Christine Valters Paintner's Blog, page 79

Sacred Rhythms of Sky, Sun, Sea and Stone: Participant Poems

In April, 18 creative souls gathered with us for our retreat on Inismor – Sacred Rhythms of Sky, Sun, Sea and Stone. We had a wonderful group with participants from all over the U.S., Canada, U.K., and Australia. I am delighted to share some of their poems. Pour a cup of tea, imagine yourself on a windswept limestone island in the Atlantic, and savor for a while.

From Katharine Kane:

Inishmore fairies

Passing the leaf bare brambles

Glimpse the fiery sun

Stone etching welcome

Misting from selkies haven

Ancient rebirthing

Waking Up in the City

In praise of the city noise that honks out its voice: first the owls sound, then the crows, then the buses and cars rev up to get started on their day. No alarm needed.

In praise of the guy in the next apartment who sings to the radio through his morning shower. I can hear you . . . .

In praise of the early worker who empties the recycle bin into a large container, the breaking glass bottles and the hollow aluminum cans crash together. They are music to my ears.

In praise of the morning rush to the metro as the human species speed-walks to what seems important, and to the occasional soul who raises their head to smile and say good morning. Sending my love.

In praise of the man who serves sweets and caffeine at the local cafe. He knows everyone on the line of the quietly hurried and knows how they like their coffee. I’m on my way.

Katharine Donovan Kane is a personal life coach for the spiritual highly sensitive person. She’s passionate about writing, iPhone photography, and deep listening to the stories of others. You can reach Katharine at kdkane.com.

Requiem for Myself ~ Poem Video: A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Requiem for Myself

When I die

plant a pinwheel

in an open field

where winter’s wind

and rain march forcefully

across in battalions,

and you can stumble

out there to meet me

one late afternoon

when you feel the world

must surely be ending.

You, soaked

from tears and storms,

kinship with dark sky.

Me, rainbow axis whirling,

an orbit of

joyful defiance.

You then, inspired,

tumble gleefully

across grass, pirouette,

forgetting for a moment

grief’s burden,

knowing the world

will be with you

for many years to come.

Never think

this brief sojourn wasted

as you head back

to the fire waiting at home,

laughing to yourself

the whole way.

—Christine Valters Paintner

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

This week’s poem was inspired when I was visiting the Central Cemetery in Vienna a couple of years ago. My father and grandparents are buried there and it is a place of quiet reflection. As I strolled down the aisles of graves, looking at the different headstones and sculptures that marked the place of loved ones, I came to a grave of a child that had several pinwheels sticking into the earth on top. There was a gentle breeze so their brightly colored faces were spinning around inviting a sense of joyfulness.

In the monastic tradition there is a practice called memento mori, which means to “remember daily that you will one day die” as St Benedict writes in his Rule. This is not meant to be a morbid exercise but an act of presence to the gift of life and an invitation to cultivate gratitude each day for what we are able to still do.

Musician Margo Hennebach came on one of our Ireland pilgrimages a couple of years ago with her husband Mark. Both are very gifted musicians and out of that experience she wrote a beautiful song called “Holy Well” which is on our Celtic album. I later sent her some of my poems to see if any inspired a song for her and she came back with one for this poem that really expressed the sense of joyfulness I was trying to convey. She does adapt some of the lyrics to enhance the musicality of the words.

So we have again a multi-layered collaboration with my poem, the song by Margo, and our wonderful local filmmaker Luke Morgan creating a video to express the poem.

I invite you to read the poem once through slowly and see if there is an image that shimmers for you or sense of invitation that arises from it. Then watch the video and see if there are any other layers that are revealed. When you remember your mortality, what rises up as essential in your life?

You can order your copy of Dreaming of Stones. I’d be so grateful if you’d consider posting a review to Amazon.com and Goodreads! It helps authors so much in getting their book seen by a wider audience.

Want to dive into sacred poetry with me in Chartres, France? Join me June 10-14, 2019 for a transformative week of reading and writing poetry together (no experience necessary) and the chance to walk an ancient labyrinth. Step onto the threshold where new possibilities beckon.  Register here>>

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Video © Christine Valters Paintner

Featured Poet: Rabbi Rami Shapiro

We are launching a new series this spring with poets whose work we love and want to feature!

