Christine Valters Paintner's Blog, page 94

Coming Home to Your Body ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks and artists,

I was first diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis when I was 21 years old. The only other person I knew at the time with this disease was my mother and her body had been ravaged by the effects of deterioration, with multiple joint replacements and eventually use of an electric wheelchair for mobility.

I first dealt with my diagnosis through denial. I had just graduated from college and travelled across the country to begin a year of volunteer work. I managed to push my way through fatigue and pain for about six years before I was forced to stop. I was teaching high school at the time and my wrists were growing ever more painful. An x-ray revealed severe damage to the joints despite the aggressive medication I had been taking.

My doctor urged me to stop teaching, it was too much for my body. Thankfully I had private disability insurance through the school where I worked that helped sustain me financially first through a year of rest and healing and later through five years of graduate work to earn a PhD. I lived much of that time with the fear I would never be able to support myself financially. I was profoundly grateful for my loving husband who worked to provide for our needs.

During that first year of disability, without any work to claim when people asked me “what do you do?”, I was often in emotional pain as well over the loss of an identity. I didn’t look sick and often came judgment from others, or inner judgment about why I wasn’t trying harder. Many were supportive, but others offered unwelcome advice or explanations about how I wasn’t thinking the right thoughts. Dr. Joan Borsyenko describes this as “new age fundamentalism.”

A great gift arrived to me one day at church, when a woman asked me that dreaded question. I responded about taking time for healing and she said, “oh, you’re on a sabbatical.” And with that phrase came a wave of relief, a connection to ancient wisdom about our need at times for deep restoration. My body responded with such release.

Language has a way of breaking us through to new understandings, to shift us out of old stories which bind us. Illness can move us into a landscape where we feel keenly a sense of being a stranger – whether to our own bodies, or in navigating health care systems and doctors to find relief and support.

It has been my experience of illness that has been one of the greatest teachers about how to listen to my body’s wisdom and fall in love with her again. Chronic illness can be a kind of sacred journey which doesn’t require that I dismiss the profound pain and uncertainty it brings. Instead it asks me to embrace mystery and unknowing, to seek fellow companions along the way, to understand that the profound discomfort of having so much stripped away can reveal my own gifts in service of healing others.

The year I turned forty I flew to Vienna, Austria by myself for a time of retreat. During the flight I developed a pulmonary embolism which took me several days to get treated. It was terrifying to realize I could have easily died walking alone on those city streets. In allowing myself to be fully present to the fear, to witness my experience with profound compassion, I found myself moving away from the victim’s cry of “why me?” We will never know the answers to those questions.

There is powerful Greek myth about the young maiden Persephone who is abducted into the Underworld by Hades. It is a story of innocence lost. Many of us diagnosed with serious illness feel in some ways “abducted” by forces more powerful than ourselves. Persephone was told that if she ate anything while there she would need to stay, and while some versions say she was tricked into eating the pomegranate seeds, I prefer the versions where she makes this choice herself. As a result she is required to stay there part of each year and becomes the Queen of the Underworld.

She moves from victim to sovereignty. She steps into her role as guide and companion to others who find themselves in that Underworld territory. She becomes the wounded healer. Her wholeness is in both body and soul. We are invited to this wholeness ourselves. When we meet illness with compassion and attention, it can become a journey of initiation into a way of being that deeply honors the paradoxes of life and treasures the tender and grace-filled vulnerability of our bodies.

Join us for a powerful journey of returning home again: The Wisdom of the Body online retreat starts tomorrow! Through the wisdom of the Christian contemplative tradition and body awareness practices informed by yoga, movement, and meditation, you will be invited to fall in love with your body again. Includes live webinars, guest teachers, and a lovingly facilitated forum.

You can also read my reflection on the feast of Epiphany at the Abbey blog>>

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

Give Me a Word 2018 Drawing Winners!

Thank you to everyone who participated in our 2018 Give Me a Word invitation! We had almost 360 participants take the online retreat to help a word choose you. Above is a word cloud made from all the words submitted by January 5th. Please note some appear larger when they were submitted more frequently. Some are quite tiny but are there in the spaces between.

We have done our random drawing and are delighted to announce the winners:

One space in our upcoming New Year's online retreat – The Wisdom of the Body Eva Micirua – Believe
One space in our Lent retreat – Watershed Moments in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures – Julie Mitchell – Believe
One space in our online program Sacred Seasons: A Yearlong Journey through the Celtic Wheel of the Year – Jeannie Marsh – Be Still
4 people will win their choice of our self-study online retreats – Evelyn Jackson – Connection; Judith Doran – Enough; Alma – Flow; Susan Lees – Delight

Congratulations to everyone! If your name is listed above please get in touch with the Abbey so we can enroll you in your online retreats.

You are welcome to still share your word at this post>>

Monk in the World Guest Post: Barb Morris

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Barb Morris' reflection on the danger of being a Monk in the World.

“DANGER.” That’s the sign that should hang at the entrance to every cloister. In big red letters.

The fine print should say, “Warning: Being a Monk in the World is dangerous. Your commitments to silence and solitude, hospitality, community, kinship with creation, work, Sabbath, conversion, and creative joy are subversive and will cause conflict and strife in your everyday life. Your striving for greater wholeness and integrity will not always be peaceful.”

I wish someone had told me before I set foot on this contemplative path that my life would be disrupted. That sitting in silence, being present to Reality around and within me, would jostle loose my detente with the status quo. That accepting holy invitations from the Deep Voice would lead me to terrifying places of profound unrest.

Here’s the current disruption in my life created by my monk commitments.

I’m feeling a desire to leave church. I’m tired of masculine God talk and persistent imagery of atonement and sin. I’m tired of being complicit in the church’s refusal to acknowledge words and structures that are clearly harmful, especially to women, people of color, and the Earth. The glacial pace of change isn’t adequate for me anymore.

I’m a cradle Episcopalian married to an Episcopal priest. I love the Episcopal Church. (As I write, I’m listening to a Thomas Tallis Pandora station.) I’ve taken church sabbaticals several times in the last thirty years, choosing to be outside rather than inside behind stained glass windows. My sabbaticals have been difficult and disruptive for my husband’s parishioners who are also my friends. Leaving church is not a decision I make lightly.

So, what to do when actions that feel faithful and necessary to me seem unfaithful to others?

I remember that following the call of wilderness is not an unfaithful act. Going roadless is, on the contrary, an act of profound faith. Christians for centuries have jumped the cloister walls to seek direct experience of the Divine, unmediated by hierarchy, rules, and doctrinal decrees.

Jesus comes to mind.

The Desert Ammas and Abbas come to mind.

Our Celtic forebears, who sailed rudderless on the open seas in their curraghs, come to mind. Our Celtic forebears, who built isolated huts on the peaks of rocky mountain islands in the Atlantic Ocean and survived on puffins and gannets. Our Celtic forebears, who pioneered new forms of monasticism and evangelized Europe from their wilderness outposts.

There’s ample Christian precedent for going roadless.

Abbess Christine says this about roadlessness in The Soul of a Pilgrim: “The second-century bishop and theologian St. Irenaeus wrote that the true pilgrim was to live life in a state of ‘apavia,’ a Latin word which means 'roadless.' He called for a posture of deep trust in the leading of the Spirit, rather than human direction. In essence, he taught that the place where we don’t know where we’re going is also the place of greatest richness.”

Despite the assurance of St. Irenaeus, the wilderness still scares me, and not only because my going there makes others uncomfortable.

When I go roadless, I come face to face with threats I’d rather avoid.

I come face to face with my reliance on church, parents, teachers, and other authorities to tell me whether or not I’m getting it right.
I come face to face with what I really believe. Or don’t believe, as the case may be. I discover that received ideas about God, faith, and belief won’t cut it. I need sturdier stuff to survive out here. I need real food, real faith in a God that makes sense to me. The desert light shines through the holes in the fabric of my faith, and there’s no one out here to mend them but me.
I come face to face with parts of me I’d rather not meet. I see and hear the me that’s fearful, whiny, and childish. The me that judges and finds fault. The me that just wants things to be different than they are.
I come face to face with loneliness. I want friends, family, and community. I want companions on this roadless road.

Yet, when I’ve had the courage to go, I find the gifts of wilderness are worth facing my fears. I find what can only be found in wild, roadless places.

I find silence for hearing that Deep Voice, the “Bat Kol” of ancient Hebrew tradition for whom the Desert Ammas listened.
I find space for my heart. I can hear my yearning, my pain, and my hope with sharp-edged clarity because there are no external voices to distract me.
I find unexpected beauty. Rocks in the dusty road sparkle, and even the weeds and dirt are lovely.
I find my body, the ultimate wildness.

I’m going wild, for a season or two. Look for me on a mountain peak or sitting on a river rock, face to the sun, dusty feet in the water. I’ll be listening to what’s true for me, finding the bedrock of my faith, sweaty and free. I’ll be trusting in the holiness buried beneath doctrine, rules, and hierarchy to see me through.

Contemplative practices shepherd us back to our integrity and wholeness. Integrity and wholeness, like metamorphosis, shatter our static, shiny outer shells as new growth emerges.

The contemplative life is dangerous, and so worth the risk. I’m glad I didn’t see the warning sign!

Barb Morris is a life coach, writer, and artist living in Bend, Oregon with her Episcopal priest husband. They walked the Camino de Santiago in 2014. Barb is the author of the forthcoming book Choosing Transformation: A Handbook for Change. You can connect with her at www.barbmorris.com.

New Year Blessings + Wisdom of the Body (starts in a week!)

Dearest monks and artists,

It is a quiet Christmas season for us here in Galway. After returning from a beautiful trip to Prague and Vienna for ancestral pilgrimage, John and I both promptly got the flu. I spent all of Christmas day in bed with a fever, barely able to stand up. We were planning on a quiet time anyway, but now the enforced solitude of illness is our companion.

Of course it never feels good to be unwell, I am grateful that I am able to really let down and allow myself to heal during this time. I have not had a cold or flu in a year, so am offering my body lots of gratitude for its fortitude and carrying me through so many seasons so well. And I am extending lots of tenderness for what she needs right now to rest and recover.

I am also aware of illness as an experience of descent. We often fight getting sick so much because we don’t want to slow down, we have things to do, people to serve, lists of things to accomplish. Illness demands that we approach life from a place of vulnerability, of not being in full control, of having to admit our need for others.

In the descent that illness demands there can also be a kind of initiation if we are open to a way of life that is slower, gentler, kinder to ourselves. We are given space to rest into the grace of simply being, recognizing that for a time we are unable to do and we are still whole and beautiful. We are called to see the sacred at work in the hot tea, the long naps, the chicken soup, and the friends who offer their support.

I love these days of the Christmas season between Christmas day and the feast of Epiphany. They feel like time outside of time, full of reflection and dreaming. Lying feverish in my bed has only amplified that timeless quality. I awoke the other day with the words “Wisdom’s Sanctuary” on my heart. I sat with it for a long while, not so much trying to figure it out, but to dwell inside the words and see what they stirred. I think this may be my word for 2018 – a call to create sanctuary space for ancient wisdom, in a world so desperately hungry for it. I imagine I will have more to say about it soon.

As we move toward a new year, notice if your mind is drawn toward making resolutions. Resolutions are usually based in a sense of lack about ourselves, something we need to “fix” so I try to be aware of how I talk to myself. And if there was ever a time of year for advertising to make us question the beauty of our bodies, now would be it. All the promises of a “new you” are seductive. But what if you gave yourself a gift instead? What if you made a commitment to fall in love with your body instead, just as it is? Even in the midst of illness? Even in the midst of its limitations? What if you approached it through trust rather than dissatisfaction? Offered tenderness rather than harsh criticism?

Join us for a powerful journey of returning home again: The Wisdom of the Body online retreat starts in a week! Drawing on wisdom from contemplative and monastic pathways, with weekly live webinars, guest teachers, and a facilitated forum, this will be a place of rich exploration and discovery. If you are someone who identifies as a woman, we’d love to have you join us. (My apologies to the men of the community, but we have a wonderful retreat coming up for Lent on the scriptures you would be most welcome to join led by John.)

For a bonus reflection on Embracing Mystery in the New Year click this link>>

May the year ahead be full of love for this moment now and embodied delight.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

Christmas Blessings ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

The Risk of Birth

This is no time for a child to be born,

With the earth betrayed by war & hate

And a comet slashing the sky to warn

That time runs out & the sun burns late.

That was no time for a child to be born,

In a land in the crushing grip of Rome;

Honour & truth were trampled by scorn-

Yet here did the Saviour make his home.

When is the time for love to be born?

The inn is full on the planet earth,

And by a comet the sky is torn-

Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.

—Madeleine L'Engle

Dearest monks and artists,

All of us at Abbey of the Arts want to wish you the most joyful of Christmas blessings. As the 17th century German mystic Angelus Silesius wrote: "“I must be the Virgin and give birth to God.”

The heart of the Christian tradition is the incarnation, the belief that God dwells in tender flesh and continues to be birthed again and again.

With this feast we celebrate the risk of birth arising from the impulse of love. In the midst of so much sorrow and suffering in the world, to bring forth our own deepest dreams takes courage. To believe that when we follow the leadings of the Spirit that we can contribute to a world of deeper peace and reconciliation requires hope. To bring forth the vision, the seed of new possibility, demands great love.

May you find yourself inspired by courage, infused with hope, and embraced by love.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

Winter Solstice ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

A major obstacle to creativity is wanting to be in the peak season of growth and generation at all times . . . but if we see the soul’s journey as cyclical, like the seasons . . . then we can accept the reality that periods of despair or fallowness are like winter – a resting time that offers us a period of creative hibernation, purification, and regeneration that prepare us for the births of spring.

—Linda Leonard, The Call to Create

Dearest monks and artists,

This reflection is excerpted from our Sacred Seasons online retreat for the Celtic Wheel of the Year:

The Winter Solstice is another profound moment of pause and turning in the great cycle of the year. In Galway our apartment windows face east and south, so one of the great gifts I experience through the seasons is watching the sun make her pilgrimage across the horizon from summer solstice to winter solstice. It is quite a long journey, and on December 21st she will rest at her point furthest south, appearing to stand still for three days before making the return journey again in the long walk toward summer.  It is a rhythm of journey, pause, and return, again and again. It reminds me a great deal of walking a labyrinth and the way I follow the path inward, pause and receive the gifts at the center, and then begin to move more fully out into the world carrying the light that is growing.

I love winter, especially Irish winters which are so rainy and grey, so conducive to lighting candles and making a cup of tea.  I adore the bare branches that reach up to the sky, their stark beauty, the way they reveal the basics.  I love the quietness of winter, fewer people outside.

Linda Leonard’s quote above speaks right to the heart of the gift of honoring the seasons. When we recognize that spring and summer always lead to autumn and winter, in our own lives we will perhaps resist the times of releasing and resting that come to us.

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.

To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,

and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,

and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

—Wendell Berry

This poem speaks to me most pointedly about what embracing the darkness means. It does not mean carrying a light into the dark, it means walking right into the darkness and exploring its landscape so that our other senses become heightened and attuned to the sound of seeds jostling deep beneath the black soil, to hear the slow in and out breath of animals in hibernation, to feel our own heartbeats and the heartbeats of those we love, to experience the pulsing of womb-sounds within us just before the water gets ready to break.

Winter invites me to rest and contemplation, to making time for quiet walks in the few hours of light.  The God of winter invites me into a healing rhythm of rest and renewal, of deep listening in the midst of stillness, of trusting the seeds sprouting deep within that have been planted.  There is a harshness to this winter God as well, winter speaks to me of loss, it is the landscape of my grief in all its beauty and sorrow.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

 

Wisdom of the Body Interview with Guest Teacher Aisling Richmond

Starting January 8, 2018 we will be offering a 10-week online retreat for women – The Wisdom of the Body: An Online Companion Retreat to the Book.

This retreat is for every woman who wants to reclaim her body as sacred, heal a lifetime of thoughts and judgments, offer compassion and love to this tender vessel, and remember that the incarnation means this body is holy. With weekly live webinars (recorded if you miss them), a vibrant and lovingly facilitated forum for sharing your experiences, and weekly offerings from some wonderful guest teachers.

For three weeks, Christine Valters Paintner will be hosting video interviews with our guest teachers so you can get to know their wonderful work a bit more and get a taste of what our online program will offer you.

Aisling Richmond, M.A is a teacher, therapist and soul guide living in the West of Ireland. She loves to share with others a juicy, embodied, and creative approach to life. Aisling holds three teaching qualifications in Yoga, Conscious Dance, and Somatics, and is a fully accredited Somatic therapist. In 2011 she earned her Masters degree in Movement Research, which focused on dance as a spiritual practice and healing art. Aisling teaches weekly Yoga classes, runs Somatic Wisdom courses, and works as a therapist to help people to overcome life challenges through Somatics or body-mind wisdom. She runs retreats set in the beauty spots of Ireland, inviting people into a deeper connection with nature. Having worked collaboratively with many organisations including Amnesty International, Aisling has also been a guest lecturer with both Galway and Limerick Universities. Her passion is to support each person's soul growth, and invite a home-coming to the wisdom and wonder of our sacred bodies. Visit Aisling's website here>>

Pour yourself a cup of tea and settle in for this half-hour conversation about the wisdom of the body and the gifts that come from tending to it with compassion.

Register here: The Wisdom of the Body: An Online Companion Retreat to the Book

Monk in the World Guest Post: Kristen Vincent

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Kristen Vincent's reflection on prayer beads and the mystery of God.

Last year my friend Thayer gifted me with a set of prayer beads. It could have been an ironic gift given that I make prayer beads for a living; it’s not as if I was in need of a set. Instead, the gift was deeply touching. Clearly, Thayer wanted to make a set of beads for me and was confident enough to give them to me. I loved that. The beads were gorgeous: shiny black Czech glass week beads paired with red and black cruciform beads, set off by red and metallic seed beads and a silver pewter cross. Thayer chose black, she explained, to represent the Mystery of God.

Her timing was perfect. A year or two earlier I might not have received this gift of black prayer beads well. As the survivor of childhood trauma, blackness represented the dark, death, a place where scary things happened. Bedtime was particularly difficult; turning off the lights created space for intrusive thoughts and even night terrors. And the idea of mystery was discomforting: it was the unknown, a place in which anything could happen, a void where you could get lost or even lose yourself.

That God was described as Mystery did not help. Why had God allowed me to be traumatized as a child? Where had God been? Why hadn’t God protected me? And where was God now in the midst of my fear? Why did God seem so distant in the dark? To me, that was the mystery.

In 2009 I began praying a desperate prayer for peace. Over time I was led to enroll in The Academy for Spiritual Formation, a two-year program that combines academic learning with spiritual disciplines and community. The Academy is modeled on a monastic rhythm of prayer, worship, community, silence, and solitude. This rhythm created the space I needed to heal. For the first time I was still enough to hear God’s voice. I recognized that God had never abandoned me all those years ago; indeed, God was with me every second, giving me the strength to endure the trauma and cope with its aftermath. God had carried me until I was ready to heal. And God was now present to hear me speak my truth, ask my hard questions, rage and cry and vent, then carefully begin to piece together a new sense of self that was based in God’s Deep Love.

Not surprisingly, it was around this time the darkness began to lose its sense of danger. The night terrors faded away. I could sleep.

Then Thayer gave me this beautiful set of prayer beads, black to represent the Mystery of God.  Thayer – who knew my story and had watched me heal – somehow understood that I was ready to experience God’s Mystery in a new way. And she was right. Because it was only when she offered that gift of black prayer beads and explained the meaning of the color that I felt God’s Mystery. I felt its depth, its power, its richness, and its grace. I felt its triumph and its humility. Most of all, I felt its abiding peace.

Now I look forward to bedtime. I turn out the lights, put on an eye mask, then cover my head with blankets to block out all hope of light. I purposely look deep into the blackness. I don’t see anything. I don’t hear anything. Best of all, I don’t have to do anything. I can just be. It is “i am” with “I AM.” I can rest – really rest – and know that God is with me and in control. There’s no need to be on guard against anything. I can relax and release my entire being to Mystery.

I have taken this same sense of rest and release into the day. Using Christine Valters Paintner’s suggestion, I received a seven-word prayer at the beginning of the year: “Help me release and receive your peace.” I sit with my black set of prayer beads, close my eyes, and repeat this prayer with each bead. I do this until I begin to feel it: that sense of release, that rest, that peace. That is how I’m learning to live in Mystery surrounded by God’s deep love.

Kristen Vincent is author of several books on prayer and prayer beads, including A Bead and a Prayer: A Beginner’s Guide to Protestant Prayer Beads, and Beads of Healing: Prayer, Trauma, and Spiritual Wholeness. Kristen is a graduate of Duke Divinity School and The Academy of Spiritual Formation (#34) and loves to write and lead retreats.  Visit her online at www.prayerworksstudio.com and www.beadsofhealing.com.

Give Me a Word 2018: 9th Annual Giveaway

SHARE YOUR WORD FOR 2018

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 6, 2018 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 ON JANUARY 6TH!

We are delighted to offer some wonderful gifts from the Abbey:

One space in our upcoming New Year's online retreat – The Wisdom of the Body
One space in our online program Sacred Seasons: A Yearlong Journey through the Celtic Wheel of the Year
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 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!

Wisdom of the Body Interview with Guest Teacher Betsey Beckman

Starting January 8, 2018 we will be offering a 10-week online retreat for women – The Wisdom of the Body: An Online Companion Retreat to the Book.

This retreat is for every woman who wants to reclaim her body as sacred, heal a lifetime of thoughts and judgments, offer compassion and love to this tender vessel, and remember that the incarnation means this body is holy. With weekly live webinars (recorded if you miss them), a vibrant and lovingly facilitated forum for sharing your experiences, and weekly offerings from some wonderful guest teachers.

For three weeks, Christine Valters Paintner will be hosting video interviews with our guest teachers so you can get to know their wonderful work a bit more and get a taste of what our online program will offer you.

Betsey Beckman, MM is nationally acclaimed as a spirited dancer, storyteller, teacher of SpiritPlay and dancing Spiritual Director. With her extensive repertory of sacred storydances, she is regularly featured as artist/presenter at national conventions as well as local churches. She earned her Masters in Ministry degree from Seattle University, her certificate in Movement Therapy from the Institute for Transformational Movement, and is a certified InterPlay leader. As dancer, choreographer, author, mother, wife, teacher and spiritual director, she is passionate about living life fully and fostering creativity in all those with whom she shares life and ministry. Betsey’s publications include books (she is co-author of Awakening the Creative Spirit: Bringing the Expressive Arts to Spiritual Direction), recordings, and The Dancing Word series of DVDs on embodied prayer. She offers the gift of playful improvisation whenever possible. Read Betsey's previous guest post for the Abbey here>>

Pour yourself a cup of tea and settle in for this half-hour conversation about the wisdom of the body and the gifts that come from tending to it with compassion.

Register here: The Wisdom of the Body: An Online Companion Retreat to the Book