Christine Valters Paintner's Blog, page 83

Monk in the World Guest Post: LeAnne Nesbitt

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for LeAnne Nesbitt's reflection "A Circuitous Journey:  Reflections on Two Years of Mandala Making."

A little over two years ago I was facilitating a SoulCollage® workshop at a women’s retreat and serving as event photographer when I made my way over to take pictures of a mandala workshop also being offered that weekend.  After some basic instruction on the mandala form, participants were asked to go out on the grounds in pairs and work together in silence to collect natural materials and create a mandala from what they had gathered.  The results were exquisite and compelling in a way I could not quite articulate at the time.

Two weeks later, I headed to the mountains for my annual personal silent retreat. With mandalas still on my mind, I decided to try creating one on a makeshift altar I’d set up in the little hermitage where I was staying.  The process was peaceful and meditative. While my hands were occupied with the work, I experienced a felt sense of deep communion with my Creator.

Once home and back to my normal routine, I was out for my Sunday morning walk and found myself mentally scanning the landscape for interesting items and arranging mandalas in my mind’s eye. I couldn’t resist the nudge to gather up a few materials and create another. This time, I shared a photo of it on Instagram along with the hashtag #sundaymorningmandala.  Although I thought I might create a series, I never imagined that it was a practice I would continue every Sunday for nearly two years.

My interest in creativity as a contemplative practice originated many years before on another Sunday morning walk in 2003. Captivated by spectacular Autumn light and color, I immediately ran home to retrieve my camera and through the lens discovered a new way of seeing and a spiritual practice I would come to know as contemplative photography.

It was my interest in contemplative photography that eventually led me to the Abbey of the Arts where I found an online community of kindred spirits who had also made the connection between personal creativity and spiritual life. Photography had also awakened within me a desire for creative expression in other forms, and a longing to lead a more contemplative life.  I found an abundance of support, inspiration, and resources behind the walls of this virtual monastery.

The Monk Manifesto offered by our online Abbess, Christine Valters Paintner, resonated with me deeply and I was encouraged that a rich contemplative life was possible even for those of us who were not able to cloister away into a life devoted to prayer.  Along with joining in commitment to living as a Monk in the World, I began exploring other creative forms such as poetry, painting, collage, and dance as spiritual practice.

While I found great joy and satisfaction in my creative endeavors, it wasn’t until I stumbled upon my natural mandala practice that I understood the unique gifts a focused, sustained creative ritual had to offer.

I have often wondered what it was about the mandala practice that kept me coming back so consistently, week after week, to make this ephemeral offering.  Perhaps the simplest, albeit incomplete, answer is that the practice became my teacher. Each week, fresh insights were revealed, and I began experiencing the mandala as a metaphor that illumined my spiritual walk in myriad ways.  I simply couldn’t let go until I’d completed the curriculum. This is not to imply that I’ve graduated from anything, but I believe the practice facilitated in a beautiful way the “ongoing conversion and transformation” the seventh commitment listed in the Monk Manifesto calls us to.

In fact, when sitting down to write this piece, I reflected once again on the manifesto and soon realized that my mandala practice unintentionally addressed each of the other declarations in some way as I…

Worked in silence and solitude, receptive to the voice of the Divine as I gathered and assembled these creations.
Experienced hospitality towards myself by practicing compassion in the face of my own imperfections and limitations which inevitably extended to others.
Cultivated a community of kindred spirits by sharing the work with others both through posting the mandalas online, and by offering workshops so others could experience the process.
Fostered a kinship with creation through an increased awareness of the natural world, its subtle beauty, and how it changes not only from season to season, but year over year in response to humanity’s careless disregard.
Developed a new understanding of what it meant to be fully present to the work and making it an offering of gratitude.
Incorporated my practice into the rhythm of Sabbath—offering an hour each week even when (and especially when) other obligations made demands on my time.
Experienced creative joy and a heart overflowing with “with the inexpressible delights of love.”

My practice came to an end as spontaneously as it began.  Even though I was still a month shy of my two-year anniversary, I simply stopped. Sensing my motivation to complete four more mandalas seemed mostly in service to egoic notions of perfection, I discerned this to be a final lesson in letting go. Thus, the work felt complete in me. It is difficult to express in words the gifts this practice has given me, but I offer this video montage of my final year of mandala making in hopes it will convey the ineffable. May it be a blessing to you as well.

