are invited to morning and evening prayer with the original cathedral, scripture, saints, spiritual directors, icon, sacrament, and liturgy. These prayers bring together the rich tradition of monastic prayer, the wisdom of ancient mystics, songs from our album compilations, embodied prayers to accompany each song, contemporary versions of the psalms, and poetry and blessings.

You are welcome to pray through on your own or with a group. We provide all of the written texts for seven days of morning and evening prayers in this free handout.  Duplication is permitted with attribution. The songs are available to purchase as a CD or mp3 download and the dances are available for purchase on DVD or streaming format.   Your purchases help to support our ability to offer these resources and continue to develop more weeks of the prayer cycle on different themes. This is a free resource but we warmly welcome donations to help us support the continued development of this work as we hope to eventually have four weeks of prayers created on different themes.

We will be creating and posting printable PDF versions of each day’s prayers as well as an audio podcast series coming in October which will guide you through each of the prayers with music. We also plan to create some leader resources for use in groups.

We hope that you will be inspired to create a regular rhythm of prayer in your daily life if you haven’t already and that you will include Abbey of the Arts as part of your experience. We are a global community, it will be beautiful to know we are all praying together for the renewal of Earth.

In addition to the Prayer Cycle, we are opening our Shop for the month of August and September where you can purchase a beautiful postcard book with art by David Hollington created for The Wisdom of Wild Grace. If you are in the U.S. you can also pre-order The Wisdom of Wild Grace – my second poetry collection – directly from me and it will be shipped to you from Paraclete Press in late September. There is a free gift when you order any 2 or more items – Sound & Stillness – which is a brand new album of me reading several of my poems.

Because of the pandemic we had to either postpone or cancel all of our fall 2020 live retreats and pilgrimages, but we have lots of wonderful online offerings available.

If you want to retreat together with kindred spirits in community, consider joining us this coming Saturday, August 15th on the Feast of the Assumption for an online mini-retreat on Mary, Queen of Heaven which I am leading with Betsey Beckman. We will explore Mary’s wisdom for these challenging times, especially how she might support us in calling forth our own inner sovereign.

We also have a 12-week online retreat starting September 7th called Way of the Monk, Path of the Artist, and it is a companion retreat in community to my book The Artist’s Rule. This book is the core of my teaching around the integration between contemplative practice and creative expression and is always a wonderful experience. This will be the first time we are offering with weekly live webinar sessions led by me.

There will also be a repeat of the Writing as a Spiritual Practice mini-retreat I offered in July on September 5th(this second offering has just a few spaces left).

And if you would love to immerse yourself in an online weekend retreat over the Feast of St. Francis where I will draw on wisdom from my recent book and upcoming poetry collection, you are welcome to join us!

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

PS – I published the poem “Lost” inspired by this current season of feeling disoriented in difficult days. You can read it at Pendemic.

PPS – I love this time of year in Ireland. We just passed the Celtic feast of Lughnasa (Imbolc in the southern hemisphere). Lughnasa is an ancient festival celebrating the time of harvest.

Join us for a Summer Online Retreat! + Newsletter Sabbatical ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dancing Monks at Abbey of the Arts from Christine Valters Paintner on Vimeo.

Dear monks, artists and pilgrims,

We are so grateful to the 35 dancing monks who sent us videos telling us what they loved about Abbey of the Arts. We are even more thrilled to have representatives from the United States, Canada, Ireland, England, Scotland, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, and the Philippines included! What an amazing global community we are. We have compiled excerpts from these videos into the one we share above to give a window into what nourishes and sustains us. Please pour a cup of tea and enjoy this window into our dancing monk community around the world.

We celebrated our 50th birthdays last week and while our sabbatical is now officially ended, the fruits and gifts continue to nourish us. More on that in the coming weeks. Our deepest hope is to extend the spirit of Jubilee into our lives going forward.

We are taking a break from our email newsletters for a month (until August 9th) but we do still have some wonderful programs happening online this summer.

Please join us for Earth, Our Original Monastery – the 8-week companion retreat to my newest book – which begins tomorrow! We are in the midst of so much upheaval in the world, this retreat invites you to fall more deeply in love with nature and welcome her wisdom and guidance into your life.

We also have two mini-retreats coming up:

Feast of Mary Magdalene: Anointed and Anointer – July 22nd

Feast of the Assumption: Mary, Queen of Heaven – August 15th 

These mini-retreats are wonderful if you'd like just a small creative dose this summer. I am leading them with Betsey Beckman and there will be reflection, meditation, creative writing practice, and gentle movement. Please click the links for more details.

(The Writing as a Spiritual Practice mini-retreat on July 11th is now full. Please contact St. Placid Priory to be added to their waiting list or receive notification if this retreat is offered again.)

We are so grateful for your support in so many ways – through encouraging notes and comments, your participation in our retreats, and the ways you share your love of Abbey of the Arts with others.

We are excited to return to the newsletters in August with some new gifts including 6 new poetry videos to celebrate my newest poetry collection coming in October – The Wisdom of Wild Grace, as well as a Prayer Cycle of morning and evening prayers for a week Abbey-style!

Sending you warmest blessings for a fruitful summer (or winter for our cherished southern hemisphere monks)!

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Video © Christine Valters Paintner (editing by Luke Morgan)

Monk in the World: Creative Joy 6 ~ Reflection Questions and Closing Blessing from Christine

Dear monks, artists and pilgrims,

Thank you for journeying with us through the Monk in the World reflections this year while we have been on our Jubilee sabbatical. Today I offer reflection questions and a closing blessing for principle 8.

Principle 8. I commit to being a dancing monk, cultivating creative joy and letting my body and "heart overflow with the inexpressible delights of love."* (*quote from The Rule of St. Benedict.)

Questions for Reflection

How might a daily practice of gratitude help you to notice the grace of the ordinary in your life?

Are there creative pursuits which call to your heart but you resist for fear of wasting time or looking silly or (insert your favorite judgment here)? What might happen if you embraced this as a gift to yourself in partnership with the Great Artist at work?

Closing Blessing from Christine

Blessed Source of Joy

Carve out room in me for the

inexpressible delights of love.

I pause each day to whisper “thank you”

for the most ordinary grace and gift.

I open myself to the possibility of contentment

and zeal over life just as it is.

If you want to have access to all of the materials from the 8 principles in one place, you can register here for free>>

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

P.S Carl McColman has a lovely article on three Celtic poets he recommends and includes my first poetry collection Dreaming of Stones in his list. "Paintner refuses to compromise her poetic diction for the sake of religious sensibility, and so her spirituality is shaped as much by landscape as by liturgy. As the book’s title suggests, this is a collection of dream images, but also thresholds, boundaries, and silences."

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

Monk in the World Guest Post: Sonia Frontera

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Sonia Frontera's reflection, "Communing with God in the face of illness inspired by Teresa of Avila."

Santa Teresa de Avila opened the door to the magical world of contemplation and, with it, offered me friendship with a God who is as loving as God is accessible.

Regrettably, I didn’t go through that door until mid-life.

I was barely 16 years old when Teresa’s path crossed mine and planted a seed in my soul that blossomed like a perennial flower, nudging me to bring her along as a companion on various stages of my spiritual journey.

Teresa was in and out of my life for more than 30 years

The life and works of the mystics Saint Teresa of Avila and Saint John of the Cross were part of the curriculum of my high school Spanish Literature class, not for their sainthood but for their literary accomplishments.

Once I met her, I found it impossible not to fall in love with Teresa. This 16th-century woman was light years ahead of her time.

She was a powerful woman in a world of men—a reformer, founder of convents, author and contemplative. She embodied contradiction, a petite woman who was larger than life, who possessed a zest for life and laughter that made her invincible in the face of adversity.

Yet, what most impressed me about Teresa was her love of Jesus and her intimate relationship with him.

Teresa experienced mystical visions and communed with Jesus in ways I could only dream of.

I was blown away by the picture in my textbook of Bernini’s sculpture, “The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa.”  Bernini depicted Teresa’s vision of an angel who pierced her heart with a golden spear, setting her on fire with a great love of God.

How I wished to get so close to God, to become one with him like Teresa! But I was no saint, no nun, no mystic. I felt disappointed that these experiences were reserved for the holy ones. I was, after all, just a Catholic-school girl, unworthy of such an honor.

But my feelings of unworthiness didn’t vanish my fascination with Teresa.

I visited her convent in Avila and devoured her masterpiece “The Interior Castle.”

Teresa’s writing in old Spanish was hard to understand and to process, but one thing stood out.

Teresa warned her nuns, who like me, longed to experience the ecstasy of union with Jesus, that if they aspired communion with Jesus, they had to share in his passion as well.

That thought terrified me. Was I brave enough to endure the pain of a spear through my heart to commune with Jesus?

That seemed like an extraordinary feat for an ordinary girl.

But Jesus had a surprise for me. He wanted to commune with me.

Many years later, I was diagnosed with chronic daily migraines and suffered unspeakable pain.

I then remembered that Teresa, too, suffered from excruciating headaches and learned that she was the patron saint of headache sufferers.

Encouraged by Teresa’s suffering, I wondered if this affliction could bring me closer to God and began a contemplative practice.

By serendipity, I also found an old copy of Anthony de Mello’s book “Sadhana, a Way to God: Christian Exercises in Eastern Form.”

This book fired up my spiritual evolution and taught me that there are unlimited ways to experience God.

De Mello revealed Teresa as someone who “scaled the heights of mystical union with God” and who lived grateful for a scattered mind that forced her to take prayer from the realm of thought into the realm of affection and fantasy through the use of imagery.

I accepted the invitation to pray like Teresa, in fantasy. In my heart, I comforted Jesus at the garden of Gethsemane. I became the woman of who touched Jesus’ cloak knowing He would heal me.

I delighted in countless hours in silence, meditating on the love I felt for this God who led me through an unexpected path to unwavering faith and spiritual healing.

While I lost my health, my career and many things I held dear, I realized that I was offered a unique opportunity to partake in the passion of Jesus.

I understood that I did not have to be a saint to experience a delicious communion with God.

It dawned on me that when you sincerely seek God, God will meet you wherever you are. That God wants a relationship with you as much as you want a relationship with Him.

That you don’t have to be a nun or a saint to be one with God.

God offers all of us an invitation to join him in the silence. No magic words are needed. No VIP status required. Just a sincere desire to meet.

My illness was a gift. It was a portal to a deep connection with God. A connection I would not trade for the health I previously enjoyed.

Seven years have passed since the onset of my illness.

I no longer have headaches every day. But I get occasional bouts of migraines that can last for months at a time.

Instead of living with fear of a relapse, I have learned to feel peaceful in the midst of uncertainty and loss.

One thing I know for sure… I can access God in sickness and in health. In the world and out of it.

I have no doubt that God and I are in this together–for the rest of my life.

And I am grateful for the gift of illness, my portal to spirituality.

Sonia Frontera is a contemplative, empowerment trainer and author. Her writing invites readers to discover paths to spirituality in everyday situations and personal adversity. Visit Sonia’s internet home at SoniaFrontera.com. Follow Sonia on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/sistersguides/.

Becoming a Holistic Artist: Embracing Body and Soul in the Creative Process ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dear monks, artists and pilgrims,



I was commissioned to write the article Becoming a Holistic Artist: Embracing Body and Soul in the Creative Process by Azusa Pacific University. Read the excerpt below then click the link for the full arcticle.

The Monk and Artist Archetypes

I have spent most of my professional career exploring the connections between two archetypes – the monk and the artist. Archetypes are universal patterns of energy found across cultures. Each of us has an inner monk and artist and we are invited to cultivate those aspects of ourselves. The monk is the part of ourselves that seeks connection with the divine in each moment of time, through the objects of daily life, and through encounters with other people. The artist is the part of ourselves that seeks to give expression to an inner set of images in an outward form. That form might be words, paint, film, movement, or other artistic medium. The monk and artist support and nourish one another.

You can read the rest of the article here >>

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

 

Christine Interviewed on Praying at the Speed of Love Podcast

This is the perfect conversation for a time of pandemic and quarantine. Christine invited us to explore how the monastic view embraces all of life—treasures and sorrows, cygnets and compost. She offered rich insights into the practices of Stability, Wild Edges, Grief, and the paradoxical state of Holy Indifference. She took us into a gentle meditation of memory—a heart practice to rediscover the gifts in small experiences. An excerpt from Earth, Our Original Monastery is included as well as a song based on Christine's poem about St. Columba and his horse.

Click here to listen to the podcast>>

Monk in the World Guest Post: Nancy L. Agneberg

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Nancy L. Agneberg's reflection, "Release Busyness-Embrace Fullness."

One morning several years ago, while exercising at the gym, a friend, recently retired, shared that her daughter had tried to guilt her into setting aside her own plans to babysit yet again, “You're not busy. I don't see what the big deal is,” the daughter said to my friend, who was ambivalent about how to respond.

“Should I drop what I have planned to do with my day when she expects me to babysit? Of course I would, if there were an emergency, but I love the ways I can spend my time now that I am not teaching full time. I have waited for this open time.”

I shared with her conversations with my husband when I casually mentioned to that I didn't have enough time to read all the books on my shelf or explore all the writing ideas swirling in my head. He would throw his arm around my shoulders, chuckle and tease, “You're sooooo busy.” Even as I felt misunderstood, I wondered if I should do more, be more productive. Should I set aside my quiet days to appear more busy?

When I am busy, too busy, it seems to me, I am driven by the agendas of others, by made up work, by distractions that overshadow what I most need to do for the well-being of my body, mind, and spirit. When I am too busy, I flit from one frenetic activity to another. I sputter. I sink. I sandwich one more thing between items 23 and 24 on my TO DO list. Saying “yes,” without thinking, I salute myself for how valuable I am, how needed I am, and what a difference I make.

Living with fullness does not mean rushing around and filling every minute with activity. Instead, I think it means living with a sense of abundance and awareness of the richness in my life. Living with “fullness” means staying awake to the sacred in my life. Living with purpose and meaning. What keeps me grounded, rather than stuck? How is it I can best respond in life-enhancing ways? For myself and for others. Do I feel overwhelmed or more drained than energized? Is it time to pause? To breathe?

Or is it time to jump joyfully in a new direction?

I am the first to admit I have had a luxurious life. For many years I have not had to balance career and family. I am the steward of my work as a spiritual director and writer, shepherding the use of my own time. I have had time and space to explore and open. To shed busyness and adopt “fullness.”

Of course, some days the pace is faster, one thing happens on top of another, and immediate reaction is needed. I get that, and I am able to respond as needed. At the same time I note that many of the items on my To Do list are not different from the busiest of my days—paying bills, buying groceries, fixing meals, writing my blog posts and working on a book, meeting with my spiritual direction clients, preparing for church volunteer responsibilities, spending time with family and friends. You know – all the stuff of life—but my approach now that I am in my 70's is different.

My prayer is to welcome my life, move in my life, with my whole being, bringing all I am, all I have learned and continue to learn into my days. Now is not the time to withdraw from the gifts awaiting me or to distance myself from the ways I can share gifts. No, now is the time to appreciate and honor the fullness of life. That day in the gym all those years ago I congratulated my friend for her full life and her intentional separation from busyness. That resonated with her. Her shoulders relaxed. Her eyes got big, and her breath more even. I wasn't sure how my friend defined “full,” nor was I even sure about my own definition. What I did know was that we both sought to release the busyness of life and instead embrace the fullness of life.

Lives rich and full. Joyous and full. Alive and full.

Nancy L. Agneberg is living her Sacred Seventies fully and gratefully in her many roles, including mother, grandmother, spouse, friend, writer, spiritual director, hometender, voracious reader, walker of labyrinths. Read her perspectives on aging as a spiritual practice on her blog, ClearingTheSpace.blogspot.com

Monk in the World: Creative Joy 4 ~ Guided Movement Practice by Christine – A Love Note from your Online Abbess

Dear monks, artists and pilgrims,

During this Jubilee year of sabbatical we are revisiting our Monk Manifesto by moving slowly through the Monk in the World retreat materials together every Sunday. This is our eighth and final principle that we will explore for the next six weeks.

Principle 8. I commit to being a dancing monk, cultivating creative joy and letting my body and "heart overflow with the inexpressible delights of love." *quote is from the Prologue of the Rule of Benedict.

Movement Practice

Then the prophet Miriam, Aaron’s sister, took a tambourine in her hand; and all the women went out after her with tambourines and with dancing. —Exodus 15:20

David danced before God with all his might. —2 Samuel 6:14

Praise God with tambourine and dance. —Psalm 150:4

The Lord plays and diverts Himself in the garden of His creation, and if we could let go of our own obsession with what we think is the meaning of it all, we might be able to hear His call and follow Him in His mysterious, cosmic dance.

For the world and time are the dance of the Lord in emptiness. The silence of the spheres is the music of a wedding feast. . . Indeed we are in the midst of it, and it is in the midst of us, for it beats in our very blood, whether we want it to or not.

Yet the fact remains that we are invited to forget ourselves on purpose, cast our awful solemnity to the winds and join in the general dance. —Thomas Merton

I invite you into a movement practice.  Allow yourself just 5-10 minutes this day to pause and listen and savor what arises.

Begin with a full minute of slow and deep breathing.  Let your breath bring your awareness down into your body.  When thoughts come up, just let them go and return to your breath. Hold this 8th principle gently in your heart and imagination: I commit to being a dancing monk, cultivating creative joy and letting my body and "heart overflow with the inexpressible delights of love," planting a seed as you prepare to step into the dance. You don't need to think this through or figure it out, just notice what arises.
Play a piece of music on the website(here is a suggested song) and let your body move in response, without needing to guide the movements. Listen to how your body wants to move through space in response to your breath. Remember that this is a prayer, an act of deep listening. Pause at any time and rest in stillness again. Sit with waiting for the impulse to move and see what arises.


After the music has finished, sit for another minute in silence, connecting again to your breath. Just notice your energy and any images rising up.
Is there a word, phrase, or image that could express what you encountered in this time?
If you have time, spend another five minutes journaling in a free-writing form, just to give some space for what you are discovering.
To extend this practice, sit longer in the silence before and after and feel free to play the song through a second time. Often repetition brings a new depth.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

P.S. If you missed Christine's three poems published in the online journal Impspired you can read those here.

Photo created by AlemCoksa for free use on Pixabay