Our next poet is Rabbi Rami Shapiro, whose work is deeply inspired by the happening of God.  You can hear Rabbi Rami reading his poem "The 23rd Psalm" below and read more about the connections he makes between poetry and the sacred.

https://abbeyofthearts.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/New-Recording.m4a



After Psalm 93 

The earth is secure;

it is I who imagine her frailty.

The earth stands firm;

it is I who plot her downfall.

She is greater than me,

and includes me in a larger scheme.

I am her child

though not her only child.

I am her hope

though not her only hope.

I am one she grew

to see her own face,

to know her own mind,

to foster surprise.

I am one who can know I am One.

Themes of His Work

All my work is rooted in the Yiddish realization: alles iz Gott, everything is God. I am a panentheist. I experience God is YHVH (from the Hebrew verb “to be”) the nondual Happening happening as all happening. If God is Happening happening as all happening, then everything that happens is God’s will, not in some egoic sense but in the sense that everything that happens happens because at the moment it happens nothing else could happen. This realization liberates me from the drama about why bad things happen to good people. They happen for the same reason good things happen to good (and bad) people—things happen. Free from the drama about suffering we are free to alleviate actual suffering.

Attending

Here I am— waiting.

Watching.

Listening.

Attending to what is within and without.

Your whispered breath fills me with wonder and wisdom,

and I bend embraced by You who are all.

For a moment I no longer breathe,

I am breathed.

For an instant I know the truth of who I am— Your breath,

a fleeting exhalation of

All into This.

How wondrous this moment

when breath breathes and knows itself Divine!

Poetry and the Sacred

I agree with St. Paul that God is that in which we live, and move, and have our being (Acts 17:28), therefore I don’t think in terms of coming into the presence of the sacred because there is nowhere where the sacred is not. I can awaken to what is, but not draw closer to what is. And one way I can awaken is through reading and writing poetry.

Reading poetry—and here I’m talking about spirituality-oriented poetry and liturgy—is a sacred practice when I yield to the words rather than try to understand them. This is when reading poetry is like listening to music: I am surrendered to the sound of music or words and allow them to take me where they will. Writing poetry is something altogether different.

I’ve published 36 books, all but three are prose. But whether prose or poetry I can’t claim to have written these books as a conscious act. I rewrite and hone each verse or sentence consciously, but the original writing is a gift of grace coming through me and not from me. This gift is what makes writing a spiritual practice for me.

Unending Love

I am loved by an unending love.

I am embraced by arms that find me

even when I am hidden from myself.

I am touched by fingers that soothe me

even when I am too proud for soothing.

I am counseled by voices that guide me

even when I am too embittered to hear.

I am loved by an unending love.

I am supported by hands that uplift me

even in the midst of a fall.

I am urged on by eyes that meet me

even when I am too weak for meeting.

I am loved by an unending love.

Embraced, touched, soothed, and counseled;

may mine too be the arms and the fingers,

the voice and the hands,

the eyes and the smile

that compels another to say:

“I am loved by an unending love.”

About Rabbi Rami Shapiro

Rabbi Rami Shapiro, PH.D is an award–winning author of over thirty-six books on religion and spirituality. Rabbi Rami directs the One River Foundation, writes the Roadside Assistance for the Spiritual Traveler column for Spirituality and Health magazine, and hosts the magazine’s weekly podcast, Essential Conversations with Rabbi Rami.

 

Order Rabbi Rami Shapiro,'s Books

Accidental Grace: Poetry, Prayers, and Psalms

Rabbi Rami has also written a number of nonfiction spirituality books including:

Writing―The Sacred Art: Beyond the Page to Spiritual Practice

The Divine Feminine in Biblical Wisdom Literature: Selections Annotated & Explained 

Recovery―The Sacred Art: The Twelve Steps as Spiritual Practice

Perennial Wisdom for the Spiritually Independent: Sacred Teachings―Annotated & Explained

The Sacred Art of Lovingkindness: Preparing to Practice

(using the Amazon links above help to support the Abbey scholarship fund at no additional cost to you)

Dreaming of Stones

Christine Valters Paintner's new collection of poems Dreaming of Stones has just been published by Paraclete Press.

The poems in Dreaming of Stones are about what endures: hope and desire, changing seasons, wild places, love, and the wisdom of mystics. Inspired by the poet’s time living in Ireland these readings invite you into deeper ways of seeing the world. They have an incantational quality. Drawing on her commitment as a Benedictine oblate, the poems arise out of a practice of sitting in silence and lectio divina, in which life becomes the holy text.

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Cultivating Eyes of the Heart (Part 3) ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

Photography is an especially accessible art medium in our modern world, where almost everyone carries a camera built into their phone, or small, portable cameras with good picture quality are widely available.  In my book, Eyes of the Heart: Photography as a Christian Contemplative Practice, I suggest ways to engage your camera as a tool for prayer and to cultivate a different way of seeing the world.

We talk in our culture a lot about taking photos or even capturing and shooting. Cultivating “eyes of the heart” (Ephesians 1:18) refers to a kind of graced vision that is focused more on receiving gifts.  Seeing in this way is different from our ordinary way of scanning our field of vision for the information we want to find.  Instead, it is a spacious gaze which savors each moment.

In the Benedictine monastic tradition, everything is considered sacred.  The stranger at the door is to be welcomed in as Christ.  The kitchen utensils are to be treated just like the altar vessels.  The hinges of the day call us to remember the presence of God again and again, so that time becomes a cascade of prayers.

Photography can become an act of deepened awareness and love.  We can begin to see the everyday things of our lives as openings into the depth dimension of the world:  the bird singing from a tree branch outside my window, the doorbell announcing a friend’s arrival, the meal which nourishes my body for service.  Each of these moments invites us to pause and to see it through a different kind of vision.

Call to mind a time when you were so present to the moment, to the sheer grace of things.  Then the thoughts broke in which seemed to wield only criticism and dissatisfaction.  Maybe you remember the items still languishing on your “to do” list back at home and you felt an anxious dread. Contemplative practice cultivates our awareness of this pattern, so that we might be able to change it. We can become aware of our thoughts and gently release them.  When moments come to visit us, we are then able to savor and bask in wonder rather than reach for what is next.

Contemplative practice also cultivates our profound awareness of life as an unending stream of gifts. From this arises the impulse to create.  When we open ourselves to the sheer grace of things, we tap into a source of inspiration.  We feel moved to create something out of that gratitude.

For me, the creative practice of photography can be a powerful doorway into transformed seeing.  When we open ourselves to receiving photos, rather than taking them, we are offered a gift.  By bringing the camera to the eye and allowing an encounter with the holy to open our hearts, we might be transformed.

Look through the lens and imagine that it is a portal to a new way of seeing. Let the focus of the frame bring your gaze to the quality of light in this moment or the vibrancy of colors. Pay attention to what is shimmering.  Even five minutes can shift your gaze to a deepened quality of attentiveness.  No need to capture everything you see, but simply an invitation to breathe in the beauty of this moment.

Let yourself be willing to see the world differently, so that what others miss in the rush of life becomes transfigured through your openness and intention. This practice invites us to walk along the road and pay close attention, make space to receive the gift of bread, the nourishment of conversation, and a vision of the sacred.

For me, photography and writing are the ways I feel most often moved to respond to the generosity of life. Try this next time you feel overcome by beauty — pause there as long as you can without moving to do something else or complete another task.  And then, when there is a sense of fullness or completion, pick up a camera or a pen, and allow them to become the tools to honor what you have experienced and your expression of deep gratitude. Rather than “capturing” the encounter, let this be a prayer, so that slowly over time you might find yourself in an unending litany of praise.

You can read Part One here and Part Two here.

(This reflection first appeared in an issue of Weavings journal)

Please join us for our Easter season online retreat when we will practice resurrection through contemplative photography. Our journey begins tomorrow! Details and registration here>>

We are also approaching the feast of Beltaine in the northern hemisphere and Samhain in the southern hemisphere.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

Monk in the World Guest Post: Mary Van Denend

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read of for Mary Van Denend's post "Girls in the Trees."

My granddaughters are playing “jungle,” scrambling up branches as high as they dare go, in a leafy playground tree, fat as a hot air balloon.  We’ve exhausted the slides, the swings, the merry-go-round, the balance beams, and me. It’s only April but the day has turned unseasonably warm.  The tree’s shade offers coolness.

Lucia, the youngest, screeches from her perch in a red and purple peasant dress we just purchased at Good Will. “Look, I’m a baby monkey! I’m a baby monkey!”, she chatters in a high pitch. At four, she’s charming and fearless; always choosing the highest slide, the fastest swing, always wanting the top bunk at home.

Elsa, with hazel eyes and hair like dark honey, middle child of moods and shadows, hides, then clambers, then hides again. Her lanky limbs in navy leggings camouflage her movements so I can’t tell what’s branch and what’s leg.  Their doctor says she’ll be 5’9’’ or 10”, maybe taller. She’s more leopard than monkey, stealthy and shy.

Anneke vacillates midway up. At eleven, she could easily reach the upper branches, but she’s hot and tired, eager for promised hot dogs back at the house. She’s dressed like a tropical bird today in blues, teals, and deep pink. Her ponytail a plume of golden feathers. Last summer she broke her foot jumping off a stone wall, and spent the next 8 weeks in a cast—she who loves to swim. Maybe that’s part of her hesitance.

*****

When I was a kid I used to watch Tarzan movies with Johnny Weissmuller. I loved it when Jane would come swinging through the trees too, and they’d meet somewhere at a secret landing. She often had a chimp in her arms and could still fly like an acrobat through the canopy, on a single thick vine. I thought Jane was amazing.

Climbing trees was a big part of my childhood. Though never much of an athlete, I had good balance and wasn’t afraid to keep going higher, as long as I had a footing on something secure. The world looks different from inside a tree, no matter how high up. It’s cool and green, rustling and rough; it’s a patchwork of light and patterns, smelling mossy or sweet. You can peer over rooftops or at the peeling bark right in front of you.

Perhaps that’s one reason I love to visit monasteries. They’re often set in beautiful places surrounded by trees. Some create walking paths that lead visitors through gentle woods, to quiet corners for contemplation and prayer.  One such place, a Cistercian community about an hour and a half north, allows lay “monks” like me to peacefully wander and breathe in the forest.  Others may employ members as laborers who work in fruit or nut orchards as part of their communal life. We live in hazelnut country.

One summer in my early twenties I worked on an apple orchard in Wenatchee, Washington owned by friends.  For six weeks every day, starting at 8:00 am, we picked apples and cherries until noon, and then again late in the day. It was blazing hot inside those trees. Sap stuck to my hair and bees (which I’m mildly allergic to) buzzed over me.  My arms ached from stretching way beyond my normal reach to grab a perfect Golden Delicious or Gravenstein. At the end of each day I was exhausted, but proud of myself too. I’ve never done anything like that before or since. It was also the summer I read the Lord of the Rings trilogy for the first time, on the recommendation of my landlords. Now I can’t think of Tolkien without thinking about that orchard and those trees. Without romanticizing the itchy skin and sore muscles, that summer I felt strong and brave.

*****

I wonder if kids climb trees the way we used to anymore. Sadly, I kind of doubt it. Too many indoor distractions—cell phones, video games, 150 TV channels. Now there are miniature climbing walls on many playgrounds, including the one near my house, and rock climbing courses through local Parks & Rec. All of which can be a good thing for building confidence and coordination, for learning about teamwork and trust.

But there’s nothing quite like finding yourself under a quilt of leaves in the fork of a sweetgum in Fall, surrounded by bright red stars. Or gathering cones from the thick candelabra arms of a Sitka spruce, breathing an evergreen story into your lungs. And you, you’re the one who climbed there by your own strength and wits. What I hope my three granddaughters will remember when they’re teenagers and beyond: there’s a place you can go where the world grows quiet and serene; there’s a branch somewhere waiting for you, where a goldfinch might be hiding, where the leaves whisper your name.

Mary Van Denend makes her home in Oregon’s lush Willamette Valley, though her childhood was very nomadic. She’s a poet and essayist, with a MFA in Creative Writing (Seattle Pacific), and the author of a chapbook, Watermarks, and many other publications. She’s a contemplative in spirit and a wanderer by heart. She loves to read, cook, hike, travel, and paint.

Easter Blessings + Take My Hand (new poetry video) ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Take My Hand

Please don’t plant me

neat rows of rosebushes

and tulips at attention,

no manicured gardens

or crystal vases of cut stems.

Instead, take my hand,

lead me onto

rain-softened grass

which undulates like a boat

on a summer lake,

lie down with me

in a quilt of sunlight and shadows

among yellow petals, violet trumpets,

a feast for hares and bees,

let’s linger and forget ourselves

until even the tiled sky above

is cracked open by stars

and all that is restless and wild

within us can roam the heavens

howling the moon aloft.

—Christine Valters Paintner, Dreaming of Stones

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

After the six weeks of Lent and our disciplines of letting go of distractions and listening more deeply to the sacred call in our daily lives we arrive to the Feast of Easter which initiates a 50-day season of practicing resurrection. I love this sense of invitation into what it means to live resurrection in the midst of the ordinary routines of life.

I wrote this poem a couple of years ago while up in Donegal on a writing weekend. It was being held at this lovely manor house with a large grassy area out front leading down to a lake. During one of the writing sessions, the instructor invited us to go outside for fifteen minutes and see what was inspired. I wandered out hungrily, so glad for time to move outside into the summer sun, sit under a broad tree offering shade.

For me it is a poem about the longing for wildness in my life. I am aware how having everything in order and well planned can be so seductive, but the divine presence is not a God of neat rows and lining everything up just so.  Certainly the Easter story many of us celebrate today reveals a divine wildness which erupts into the world beyond our expectations. Practicing resurrection in part means opening to what happens when we release our ideas of how things should unfold.

There have been times in my life when I have embraced this sense of wildness with more vigor than others. Certainly selling everything we owned and leaving Seattle for an adventure living in Europe was one of those seasons. Now living in Galway for the last almost seven years, I have a lovely and sweet life that I adore and am grateful for each day. It involves certain sacred rhythms and times of silence to listen deeply. What is most nourishing to me is a wander down by the sea, to feel the roughness of wind, taste the salt on my skin, to shake loose all the things that have become too determined, too set in expectation.

I invite you to enter this poem as a form of lectio divina. Read it through slowly and notice what words or phrases are shimmering for you. Let those unfold in your heart and listen for the sense of invitation arising. Then watch the video below and see what new layers the visuals offer to you. It is a poem of direct address to someone – a loved one perhaps or a prayer to the sacred source. What is your prayer of resurrection as we enter into this season ahead?



I am grateful again to Luke and Jake Morgan of Morgan Creative here in Galway for collaborating with me on bringing these videos to life.

Englewood Review has a wonderful review up of Dreaming of Stones: "There is no hope without despair, no wonder without repulsion, no love without ugliness. Paintner’s poems remind us of this truth—which we all already know instinctively—with beauty and grace."

You can order your copy of Dreaming of Stones. I’d be so grateful if you’d consider posting a review to Amazon.com and Goodreads! It helps authors so much in getting their book seen by a wider audience.

Want to dive into sacred poetry with me in Chartres, France? Join me June 10-14, 2019 for a transformative week of reading and writing poetry together (no experience necessary) and the chance to walk an ancient labyrinth. Step onto the threshold where new possibilities beckon.  Register here>>

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

Featured Poet: Dorothy Walters

We are launching a new series this spring with poets whose work we love and want to feature!

Our next poet is Dorothy Walters whose work is deeply inspired by sacred ecstasy and "the Beloved Within."  You can hear Dorothy reading her poem "The Transition" below and read more about the connections she makes between poetry and the sacred.

https://abbeyofthearts.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/DorothyWalters_TheTransition.m4a



Seekers 

"What you seek was seeking you."

Rumi

How is it

that when I was

looking for You,

You were seeking me also?

Silently You watched and waited.

Sometimes gave me

a brief glimpse

or taste

of who You were,

like a shy deer in the forest

that vanishes when

you turn to look.

And so I roamed,

looking here and there,

gazing at the hieroglyphs on trees

or peering into the throats of flowers for secret revelations,

listening to the waves

pounding the shore for messages,

examining books and stars,

seeking essence.

Finally I gave up my searching,

surrendered my deep desire

to stillness.

And then You gave me a kiss

that lasted forever.

Themes of Her Work

My themes today are a continuation and refinement of those I have long dealt with: the sacred journey, the ecstatic moments, the infusion of divine energies within the self.  Sometimes I write ecstasy poems, sometimes those that are more reflective.  All proceed directly from source, the unseen mystery that infuses directs our lives.  We sense rather than see this presence, and proceed in  partnership with it to "bring the gift back home."

I believe we are now undergoing worldwide spiritual transformation, even in the midst of outer chaos, and that poetry has a major role to play in this evolutionary shift of the human into a new creation.

Who I Am

I am neither Moslem

nor Jew.

Buddha does not tie my feet.

I gave up being a Protestant long ago.

Too wild for the Taoists,

too tame for the Tantrics,

neither breathing

nor transfixed

nor saying magic words.

Yet for years I yearned,

followed formulas in ancient texts,

listened to the saints

and philosophers

seeking wisdom.

Finally I gave up searching,

stood very still

and fell

into who I am.

Poetry and the Sacred

For me, poetry itself is sacred practice, whether writing or reading the verses of another (such as Rumi, Hafiz, or Kabir.)  These two phenomena are so intermingled that it is difficult to speak of them separately. I had a major Kundalini awakening in 1981 at the age of 53.  I was thrown immediately into a state of intense ecstasy (somatic, visceral), an experience I had no word for at the time.  This experience felt like what one person described as "God moving through your body." This process of connecting with divine energy has continued to this day, but in a much more subtle and gentle form.   I think of this recurrent presence as "the Beloved Within."

My poetry and other writings stem from the ongoing unfolding of Kundalini within my subtle/physical body. I feel that my poems are transmitted rather than simply crafted (though I do have a lifelong commitment to language and its expression.)

My poems arrive swiftly, often spontaneously, when the inner voice speaks.  I feel blessed to have been allowed to serve as the vessel for this higher source.

Kundalini, The Life Force

What you must know

is this:

it will not come

as a thought

or a concept

or an experiment

in a laboratory.

It will not be an extension

of all that has been proved

by wise men

in tomes and bound volumes

for centuries before.

It will happen

within what you call

your body.

You will not know

where your flesh ends

and a feeling comes that is

both outside and inside,

a realization arriving

as an experience,

a happening

you have no words to describe.

Of course, you can try.

You can speak of it

as rapture, as ecstasy,

as a flowing field of bliss.

But once it happens,

your will recognize it

as that which unites all

and of which you are an

indivisible part.

Drop to ocean,

cells to body,

the nameless you to

Love.

About Dorothy

Dorothy Walters grew up loving the world of books and the language they contained.  She took a PhD in English and American literature and spent her long professional life teaching university classes in both classical and contemporary literature in English.  She helped to found one of the earlier women's studies programs  in the U. S. and directed this program for many years.  In 1981 she experienced spontaneous Kundalini awakening, an event that transformed her life.  She now writes about and counsels others on the topic of Kundalini, which she views as the key factor animating current spiritual awakenings across the globe.

To see her on Youtube, go to:

Dorothy Walters and Andrew Harvey Discuss Kundalini

Dorothy Walters Andrew Harvey Interviews Dorothy Walters "Mystic Poet"

Dorothy Walters and Andrew Harvey Read "Some Kiss We Want"

Connect with Dorothy:

kundalinisplendor.blogspot.com

Facebook (Dorothy Walters)

dorothywalters72@gmail.com

Order Dorothy Walters' Books

The Kundalini Poems: Reflections of Radiance and Joy

Marrow of Flame: Poems of the Spiritual Journey

The Ley Lines of the Soul: Poems of Ecstasy and Ascension

Some Kiss We Want: New and Selected Poems

(using the Amazon links above help to support the Abbey scholarship fund at no additional cost to you)

Dreaming of Stones

Christine Valters Paintner's new collection of poems Dreaming of Stones has just been published by Paraclete Press.

The poems in Dreaming of Stones are about what endures: hope and desire, changing seasons, wild places, love, and the wisdom of mystics. Inspired by the poet’s time living in Ireland these readings invite you into deeper ways of seeing the world. They have an incantational quality. Drawing on her commitment as a Benedictine oblate, the poems arise out of a practice of sitting in silence and lectio divina, in which life becomes the holy text.

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Cultivating Eyes of the Heart (Part 2) ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

Our habitual ways of perceiving the world, which help us navigate things like stopping at a red light or stop sign, also stand in the way of seeing the world in fresh and new ways. So often, we are looking for information, rather than truly seeing.

I find inspiration in the ancient practice of lectio divina, or sacred reading.  In lectio, we read scripture and listen for what word or phrase is shimmering. This practice is always in service of contemplative vision in daily life.  Lectio invites us to slowly see more and more of the world as a sacred text, ripe with possibility for meaning.  We can expand our contemplative practice to include a kind of visio divina, or sacred seeing, where we gaze on an icon or painting we love and look for something that shimmers – perhaps a symbol, a color, a brushstroke, the play of light and shadow.  And in that shimmering we know there is a gift for us, even if we don’t fully understand its meaning in the moment.

We can then expand our practice of sacred seeing even further to include what we see all around us in our daily lives.  What would it be like to move through our day, watching for what shimmers, waiting to receive these moments of revelation, and then savor them?

A question I often receive from people cultivating the contemplative path is: How do I cultivate trust in what shimmers?  How do I know what I am drawn to is sacred?

We are so used to moving through the world analyzing and judging, bringing our expectations to each encounter, planning for the next several steps ahead.  It can feel awkward to bring ourselves fully present and draw on intuition, wisdom, and experience, rather than logic and analysis, to see what is most true.  This heart-centered knowing comes through practice.

The most essential way I learn to trust what shimmers, is to ask myself if this encounter increases my compassion.  Do I feel a sense of expansiveness toward myself and others?  When the holy shimmers before us, it is always in the service of greater love.

As I cultivate this practice of attending to the gifts the world has to offer me, to what shimmers, I am at the same time nurturing the opening of my own heart.  Our minds harden our defenses, but the heart softens and blooms forth slowly, so that we find ourselves looking with more compassion on those who annoy us, and perhaps later, those we actively dislike, and finally those we have previously ignored and not even allowed into our line of sight.

When we discover ourselves surprised by love and grace, we come to trust what shimmers forth as gift.  We receive without needing to figure things out.  We begin to follow the thread of moment by moment revelation, not knowing where it leads, only embracing the call to see with eyes of the heart.

(This reflection first appeared in an issue of Weavings journal)

Please join us for our Easter season online retreat when we will practice resurrection through contemplative photography. Details and registration here>>

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

Monk in the World Guest Post: Anne Marie Walsh

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Anne Marie Walsh's reflection, "Deep Within."

Silent retreats, generally considered "time apart", also point a way for me to be contemplative in the world moment to moment. Sometimes I arrive in exhaustion, feeling there is no time even for this retreat, what was I thinking, how on earth is this going to help? But allowing the sure footedness of the decision to come, now after many such retreats, I know it is a great gift to enter silence so intentionally in a space that honours and prepares for such a way of being together. I trust it and what might be quietly leading me.

Silence seems to open into a space of erasure: even if I bring them, I usually abandon books, screens, speech, plans, projects, even contemplative possibilities like knitting or painting while at the retreat.  Especially at the beginning, I find myself walking slowly outside, often stopping, or sitting quietly, in many ways “doing nothing”.  One director guided us before the silence, to attend to what is already being offered: to listen for it, to expect to gently, quietly be led to the gift that is already prepared for you in this time apart.

In retreat (but also at home in daily walks, or in sitting in stillness) it means, for me, attending with a kind of soft alertness, letting go of any tendency to control or “work at” composing the time. Slow walking (this is not exercise or fitness), frequent stopping,  allows a meditative reception of what is given. The senses are open. Sounds, even of tiny leaf movements, are present to me.  My eyes perceive the delicacy of forms, letting them be as they are, no thought, no judgement, no science, no art: just lingering with these manifest things. The scaly bark of trees and shelves of unexpected fungi; the curved crux of black branches; dark hidden spaces and strewn shafts of light down a steep cedar slope; the insect-eaten oak leaf, a skeletal lace. All in their own silence somehow seem to reveal to my silence their infinite variety and fecundity, the hand of great Artistry.

And that shared silence in itself is healing. The slow being-with "things" as they are, softens me, lets me feel the depth of my own being IN the same world, also one of the million forms, alive at the same time, part of some infinite extension of mystery.  For what can we say about all of this? What is given exceeds us. It is unsayable and yet we walk in its midst, breathe the same air, unfold into the spacious openness which is always with us, yet so often veiled by our busy preoccupations and cares.

Sometimes a tree (or a flower or a fox) will reveal itself as mystery. The tree can stand, powerful, towering, yet silent and majestic, through hundreds of years, through harsh winters, the dark cold nights, the scorch of long summers. Standing near such a created being, I find my own desire to join the tree, to find a way to be its kin: steadfast, strong, quiet, yielding, beautiful, and patient in slow growth from a deep heart- certainty, true to my given nature. If Nature be our first Scripture, then this hearkening to our deep nature, whether tree or person, is reflected, I think, in our second, written Scripture: “Deep within, I will plant my law. Not on stone, but in your heart.”  Deep within , we are already seeded with the life of Life, with our own wild and precious desires which are rooted in the divine urging us into ever more fullness of life.

Deep Within

How can we say what silence and quiet attention reveal to us?

In every moment, we are presented with arrays of some assorted light,

too complicated to name or fully notice.

Yet in an instant we can rest upon a small pointe vierge

and there be born anew,

able to glimpse how we are always raised to some infinity,

We can regard the vastness of our world in a single upside-down reflected sky

in the puddle of a rainy deck’s dark wood.

We are so small, so brief.

The majesty and terror of creation is far beyond our ability to contain.

Yet we are made in such a way that the Infinite dwells in us;

Brief and small, we are made vast

inscribed by the in-dwelling Holy Mystery.

Love, the Heart of All, holds us

even in destruction.

We will say: we did not know what we were doing.

But held, we are held

every leaf proclaims the love in which we are held.

Anne Marie lives north of Toronto, Ontario in Canada. A painter and writer, she has recently retired from teaching and working within the helping professions. In recent years, silent retreats have sheltered and guided her in accompanying her long-time companion as he experienced the difficult descent into Alzheimer’s disease.

Vespers (New Poetry Video) ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Vespers

The sun slides down

the gap between houses

its amber reach crosses the grass

toward me, shadow of the elder tree

has grown long and I remember

under the mulberry spectacle of sky

how everything I love must end:

this cup of tea with steam ascending,

the dog curled right against me,

your warm hands over mine,

how this sweet leaving of day

makes me draw the world

as close as possible.

—Christine Valters Paintner

(*originally published in U.S. Catholic magazine)

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

The poem above is part of a series of poems I wrote to honor each of the monastic Hours of the day. (You can read the whole series in Dreaming of Stones). Praying the Hours is an essential part of the life of the monk, a way of honoring the unfolding of each day, its sacred ordinariness, and a return again and again to the presence of the divine right in this moment.

Years ago I discovered the book Music of Silence by Benedictine monk David Steindl-Rast, which is a beautiful and poetic exploration of the gift of the Hours. In it he invites us to consider the invitation each Hour of the day calls us into. Dawn reminds us of the gift of awakening, midday to fullness, evening to the sweetness of endings, and night to mystery and silence. This book had a significant impact on my own prayer, work, and thinking. Whether or not you pray the Hours in a formal way with the Psalms, you can pause at these thresholds and wonder at what new awareness you are being called to.

Dawn and dusk are considered threshold times in the Celtic imagination. The veil is especially thin at these moments and the Otherworld more accessible. What a gift it is to be present at the glory of a sunrise or sunset and to feel your heart come alive to the staggering beauty of the world.

In the monastic tradition another essential practice is memento mori, or remembrance of one’s own death. “Keep death daily before your eyes” wrote Benedict in his Rule. The desert mothers and fathers repeat this again and again in their wisdom sayings. When we draw close to the reality of our mortality, we are reminded again and again of how everything in our lives is gift. When I was forty I had a pulmonary embolism after a long-haul flight to Europe and in the days following my diagnosis and treatment, I wasn’t regretting not having traveled more or done more in the world. What I longed for were the simplest of things like the warmth of John’s hand in mine, the delight of our dog’s nearness. I would sit with a cup of tea grateful simply for the gift of presence.

I have another poem video for you this week, created again by Luke Morgan of Morgan Creative. This time he appears as the man in the video, so you can have a peek at the creative mind behind this series. I encourage you to pour yourself a cup of tea and read the poem above, then watch the video and see what is stirred in your own heart. When you ponder your own mortality what are the gifts you immediately want to treasure?

You can order your copy of Dreaming of Stones. I’d be so grateful if you’d consider posting a review to Amazon.com and Goodreads! It helps authors so much in getting their book seen by a wider audience.

My poem “Miriam on the Shores” was featured in Paraclete Press’ daily email newsletter for national poetry month. You can read the poem here>>

Want to dive into sacred poetry with me in Chartres, France? Join me June 10-14, 2019 for a transformative week of reading and writing poetry together (no experience necessary) and the chance to walk an ancient labyrinth. Step onto the threshold where new possibilities beckon.  Register here>>

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner