Christine Valters Paintner's Blog, page 89

Gift for Pre-Ordering The Soul’s Slow Ripening + other resources ~ A love note from your online abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

It has been a wonderful time of sabbatical this summer, time spent resting, time spent dreaming, time spent writing. I even made a trip to the Collegeville Institute at St. John’s University in Minnesota for a memoir writing workshop with Lauren Winner which was a wonderful experience on so many levels, can’t recommend the Collegeville Institute or Lauren as a teacher (and writer) of memoir craft enough. But I also spent lots of days following my own rhythms, going to arts festival events, and taking our sweet dog Sourney on long walks up the canal and down the riverside here in Galway, all while dreaming into the future of the Abbey.

I do have some exciting resources and updates to share with you!

First, is the Contemplative Light podcast where I was interviewed about contemplation, the arts, and working with archetypes. You can find that here>>

Second, I recently published a cover feature for U.S. Catholic magazine on pilgrimage and they have posted it in two parts on their website. Part One explores the eight principles of pilgrimage (drawn from my book The Soul of a Pilgrim) and Part Two offers seven suggestions for pilgrimages you can take without needing to travel far away.

Third, there are only a small handful of spaces left in our Ireland pilgrimages for spring 2019. If you want to join us on pilgrimage out of Galway, consider The Soul’s Slow Ripening  (March 26-April 3, 2019) for a journey that supports discernment of new thresholds. Or join us for our brand new writing, voice, and movement retreat centered around the four elements – Sacred Rhythms of Sky, Sun, Sea, and Stone (April 14-19, 2019) only two spaces left for this one. If you want to join me in the beautiful setting of Chartres, France, I am collaborating with the wonderful labyrinth folks at Veriditas to offer a retreat June 10-14, 2019 on the theme of Poetry and the Sacred Garden of the World. Right after this I will be taking a yearlong sabbatical from live programs, so I would love to welcome you there.

Fourth, if you pre-order your copy of my newest book The Soul’s Slow Ripening: 12 Celtic Practices for Seeking the Sacred and email your receipt to Melinda at dancingmonk@abbeyofthearts.com she will send you a free online mini-retreat which includes a song that has not yet been published. Delighted that my book was featured in Publisher’s Weekly on a renaissance of Celtic spirituality books.

And last but not least, we have been working to update the materials for our FREE Monk in the World online retreat, which explores the 8 principles of being a monk in the world from our Monk Manifesto. One of the additions I am most excited about is that John has written scripture reflections for each principle. Even if you have taken the retreat before, you are welcome to register again at this link>>

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

P.S. We just passed the Celtic feast of Lughnasa in the northern hemisphere and Imbolc in the southern hemisphere on August 1st. It was also the feast of St. Dearbhla on August 3rd. She is one of the Irish saints. Click the links for more reflections.

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

Free Gift for Pre-Ordering *The Soul's Slow Ripening*

If you pre-order your copy of my newest book The Soul’s Slow Ripening: 12 Celtic Practices for Seeking the Sacred (click the link for ways to order) and then email your receipt to my wonderful assistant Melinda she will send you a link to a free online mini-retreat which includes a song that has not yet been published, as well as invitations to contemplative practice and creative expression.

If you want to share anything that came up for you in this retreat experience you can do so either in our Facebook group at Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks or if you are not on Facebook you are welcome to add your reflections in the comments section of this post below.

 

 

Summer Sabbatical (we return on August 5th) ~ A love note from your online abbess

Dearest monks and artists,

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

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

We will be taking a break from our weekly love notes and daily quotes and questions starting tomorrow and will return on Sunday, August 5th with more Abbey goodness. You are still welcome to email us (or register for programs) we might just be a bit slower to respond than usual.

I leave you with this poem I wrote about the gift of Sabbath:

Sabbath

Even as the subway car hurtles

into the tunnel and calendars heave

under growing weight of entries,

even under the familiar lament

for more hours to do

a bell rings somewhere

and a man lays down

his hammer, as if to say

the world can build without me,

a woman sets down

her pen as if to say,

the world will carry on

without my words.

The project left undone,

dust on the shelves,

dishes crusted with morning

egg, the vase of drooping

flowers, and so much work

still to complete,

I journey across the long field

where trees cling to the edges

free to not do anything but

stand their ground,

where buttercups

and bluebells sway

and in this taste of paradise

where rest becomes luminous

and play a prayer of gratitude,

even the stones sing

of a different time,

where burden is lifted

and eternity endures.

(first published in ARTS journal of religion and the arts)

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

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

Monk in the World Guest Post: Nancy L. Agneberg

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to our Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Nancy Agneberg's reflection "Summer Spirituality."

“May you breathe in the beauty of summer with its power of transformation.”

I have a confession to make. I am not a summer person.

I don't like the heat and the humidity and what it does to my thick, curly hair. I don't like mosquitos. To be honest, in the summer I often feel distracted, less productive, drawn away from my garret desk. Nope, I am not a summer person. I am a winter person. I love to hibernate, to enclose myself in a cave where it is dark and snuggly, to wrap myself in sweaters and to eat soups and stews.

The gifts of winter spirituality are easy for me. I live in Minnesota, and the quiet, days of cold and snow and ice invite me to go deeper inside my inner cave, to explore what it is I most need to know about myself and the movement of God in my life. The summer season, however, is a challenge for me. How can I access the spiritual gifts of this time when there is so much to do, so many places to go and people to see, and it all needs to be crammed into a few weeks bookended by holidays and filled with celebrations?

“May you seek and find spaces of repose during these summer months.”

I pray Joyce Rupp's “A Summer Prayer,” and ask myself how can I meet God during this season of so many pleasures? How does summer speak of God to me? How can I grow in my awareness of the presence of God, whether I am walking along the Mississippi River or reading a book on a beach, or harvesting basil for homemade pesto? As I pack for a road trip, how will I remember to make room for the God who yearns for a place in my life, wherever I am?

Summer spirituality invites me into spaciousness. I open the windows of our home to let in fresh air, along with the smell of lilacs, but I can also open the windows of my heart, releasing what is stale and breathless, instead circulating what is fresh and fragrant. With the shift into summer, I have the opportunity to examine routines no longer working for the person I am now and to see with greater clarity how I am growing or need to grow. Is it time to create more simplicity in my life? To pack lightly, not just for a longed-for vacation, but to lighten any burdens of care or worries or tasks no longer necessary. Simplicity is an invitation to discern what is essential.

I know summer has the potential to stretch me. I stretch my body on my early morning walks or while biking in my neighborhood. Perhaps I do some T'ai Chi in a park, instead of in my garret office. Visiting unfamiliar places, seeing new sights, trying new foods and chatting with strangers can broaden my perspectives, my awareness of the world.

“May your eyes see the wonders of God's colors.

May these colors delight you and entice you into

contemplation and joy.”

Summer invites me to use all my senses and to explore its delights and dazzling abundance of treats. Corn on the cob with melted basil butter. The touch of water lapping my feet as I walk a shoreline. The smell of roses in a lush garden. The sound of fireworks on the 4th of July or an outdoor concert and the sight of the moon lingering in the night sky. Savor it all, I remind myself, for the senses are guides across thresholds to the holy. Summer urges me to linger in sacred space, the places where spirit seems most intense. I have felt the sacred while driving country roads past faded red barns, but also on my own front porch with a glass of lemonade in my hands. At the end of a stimulating day exploring new sights or spending time with family or friends, how good it is to ask a loved one, “What was your favorite?” Isn't that a kind of blessing, a way to create sacred memories?

I remind myself to rejoice in celebrations and summer silliness,to celebrate the special, but also look for the extraordinary in the ordinary. Can I rediscover the child I once was. Come, young Nancy, be my summer guide. Recapture the ease of long, lazy days reading Nancy Drew mysteries on a scratchy picnic blanket spread on the lawn or the freedom of turning one way and then another on my bike or comfortable solitude putting together a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle, knowing I have the whole summer to complete it.

“May the God of summer lead us to amazing discoveries

as we travel the inner roads of our souls.”

The heavy, hot days of summer draw me to stillness,for when I am still, not moving, I am open to being moved. Stop, listen to the crickets in the evening or cheers from a distant baseball game, but also to the inner whispers of new ideas, new connections, new deeper awareness.

Listen to the call to embrace summer spirituality.

“May the God of summer give us joy.

May the God of summer give us inner light.”

May it be so.

Quotations in bold are from “A Summer Prayer” in The Circle of Life, The Heart's Journey Through the Seasons by Joyce Rupp and Macrina Wiederkehr. (Sorin Books, Notre Dame, Indiana, 2005) pp 119-120.

Nancy L. Agneberg, writer and spiritual director, finds joy helping others deepen their relationship to the Divine, the Sacred, the Holy, especially as one ages. Nancy is writing a spiritual memoir about her growth as a contemplative in the world. She posts frequently on her blog, http://clearingthespace.blogspot.com

Summer Solstice ~ A love note from your online abbess

Dearest monks and artists,

In the northern hemisphere we approach the celebration of the summer solstice, the longest day.

The seasons are connected to the different cardinal directions, as well as the four elements. Hildegard of Bingen, a 12th century Benedictine Abbess, allied the direction of the south and the season of summer with the element of fire. We find a similar connection in the Native American Cherokee tradition and in the Irish Celtic tradition.

We might think of summer as the season of fire and stoking our passions. It is the season of coming to fullness connected to the Hour of noon and midday, when the sun reaches its peak in the sky. It is the time of fruitfulness, when blossom gives way to sweet abundance of berries and peaches, delicate lettuces and gorgeous tomatoes.

While Beltane on May 1st invited us to tend to the very first fruits of summer’s arrival, the Summer Solstice announces the time for full fruits and an extravagance of color and sweetness in the world around us.

To honor the coming of summer in ritual, consider facing the direction of the south and taking some deep breaths. Let your breath draw your awareness down to your heart center, the place where the mystics tell us the living flame of love dwells within us. You might place a candle on your altar to remember the fire alive within you and the world.

Spend some time in meditation on what your own passions are. What would you like to kindle? Where have been the sparks of joy in your life? What is coming to full fruitfulness? How might you welcome in your own growing fullness?

To enter more deeply into the gifts of the Summer Solstice and the Feast of John the Baptist, consider registering for our yearlong Sacred Seasons program with a mini-retreat for each of the eight turning points of the Celtic wheel of the year.

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

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

Monk in the World Guest Post: Anne MacDermaid

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to our Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Anne MacDermaid's reflection "Just Like Me."

“Breathe in compassion, breathe out regret,” has become my mantra, something soothing in the small and wakeful hours of the night, something to inhale like a tonic when times are stressful, something to ground each breath in a habitual intention to enhance both ways of being and little by little, breath by breath, change the world.

It is always easiest to look outward rather than inward, and indeed there is much to see in looking outward, not least because sometimes to our surprise we see ourselves reflected back in a situation or individual, and if we are canny enough to recognize that, we can learn much from this. Unfortunately, such seeing rather than eliciting compassion, often takes the form of criticism of others. My deceased husband, who was a psychiatrist, used to say, “Whenever you make a critical comment about someone, you should always add at the end of the sentence, ‘just like me.’” His insight made me laugh, but it was also so true, and a useful reminder that we find the same issues within ourselves that we critique in the wide world. We need to consider and address both. “Just like me,” I need to consider and address both!

We live in troubled times, and doubtless each generation before us has felt that as well, from earliest humans faced with primary needs, to our present age where a fortunate small minority have the leisure and the energy to seek enlightenment at will. And yet my memory takes me back to the work-worn, wrinkled Mexican woman in an impoverished hill town south of Guadalajara, who in eighty years had never been as far from her village of wattle huts and seasonal cholera as the main highway ten miles over the mountain, and yet whose faith and wisdom was evident in her piercing gaze as she said in Spanish to this group of strangers, “We are all brothers and sisters, and we all worship the same God.” Her life of hardship, and our witness to it, met as she asked that we keep her and her village in prayer.

It is instinct to regret not having done more: for example, at the market, bought more colourful baskets woven in ancient techniques from reeds and grasses. Should we have organized formal continuing contacts and helped to dig a clean well and contributed school books and clothing and other material goods? But our critique of the medieval way of living and wish to change things reflected our values, not hers. She didn’t ask for any of that, only for our prayers. It was hard for us from the developed world to see that she was asking for what she most wanted— equality and dignity in our shared prayers.

“Breathe in compassion, breathe out regret.” Breathe in the prayers from others that give us strength, and the prayers that we hold up in care and love for those whom we know by name, and the strangers whom we meet only briefly and by chance. It was one of the joys of my life when an elderly Catholic priest, whose parish was on the same island where I first served after ordination, told me that he held me in his daily prayers, and he assured me he was grateful that I reciprocated. The bond of caring and concern which we held for each other as workers in the vineyard made our labours lighter as we modelled respect and acceptance for each other’s spiritual and pastoral journeys, queried and questioned and prayed together.

Is it possible that those breaths will change the world? I believe they will. Quantum physicists are discovering more and more that thoughts can move matter. And prayers can move mountains. How? By giving us the strength and the vision to look beyond our own small lives and actions, to see them as part of an organism made up of all humanity, like a heart that is capable of beating in unison with the pulse of creation, moving in concert to right wrongs and recreate our world as a flourishing garden, where qualities of justice and peace are valued and lived out in action.

I believe that grand creative work begins within, through attaining the personhood we wish to become. Those mirrors that reflect back the issues and ills in the world around us are hints that there is similar work each of us has to do within ourselves. When we go to those places of discomfort we are engaged in holy work, intentionally changing ourselves for the better. And as quantum physicists have demonstrated, those changes within us will inevitably change our world as well.

It’s hard work. It requires deliberation, and courage. It’s the work we do as we are meditating, or strolling along a riverside walk, or when we awaken in those lonely hours, or when we are mulling over problems with trusted kindred spirits. It’s the work we do when we are on our knees and looking for answers to our frustration or grief. It’s the work we do when suddenly we read a phrase or hear a poignant tune or catch a rhythm in bird song or celestial hymn, and suddenly we know that one piece of the puzzle has fitted into place, found its forever home, and the picture is becoming complete.

“Breathe in compassion, breathe out regret.” Each of us has those hidden chambers of the heart where hurt and regret are locked away. Keys and combinations won’t work to unlock them. It takes a gentle touch, a soft voice, persistence and trust— in ourselves, for ourselves— to take our prayers to that place that lays bare the lonely inner cell where hurt and holiness lie embalmed. It takes courage and faith to allow the bright light of compassion to sweep the shadows. With each regret breathed out and away, our capacity increases to change our grave clothes into radiant robes for dancing. That dancing will surely change the universe!

Of Irish heritage, Moira Anne MacDermaid is a retired ordained United Church of Canada minister, who served several rural charges after a first career as University Archivist at Queen’s University, Kingston Canada.   Abbey of the Arts, friends and family, travel, and writing poetry, all enrich her newfound leisure.

Feast of St Columcille of Iona ~ A love note from your online abbess

Dearest monks and artists,

I am heading off to Scotland today to teach our Earth Monastery Intensive at the Bield retreat center in Perth with Betsey Beckman. Then we will travel together for four days on Iona, this will be our second visit and we are dreaming into a future retreat there.

St. Columcille, whose feast day was yesterday, was an Irish saint who journeyed by sea to Scotland and founded the monastery at Iona. There is a beautiful story that when he left Ireland he was overcome with grief at leaving his beloved homeland, but he felt the call to journey other places. The legend says that the night before he sailed off he spent the night sleeping on what was known as the “Flagstone of Loneliness” which was a large flat stone said to carry the grief of any person who spent the night there. It is a beautiful image of the elements, and in particular the density and gravity of stone, as an ally and support in our own tender human journeys.

This is a poem I wrote inspired by this image (first published in Boyne Berries journal and also appears in my upcoming book The Soul’s Slow Ripening: 12 Celtic Practices for Seekers of the Sacred):

Flagstone of Loneliness

"Fear not the heaviness you feel,

give your burdens back to the earth,

for heavy are the mountains, heavy the seas." 

–Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus

On nights when my heart is

thick with sadness and my

limbs and sighs are ballast,

I long to lie down on the

flagstone of loneliness

like Columcille before

he sailed to Iona, leaving behind

the land he loved.

What do the stones feel as

they gather our heaviness

into their granite endurance,

so patient as clouds release

their burden of rain upon them?

Even rivers part ways for boulders,

not willing to risk splitting them wide

and unleash the channel of ancient grief.

We climb rocky summits,

under the illusion we can defy

the gravity of sorrow,

hearts pounding in exhilaration

while mountains grow weightier

under tender feet.

If you sit by a stream and listen

as water makes music over rocks,

you will hear them keening.

-Christine Valters Paintner

May you find your life filled with solid stones able to help you hold the sadness you carry in you.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Icon © Marcy Hall of Rabbit Room Arts

Summer Self-Study Sale (Buy 2 get 1 free)

We are having a special offer on our self-study online retreats. Register for two retreats from our list of 14 options and forward the receipts for both to Melinda at DancingMonk@AbbeyoftheArts.com and choose a retreat that is lesser in value than each of the first two and you receive it for free! You can be enrolled immediately or start at a later date, just let her know. Offer expires June 24th!

 

 

 

Monk in the World Guest Post: Anne Knorr

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Anne Knorr's reflection, "Forgiveness – A Path to Internal Spaciousness."

Motoring thru the waterways of the Inside Passage from Anacortes, Washington to Glacier Bay, Alaska opened my heart to an untamed splendor and wild landscape that refused to be held by anything other than my soul. I had a similar experience three years ago when I walked the Camino de Santiago from Portugal to Spain.  When a friend asked me to sum up my trek in one word, Gratitude was my immediate response.  The word that resonated from my boat experience was Forgiveness and that kind of took me by surprise since it was not something I had on my radar.  About mid-way through our journey my husband and I were nestled in our deck chairs at the stern of our boat with fleece blankets wrapped around us to keep warm. Our evening outdoor sessions had become a ritual I relished as we sat quietly together content to do nothing other than take in the primitive surroundings.  This particular inlet on the east side of Baranof Island was secluded and we happened to be the only boat anchored in a place that looked more like an alpine lake than a ocean cove.  Towering gray granite walls surrounded us covered with dark green pine trees and leafy vegetation.  A cool breeze brushed our cheeks as we listened to the sounds of a hidden stream trickling over a rocky pathway into the still pool of water below. A deep contentment settled over me, as if every cell of my body was relaxed and at home.

I also noticed a compelling desire to share this experience with others yet when my husband mentioned the name of one particular couple I felt an immediate constriction in my gut.  The feeling seemed completely out of sync with the spacious place I had been living for the last eight weeks. And yet, there it was, the part of myself that can be small-minded, insecure and sometimes petty.  Now, it no longer felt comfortable.  Alaska seemed to be whispering in my ear that life if too grand and wondrous to harbor a grudge and like a snake needing to shed an old and dried up layer of skin, my grievances felt too confining. Then an image came to mind of the water beneath me being a deep pool of forgiveness that embraced me while gently coaxing me to release all my hurt, anger and disappointment into her watery depth.  It seemed so simple in that moment to just let go.

The next morning I kayaked to a huge waterfall about a half-mile away.  Drawing close to the cascading water I could feel the mist cling to my face and hair.  When I looked closely at the water tumbling over the rocks I could see countless patterns and smaller waterfalls contained within the larger one.  A powerful “yes” welled up within me and I said the word out loud three times, “yes, yes, yes.”  I didn’t even know what I was saying yes to but it felt like I was consenting to a new way of being, or maybe just saying yes to the radiance surrounding me and to forgiveness.  It was like a shell around my heart was being pulled away leaving it undefended and vulnerable but also spacious and free.  I don’t think an undefended heart is possible without healthy boundaries and an awareness of a divine love protecting it, yet forgiveness demanded I let go of my defenses and the old narratives I clutched onto like a tattered and familiar stuffed toy.  A line from a poem by Christine Valters Paintner captures my experience beautifully.

"I want to forgive a thousand tiny and tremendous transgressions because now all that matters is how small I feel under the sky, even the sparrow hawk takes no notice of me, how enlarged I feel by knowing this smallness."

Later, my husband asked me, “Do you think this view has changed much in the last 1000 years?”  I thought of all those who had come before us; the explorers like John Muir, the hardy fishermen, the native Tlingit tribes, the whales, otters, bears and salmon – “probably not,” I answered.  It is a strange thing to think I could come and go from this earth without leaving a mark, that the view will remain unchanged in a hundred years long after I am gone.  But there is also freedom in knowing "how small I feel under the sky" and "how enlarged I feel by knowing this smallness."  It is from this broader perspective, seeing through the eyes of a monk in the world, that I am able to see the harmony in things that appear contradictory; the wonder and harshness found in nature, the light and the shadow within my self and others, the generosity and horrors played out on the world stage.  Somehow it all gets woven into a larger tapestry that is fuller and richer because of its imperfection and is quite stunning.  When I think of Alaska something within me loosens and I no longer feel the need to demand life abide by my rules.  A space begins to open in my spirit that allows me to accept life on life’s terms and "forgive a thousand tiny and tremendous transgressions."

Anne is an architect and spiritual director who has written a book entitled Sacred Space at Home. She lives in Boulder, Colorado with her husband Bill and spends several months a year on their boat, Mystic Dancer, exploring the coastal waterways of the Northwest.

Feast of St. Kevin of Glendalough ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks and artists,

St Kevin’s feast day is today and the story of St. Kevin and the Blackbird is another one of my favorites of all the stories about Celtic saints. Here is an excerpt from my forthcoming book The Soul’s Slow Ripening: 12 Celtic Practices for Seekers of the Sacred (due out from Ave Maria Press in September):

Kevin was a sixth-century monk and abbot who was a soul friend to many, including Ciaran of Clonmacnoise. After he was ordained, he retreated to a place of solitude, most likely near the Upper Lake at Glendalough, where there is a place called “St. Kevin’s bed.”

He lived there as a hermit for seven years, sleeping on stone and eating very simply: only nuts, herbs, and water. In the writings of his life, it is said that all of creation would sing to him. Kevin is known for his intimacy with nature and animals. It is said that when he was an infant and a young child, a white cow used to come to offer him milk. Later, after he founded his community, an otter would bring salmon from the lake for him to eat.

One of the most well-known stories about him tells that he would pray every day in a small hut, with arms outstretched. The hut was so small, though, that one arm reached out the window. One day, a blackbird landed in his palm and slowly built a nest there. Kevin realized what was happening and knew that he could not pull his hand back with this new life being hatched on it. So he spent however many days it took for the eggs to be laid, the tiny birds to hatch, and the fledglings to ready themselves to fly away with his hand outstretched.

I love this story because it evokes such an image of yielding, of surrendering to something that was “not in the plans” and receiving it as gift. Instead of sitting there in agony trying to figure out how to move the bird, he enters into this moment with great love and hospitality.

How many times in our lives do we reach out our hands for a particular purpose, and something else arrives? It is something that may cause discomfort, something we may want to pull away from, but in our wiser moments we know that this is a holy gift we are invited to receive.

There are stories of St. Columbanus, during his periods of fasting and prayer in places of solitude, calling the creatures to himself, and they running eagerly toward him. Esther de Waal says, “He would summon a squirrel from the tree tops and let it climb all over him, and from time to time its head might be seen peeping through the folds of his robes.” Animals such as bears and wolves, normally feared and hunted, were shown warmth and kindness and responded with mutual respect.

Celtic tradition is full of legends about kinship and intimacy between monks and the wild animals of the forests where they lived. Sometimes the creatures were the ones to lead hermits to their places of prayer and solitude. De Waal tells of St. Brynach, who had a dream in which an angel told him to go along the bank of the river until he saw “a wild white sow with white piglings,” and they would show him the spot for his hermitage. Often the animal that would show the monk his or her cell would stay on as a companion, the two sharing life together.

This is our call in soul friendship as well, to learn how to yield our own agendas and egos and allow ourselves to be vulnerable and transparent in front of another. To show our shadow and tender places, to seek growth knowing that what is kept hidden only festers. When speaking with a soul friend, keep in mind this open-palmed approach to life, not needing to hold too tightly to your own façade or the persona you present in life.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Icon © Marcy Hall at Rabbit Room Arts