LeAnne Nesbitt lives in Nashville, Tennessee. She holds certificates in Spiritual Direction and Dream Work from the Haden Institute and is a trained SoulCollage® Facilitator.LeAnne believes in the healing power of images and metaphor,  using dream work, poetry, and a variety of intuitive creative practices to help others connect to inner divine wisdom.She writes about these topics and more on her blog, thecreativecontemplative.com

Feast Day of Thomas Merton ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest Monks, artists, and pilgrims,

Today is the feast day of Thomas Merton and I share with you this excerpt from my book Illuminating the Way: Embracing the Wisdom of Monks and Mystics:

“The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence.” (Merton in Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander)

I first read this quote several years ago in a Yoga Journal article on the practice of ahimsa, or nonviolence. It stunned me away because I had never before even considered that the busyness of my life might be a form of violence in which I participate. Merton is not writing this to corporate culture, but to peace activists and other well-meaning folks in the church trying to do good things, too many good things.

While I have always been drawn to the contemplative life, I have never quite looked at busyness in the same way again. I work a lot with people in ministry, mostly training them to use the arts and contemplation in their work and for prayer and self-care. When I taught classes in seminaries, I was often shocked and dismayed to see students stretched so far by school demands that there is really no time and space to integrate all the shifts happening in their understanding or to create life-giving patterns for future ministry. It saddens me because seminary is the place where healthy habits and practices for ministry can be set in place. I wish there was more emphasis on self-care and a recognition of the violence we do to ourselves when we, as Merton says, commit to too many projects and demands. Church culture is just as guilty of this, as busy as the corporate world and demands just as much time and energy, and in the name of doing good work, we keep going.

And yet faith communities have an opportunity, really a responsibility, to be a witness to the world of a genuine alternative way of being. This is one of their prophetic tasks. One that doesn’t invest our value solely in what we do and achieve. A way of being that embraces the humility to know when we have reached our limits, and when we need to say no for the sake of greater life.

Merton’s insight into the violent nature of our doing and busyness led me to an epiphany about the contemplative life. So much has been written about the balance between contemplation and action and how contemplative prayer can renew us to continue the hard path towards justice. To be sure this is all true, but what I began to see was the contemplative life itself as a path of justice, a witness to the world of a way of being that releases the bonds of compulsive doing and resists the violence that busyness can unleash on our bodies, our relationships, our communities. We began to explore this last chapter in the connection between the Prophet and the practice of Sabbath.

Indeed, there are so many good things we could do in the world, but investing our energy in the multitude of goods that exist is an enemy of the best, the way that God calls us most deeply to follow – a way that emerges out of who we are and that honors both our gifts and our limitations. Maturity in the spiritual life means knowing what we are both called to do and what we are called not to do. Self-care means good stewardship of the gifts we have been given and the body that is the vessel that offers them.

Creativity is essential to the world, to imagine new possibilities. Yet, so many of us lead lives that are so full, there is barely room for God’s newness to erupt in us, or for us to even recognize those stirrings when they happen. The monastic path offers us guidance in this direction.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Dancing Monk Icon © Marcy Hall RabbitRoomArts

Monk in the World Guest Post: Melinda Thomas

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Melinda Thomas' reflection "The Season of Many Hats."

The other day I was reading through Christine’s latest book The Soul’s Slow Ripening: 12 Celtic Practices for Seeking the Sacred and pulling quotes for the daily emails when I came across this gem. “Out of all the many things calling for attention: Which one is it the season for?”

In the season before I had a child my days were long, open spaces for contemplative practice. I journaled and practiced asana in the morning before teaching yoga classes. After lunch and a little rest I settled in for an afternoon of writing and work. When the work was finished, I took my dog for a walk then meditated for 20 – 40 minutes before dinner.

That season is long gone.

Today I find myself in the season of many hats. There’s my mom hat, my working hats, my teaching hat. My daughter, sister, and friend hats. My writing hat. My self-care hat. And my contemplative hat which seems to be growing smaller by the day. Some hats I want to wear are tucked away in boxes and stowed somewhere in my closet waiting for the season to change.

I lament their storage.

But when I ask myself the question “What is it the season for?” I feel liberated. I am reminded of the power of choice and freed from my need to do it all. Just because I have a child doesn’t mean I have to wear the mom hat. I could neglect my son, but I choose not to. Just because I’ve been teaching for over a decade and people seem to like my classes doesn’t mean I have to keep teaching. I could stop, but I choose not to.

The list goes on.

Truth is, I rather like my hat collection and think I’d be bored without it.

Back to the shrinking contemplative hat. I only call it shrinking because the actual minutes I devote to what might be called formal practice has reduced significantly. My 90 minute yoga practice is 30 – 45. My 40 minute meditation is but a few breaths at the end of asana, a moment’s pause before getting out of the car before work or picking up my son after. My daily journaling is sporadic.

The list goes on.

I tell myself that while practice is important because it keeps me rooted in what is essential it is equally important to keep it in proportion to the rest of my responsibilities.

Which is why I love yoga and the Rule of St. Benedict. They make it clear that practice is vital and should be responsive to the seasons. But more than that they prescribe the inner stance to be taken whether formal practice occurs or not. Thirty minutes of meditation, recitation of psalms, twisting and folding and opening the body are of no use unless I am also willing to live into the messiness of trying to be a good person.

As a little girl, when I had trouble falling asleep I would listen to books on tape. The Borrower’s is not my favorite story of all time but I listened to it often because of the narrator’s soothing English accent. After only a few minutes she got to the part about the family of people no larger than four inches tall “borrowing” hatpins.

“Butn’t hatpins?” asks the little girl to whom the story is being told.

“A hatpin, is a very useful weapon.”

And off I went to sleep.

It occurs to me that perhaps my small in duration practices this season are like hatpins. Useful little things that keep whatever hat I’m wearing squarely on my head, vertical of my heart, and easy to remove and reset when the hat inevitably slips in front of my eyes.

Which it will. Often. I’ll get overwhelmed, overworked, tired, snippy, anxious. That’s part of the season too. But what practice teaches me is that whatever state I’m in, I can take off the hat, take a breath, put the hat back on, secure the pin and remember that underneath it all, I am still me. Living this season, choosing how to respond, and loving being so very free.

Melinda Thomas is a mother, writer and yoga instructor living in North Carolina. She is also the administrative assistant for the Abbey and finds great joy in being connected to this community. You can read more of her work at TheHouseHoldersPath.com

Writing on the Wild Edges: Participant Poem from Linda Courage

At the end of August, 17 creative souls gathered with us for our retreat on Inismor – Writing on the Wild Edges of the World. We had a wonderful group with participants from all over the U.S., Canada, Singapore, and Australia. I am delighted to share some of their poems over these next few weeks. Pour a cup of tea, imagine yourself on a windswept limestone island in the Atlantic, and savor for a while.

From Linda Courage:

Back yard spaces

With buckets and overturned containers

Diggers and trailers

Useful and necessary at certain moments

But left to befriend passing creatures

And the backwater of gardens

Until they come into their own.

And so it is with us, well me at least

I have all sorts of tools that I’ve laid to rest

Some have become so overgrown and rusted

Never to be used in that form again.

Once I could drive an electron microscope

Now I know there is beauty in the unseen

Once I functioned as a well oiled machine

Now I know that seasons of life ask different things of us

Once I researched and taught

Now I know that confidence is built by walking alongside

Linda Susan Courage is a Nurse and an Expressive Artist. She is coming to the end of a rich and varied career in nursing. She has used the Arts as a means of self expression and exploration for nearly 30 years, and was delighted to discover Abbey of the Arts, which is now her primary spiritual home.

She is a member of Living Spirituality Connections, which resources and connects people asking questions that are not easily addressed in mainstream churches. Here she coordinates The Arts and Spirituality Special Interest Area.

She lives in Selby, a market town in North Yorkshire, England, with her son, Joel, and cat, Millie. She is a novice Fell walker, helps to run contemplative activities locally, and runs occasional expressive art workshops. She loves reading, and poetry.

This poem was written while on pilgrimage with Abbey of the Arts, to Inis Mor off the West coast of Ireland, with wonderful people from all over the earth, who were also Writing on the Wild Edges.

Give Me a Word 2019: Celebrating 10 Years!

SHARE YOUR WORD FOR 2019

In ancient times, wise men and women fled out into the desert to find a place where they could be fully present to God and to their own inner struggles at work within them. The desert became a place to enter into the refiner's fire and be stripped down to one's holy essence. The desert was a threshold place where you emerged different than when you entered.

Many people followed these ammas and abbas, seeking their wisdom and guidance for a meaningful life. One tradition was to ask for a word –  this word or phrase would be something on which to ponder for many days, weeks, months, sometimes a whole lifetime. This practice is connected to lectio divina, where we approach the sacred texts with the same request – "give me a word" we ask – something to nourish me, challenge me, a word I can wrestle with and grow into.  The word which chooses us has the potential to transform us.

What is your word for the year ahead? A word which contains within it a seed of invitation to cross a new threshold in your life?

Share your word in the comments section below by January 4, 2019 and you are automatically entered for the prize drawing (prizes listed below).

A FREE 12-DAY ONLINE MINI-RETREAT TO HELP YOUR WORD CHOOSE YOU. . .

As in past years, I am offering all Abbey newsletter subscribers a gift: a free 12-day online mini-retreat with a suggested practice for each day to help your word choose you and to deepen into your word once it has found you. Even if you participated last year, you are more than welcome to register again.

Subscribe to our email newsletter and you will receive a link to start your mini-retreat today. Your information will never be shared or sold. (If you are already subscribed to the newsletter, look for the link in the Sunday email).

WIN A PRIZE – RANDOM DRAWING GIVEAWAY ENTER BY  JANUARY 4TH!

4 people will win their choice of our self-study online retreats

So please share your word (and it would be wonderful to include a sentence about what it means for you) with us in the comments below.

Subscribe to the Abbey newsletter to receive ongoing inspiration in your in-box. Share the love with others and invite them to participate.  Then stay tuned – on January 6th we will announce the prize winners!

Order Dancing Monk Icon Prints by December 15th

Did you know that you can order high-quality print reproductions of all the dancing monks in our icon series by artist Marcy Hall? The prints are 5×10 inches mounted on an 11×14 matte ready for framing. Imagine inviting St. Hildegard, St. Benedict, St. Brigid, St. Francis, Mary, or one of the 20 other monks and mystics we have images for into your sacred space or as a wonderful gift for a loved one.

Plus we'd like to introduce the newest addition to the dancing monk series, St. Melangell from Powys in Wales, the patron saint of hares. I have recently fallen in love with her story:

St. Melangell was originally from Ireland and wanted to flee an impending marriage and so went to Wales to live as a hermit. She lived there for many years when one day a group of hunters with their dogs are chasing a rabbit across the fields. The rabbit leaps and bounds and arrives to where St. Melangell is living and jumps into her cloak for protection. The hunters and dogs are unable to approach and the prince who is with them is so impressed by this woman’s presence that he gifts her all the land surrounding her hermitage. She says that she will receive it only if it can be a place of sanctuary for any animal in danger.

There is still to this day a chapel in that valley in remembrance of Melangell and the place is still considered a sanctuary. We are called to seek the wild spaces of our lives, to break free from the places that feel confining, but also to find places of sanctuary where we are offered the gift of rest and safety. From there we can find nourishment to return again and again to the wild edges. Click this link to order an icon of Melangell>>

View the entire series of dancing monk icons here>>

Monk in the World Guest Post: Tara Shepersky

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Tara Shepersky's reflection "Anxiety & Radical Hospitality."

I'm alone this weekend, on retreat above the Pacific. Sitting beneath a fuchsia hedge, the loudest sound is the vrzzzzz! of the bright-green hummingbirds, who've grown used to my presence. I heard something very faint half a minute ago, and it took me these thirty seconds to parse it as the musical approach of geese.

If you value silence, as I do – cultivating it within, and breathing relief at its outward manifestation – this probably sounds wonderful. I find it so – and also, it's a frightening challenge. Silence is not easy. But something else tests me harder.

***

The sun this noon is warm, the slight breeze cool. There's a bank of fog lolling about the headland. I am deeply content. And also, I'm afraid.

I struggle with aloneness. Although I enjoy being alone, I hate to live that way. Anxiety is my unshakeable companion. It wanders near or far, but when I am long alone, it sits close. It reminds me that my husband is on a plane to a far-off city. That airplanes fill me with terror. That I am, since first I fell in love, inhabited by waking dreams of my dear one's death.

I've tried all my adult life not to dwell on these fears. Not to give them strength – or admit weakness. I've pursued distraction, barred the inner gate. Of course, that's exhausting. And no, it hasn't worked.

This weekend is only the fourth time in my 35 years I have not just traveled alone, but lodged and lived that way, to a purpose. What's opened me to this new beginning is another: the disciplined study of writing. I realized I wanted to schedule blocks of time in which to think and write uninterrupted, to wander the natural tides of body and mind. To do this, I needed to remove from other voices. I needed to retreat – alone.

I've done this three times now, and guess what? My solitude is haunted. Once open to what is, in David Whyte's beautiful phrase, "just beyond [my]self," I am even more closely accompanied by unbanishable fear. It's happened every time.

This weekend's encounter is new, though, because I've started recently trying to welcome my difficult emotions as guests.

***

Celtic spirituality drew me strongly in my teens. I've heard its resonance echo in my adult life, but I haven't sought it. I've paused to listen, as to a distant bell. Recently, something – my Lutheran upbringing suggests grace – has changed that occasional attendance to a passionate yes.

Choosing this path, I've known I would encounter a principle my privileged introvert self reels away from: hospitality to the stranger. I thought the hardest part would be people, though. In fact, what's challenged me most is inner hospitality: the way hospitality entwines with silence, and opens it further.

The practice of Welcoming Prayer asks us: what if you took time to identify what you feel when fear strikes? What if you name it, know where it sits in your body? Then what if you welcome it – not because you're happy it's there, but because it is there? And sit with it, listening?

In my anxiety this solitary weekend, I have done this three times. I spoke aloud, envisioning my terrors as physical strangers, gesturing them closer, inviting them to draw up a chair and talk with me. As I listened, they didn't leave. They did lean back in their chairs. Their postures eased.

***

Contemplative practices lead me toward graceful acceptance that sometimes being human is just hard. Acknowledgement has not empowered my anxiety. An open heart may not conquer fear, but it seems to offer a wide, forgiving context.

I can't say if my embrace of inner hospitality is "working." The word implies finality, solutions. And there is no "fix" for the beauty, difficulty, and uncertainty of life.

I'm a little easier, though, more of the time. This weekend I am still living with anxiety, but I notice that verb: living. Not existing, not denying, not hiding. I do not get over my fears, but I get used to them. Consistent welcome is a radical way to do that – but it's either that, or they'll pound on the door all night, so that none of us sleep.

Another Celtic practice I love is blessing. Calling down, is how I think of it: summoning the powers of all good things in life upon another.

I write blessings mostly as gifts. I wrote one recently for the birth of a niece I have yet to meet, but already treasure. Yesterday I composed one for myself, as I motored down the freeway, fizzing with anxiety. And I felt it settle.

Blessing for the Anxious Traveller

May your fears and your anxieties

walk easily beside you.

May they point out

what you need to know

and rest

when their wisdom is no longer required.

May you breathe freely,

wonder fully,

and wander well in your travels.

***

Perhaps you know someone who needs a blessing? Maybe it's you. It feels odd, formally addressing yourself or another. But it eases something. It opens some door of kindness or understanding or just witness. To bless is to be present in a way we so rarely embrace. It's another act of radical hospitality.

May you be present. May you accept even anxieties with soul-deep compassion. May you receive with grace, bless with love, and live with radical welcome.

Tara K. Shepersky is an Oregon-based taxonomist, poet, walker, & essayist. Her work has appeared in Cascadia Rising Review, Empty Mirror, Mojave Heart Review, and Sky Island Journal, among others. Find her on the trail, or at pdxpersky.com, and on Twitter @pdxpersky.

Writing on the Wild Edges: Participant Poem from Francine E. Walls

At the end of August, 17 creative souls gathered with us for our retreat on Inismor – Writing on the Wild Edges of the World. We had a wonderful group with participants from all over the U.S., Canada, Singapore, and Australia. I am delighted to share some of their poems over these next few weeks. Pour a cup of tea, imagine yourself on a windswept limestone island in the Atlantic, and savor for a while.

From Francine E. Walls:

The Abbot of Inis Mor turns to his Flock

Pow!  Waves stomp on sand, a fringe

of lace spreads out,

rooted kelp lets down its green hair.

How long must the sea speak its liquid song before you listen?

A currach bobs at anchor on this bay.

Steal away to Iceland or beyond, or,

throw away rudder, oars, sails,

drift to a place of beginnings.

Though hunger growls in your belly,

cold slices like a blade, pirates beset you,

dive into cockles, fish, whales;

cry like a gull, swim into froth.

Your way may be barely discernible,

gray against gray, blue against blue.

Closer, see a cleft in the wall, a slender harbor.

Be certain of your desire.

What you release can never be retrieved.

Then, call yourself Bold.

Say, Fare thee well,

Say, Welcome.

—Francine E. Walls

Poems by Francine E. Walls appear in the writing text, Writing Across Cultures: A Handbook on Writing Poetry and Lyrical Prose, the anthology, Peace Poets v. 2 & journals such as Pontoon, Passager, Ekphrasis, damselfly press, Avocet & Strange Poetry.  Born & raised in the Pacific Northwest, she worked for years as a college librarian and teacher.  Her blog of poems & photographs is at A Long Perspective.

Writing on the Wild Edges: Participant Poem from Francine E. Wells

At the end of August, 17 creative souls gathered with us for our retreat on Inismor – Writing on the Wild Edges of the World. We had a wonderful group with participants from all over the U.S., Canada, Singapore, and Australia. I am delighted to share some of their poems over these next few weeks. Pour a cup of tea, imagine yourself on a windswept limestone island in the Atlantic, and savor for a while.

From Francine E. Wells:

The Abbot of Inis Mor turns to his Flock

Pow!  Waves stomp on sand, a fringe

of lace spreads out,

rooted kelp lets down its green hair.

How long must the sea speak its liquid song before you listen?

A currach bobs at anchor on this bay.

Steal away to Iceland or beyond, or,

throw away rudder, oars, sails,

drift to a place of beginnings.

Though hunger growls in your belly,

cold slices like a blade, pirates beset you,

dive into cockles, fish, whales;

cry like a gull, swim into froth.

Your way may be barely discernible,

gray against gray, blue against blue.

Closer, see a cleft in the wall, a slender harbor.

Be certain of your desire.

What you release can never be retrieved.

Then, call yourself Bold.

Say, Fare thee well,

Say, Welcome.

—Francine E. Walls

Poems by Francine E. Walls appear in the writing text, Writing Across Cultures: A Handbook on Writing Poetry and Lyrical Prose, the anthology, Peace Poets v. 2 & journals such as Pontoon, Passager, Ekphrasis, damselfly press, Avocet & Strange Poetry.  Born & raised in the Pacific Northwest, she worked for years as a college librarian and teacher.  Her blog of poems & photographs is at A Long Perspective.

Join us for our online Advent retreat (starts today!) ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest Monks, artists, and pilgrims,

Today the season of Advent begins and I offer you a brief excerpt from our online retreat Signs in the Sun, Moon, and Stars:

In the Celtic tradition, one of the central teachings is the idea that there are two books of revelation – one is the written scriptures and the other is the book of Creation. Both reveal the face of the divine to us, both have profound gifts to offer.

The gospel reading for today talks about looking for the “signs in the sun, moon, and stars” which forms the title of this Advent retreat. Advent is a time for slowing down, even while the rest of the world around us is rushing toward Christmas with endless shopping and preparations, Advent invites us into a different way of being. One that makes time to notice the sun’s journey across the sky each day, one that steps outside in the evening to gaze at the stars and the moon in wonder. To imagine what life was like for the ancient peoples, when sun, moon, and stars were guiding lights and navigational tools.

I invite you for this season ahead to give yourself the gift of time and slowness. To ask yourself if you really need to buy one more gift or attend one more party. To nourish yourself with time spent in nature and savouring moments of silence. To awaken to the possibility of unexpected gifts awaiting you.

What is your intention for this time? What is your heart’s deep desire as we prepare for the holy birthing in our midst?

The Practices of Wonder, Mutuality, and Presence

The ancient monks used to practice a kind of inner and outer watchfulness. The desert mothers and fathers write about this frequently, a central part of their spiritual discipline was to show up for life and pay attention. This kind of presence can be challenging in our modern world when our attention is pulled in so many different directions. Presence is a gift we offer to another.

Cultivating contemplative presence to the natural world means growing in intimacy with creation into a way of mutuality, where we recognize that nature is not just there for our benefit but has existence and intrinsic value apart from us and our needs. Mutuality means that we listen to what nature has to say to us, we allow our hearts to be opened by our encounters there.

Walking the path of wonder is a radical act in a world numbed by cynicism and despair. Trusting that holy surprises await us each moment if we only pay attention is a practice worth cultivating. In the coming days, notice when your thoughts start to tell a story of predictability, of knowing how things will turn out, or of trying to control the outcome. Practice wonder and presence to the world, listen deeply to her whispers.

Please join us for a contemplative journey with creation through Advent (we start today!)>>

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner