Christine Valters Paintner's Blog, page 98

Monk in the World Guest Post: Ray Tetz

I am delighted  to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series. Read on for Ray Tetz's reflection, "Here We Go."

UA 301 LAX to BWI, Early June

The rather elderly couple in line behind me were worried about being in the right line. After listening for a few minutes, I turned and suggested that since he uses a cane, he could probably pre-board, and avoid the line entirely.

“I hate doing that,” he said. “Like getting the senior discount, it’s a little bit embarrassing.”

“Nah,” I said. “It will be so much easier for you. And believe me, every person in this line is trying to figure out how to get on that plane first. Just go for it. (And those senior discounts are great.)”

He mustered the smallest possible smile. His wife grabbed her bag and headed towards the pre-boards. He looked at me with something like resignation. “Here we go,” he said.

Here we go, indeed. There is an Australian couple just one row in front of me that don’t much like flying. I know they are Australian because of their accents and his teeshirt. I know they don’t like flying because of their hushed and worried conversation that is clearly about the airplane and the safety card. The man just got a small stuffed Winnie the Pooh wearing a safari hat out of his carry on and has stuffed it into the seat pocket so the Winnie’s head and hat are sticking out looking at him. He has finally settled back in his seat and is looking intently at the little Winnie. “Here we go,” I want to say. “Just ask that guy over there with the cane in the overhead who is adjusting his hearing aid. He knows all about it.”

There’s a woman traveling by herself worried about her suitcase. She’s trying to rearrange all the other bags in the overhead bins so there will be room for hers. A man with a slightly pained expression has stood up to help her. He’s still wearing his coat and tie, all buttoned up and neat, and has suddenly been transformed from a seriously preoccupied road warrior to a skyhop. He’s pushing the stuff all around, trying to make room, she is directing his every move. Ah, he’s done it—the overhead door closes. His pained expression has given way to a grim little smile of satisfaction. And he’s made a friend for life—or at least the rest of this flight. They are talking now, and he’s got his phone out showing her pictures of his grandkids. She’s leaning forward to see them, her smile is genuine. Here we go.

There are only two empty seats on this plane, and one of them is next to me. I feel very fortunate. The woman in the aisle is very pleased as well, and has started to array her possessions for easy access in the half of the seat closest to her. She looks at me briefly to see if that’s a problem. I smile just enough so she knows that I think we are both lucky. Here we go. It’s alright.

I have my earbuds in, and I’m looking out over the wing at the clouds and the Arizona desert below us. I’m ignoring the folder of work I optimistically brought along. It’s Friday, and I don’t feel much like working. Perhaps I’ll just look out the window. Or write a little. The light coming through the window is almost white, and reflects off of my hands resting on the tray-table. My fingers shine, too.

I gather the unexpected sanctuary that this seat has become around me, and even the steady hum of the engine seems far away. “Here we go,” I repeat to myself, “We go.”

I like to imagine that everyone on this plane is going home to someone they love. Or perhaps they are off on a great adventure they’ve been planning for years. There must be some very important reasons they all got up this morning and got on this plane. I don’t really want to know all of them, not right now. I’ve got my music on shuffle, and Neko Case is singing that old Harry Nilsson song, “Don’t Forget Me,” the one he recorded one drunken weekend with John Lennon. They’re both gone now, but the song is still here. That’s a little sad.

But I’m still here. I’ve got a window in the exit row, and an empty seat beside me. A book half-read and time to reflect.  How cool is that?

By habit I fold my hands and lower my head, and from the corner of my eye I see my seatmate softly smiling. Not at me, particularly. Perhaps she has also found her sanctuary. She takes a long drink from her water bottle and leans her head back against the seat, silently closing her eyes. I go back to my book.

I hope everyone on this plane is going home. Because here we go.

Ray Tetz has been a pastor, teacher, and writer. For 40+ years he has worked with faith-based organizations to communicate their mission and vision to the communities they serve. He lives in Thousand Oaks, California.

 

Writing on the Wild Edges ~ A love note from your online abbess

Dreaming of Stones

In the world before waking

I meet a winged one,

feathered, untethered,

who presses in my palm

three precious stones,

like St. Ita in her dream,

but similarities end there,

her with saintliness and certainty,

me asking questions in the dark.

All I know is

I am not crafted from

patience of rock or gravity of earth,

nor flow of river,

I am not otter with

her hours devoted to play.

I am none of these.

At least not yet.

The stones will still be singing

centuries from now,

made smooth by

all kinds of weather.

If I strike them together,

they spark and kindle.

Do I store them as treasures

to secretly admire

on storm-soaked days?

Or wear them as an amulet

around my neck?

When the angel returns to me

in the harsh truth of last morning,

will she ask

what have I endured,

treasured, and sparked?

Will she ask what have I hidden away

and what made visible?

—Christine Valters Paintner (first published in Spiritus journal)

Dearest monks and artists,

In October, John and I led our weeklong writing retreat on the sacred and magical island of Inismor, off the coast of Connemara in the west of Ireland. We have led this retreat several times and there is something so special about extended time on this small limestone outcropping in the Atlantic Ocean that has been a place for pilgrimage for hundreds of years. We gather together in the mornings for shared ritual and song, lectio divina, and writing practice. We write for the love of it, we write to generate new ideas, we write to discover what we know, and we experiment with some different forms to see what happens when we stretch out of old patterns.

I have always considered myself a writer, first and foremost, since I was a fairly young girl. Perhaps being an only child and an introvert who loved books, drew me into the dance of words and the space between them, and how they can dazzle me into new knowing. I was fortunate to take on a journaling practice in my twenties, inspired by Julia Cameron’s lovely book The Artist’s Way. I was deeply inspired by the illuminated manuscripts and the monks who lovingly and painstakingly copied those words with their beautiful embellishments. I wanted so much to live a creative life in the midst of the work I was called to do in teaching, retreat facilitation, and spiritual direction.

The balance hasn’t always been easy. I went on to graduate school, mostly because I wanted to immerse myself in words and writing, and my hope was that the PhD program would somehow cultivate my writing skills. It did shape me into an academic writer for a long time, and it did give me important tools of scholarship and research which I still draw on far outside the walls of academia.

After finishing my doctoral studies, I was drawn to start writing a blog. Blogging was fairly new then, this was twelve years ago. It forced me to write more succinctly and for a much wider audience than my academic training had encouraged. And of course, that blog became Abbey of the Arts, which in turn became a global community. I am still in awe of how things unfold.

It is a tremendous privilege that I am able to write and publish books that feel meaningful to me and others. I still struggle at times with the “balance” between my own creative work and my time spent teaching and facilitating others, another passion of mine. I stay open to the Spirit at work in these different activities.

When we first moved to Ireland five years ago I started taking poetry classes again to hone my own craft. That has been an exhilarating journey of deepening into my own poetic voice and finding a wonderful community here in Galway of support.

The poem above is inspired by St. Ita. She was one of the women saints and mystics of Ireland and she was a teacher and mentor to St. Brendan, one of the very well known monks of this land. Ita had a dream about receiving three stones as a promise to her of what was to come. I loved entering into this moment as the inspiration for the poem that eventually emerged. While I write poems on a number of subjects, the poems I write inspired by particular monks and mystics feel like a doorway of connection to these saints beyond the veil. In writing them I want to connect ordinary people to the lives of these remarkable people and to make them somehow more accessible, to see how their lives and witness might offer guidance for our own.

So I encourage you to sit with the poem above. On our writing retreat we practice lectio divina with poetry, reading a particular poem out loud several times and listening for the word or phrase that shimmers, then letting that unfold in the imagination until we hear an invitation, and then rest into silence. I invite you to consider a version of this process and to see what a poem calls you to see and hear in new ways.

For me, the divine voice speaks so often through the gift of poetry. Poems slow us down, invite us to pause and linger, to repeat words so we can savor them and let them infuse into our very being. They offer the world back to us in a new form, in a new way.

(Our writing retreat in 2018 is nearly full, find more details here)

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

Writing on the Wild Edges: Participant Poems (Evelyn Jackson)

This past October we led one of our Writing on the Wild Edges retreats on the beautiful island of Inismor off the coast of Galway. We will be sharing some of the writing which participants gave us permission to share here in the next few weeks. Up next are poems by Evelyn Jackson.

(If you'd like to join us, we have our dates open for 2018 – August 26-September 1)

The Knitting Place

Bring your intention and a piece of yarn

to the sacred hawthorn tree.

Tie your intention there on one of its branches.

Red berries wink between the leaves

to remind you of the sweetness and tartness of life.

Seven times ‘round the well

then the earth lifts up her holy liquid.

Bless all your broken pieces with it

while she knits and purls

you whole again.

Wet and fresh now

go to the standing stone.

Wrap yourself around it.

Rub away the frayed edges.

Smooth the rough places.

Knit whole now

pass through the circle in the sun stone.

Arrive on the other side

as you were when

God knit you together in your mother’s womb.

Spread yourself on the ruined altar

to dry in the sun

Warm and full of gratitude

that this place has put back together

what the world has torn apart.

 

Tap, tap, tap

The old man kneels on damp earth

Wet patches spread at his knees

Joints complain, creak then

Surrender.

He picks up hammer and chisel

Begins to tap on the long flat stone

Laying before him

Gouging a line on the rough surface.

Tap, tap, tap

Gnarled fingers hold tight the tools

Clouded eyes squint to see

Memories of his eighty years on earth

Guide his hands.

Tap, tap, tap

A form appears

Straight lines

Widened, smoothed

A cross

Deep within the stone

The sounds awaken the ancestors

Slumbering in their eternity

Safe there.

Tap, tap,tap

Cross finished,  he raises the stone

Slipping it into the hole,

Tamping earth around it.

A tall monument to his faith.

The ancestors hear his sighs.

They feel him struggle with the stone.

They sense his ragged breath, the irregular thrumming of his heart

And know that soon they will welcome him home.

Tap, tap, tap.

Evelyn Jackson is a retired American nurse currently living in rural France with her dog, Lucie. She has been a scribbler since grade school. Since moving to France, she has been a member of the Parisot Writing Group where she’s grown from journaling and blogging to writing fiction, creative nonfiction, life writing and poetry. Her other interest is photography. She combines this with writing on her blog at www.melangedmagic.com

Upcoming online retreats at the Abbey

We have lots of wonderful opportunities for you to retreat online in the coming months. There is always a vibrant community that gathers, live sessions with Christine Valters Paintner, and materials stay available to you long after the retreat, so you can linger as long as you need.

Birthing the Holy: Wisdom of Mary and the Sacred Feminine (Advent online retreat)

December 3, 2017-January 1, 2018

Early registration discount when you sign up before November 6th!

For Advent we have a beautiful retreat in the works for you exploring the wisdom of Mary and the sacred feminine. This retreat is open to both men and women who want to spend time with some of the names Mary has been given. These archetypes help to break open those qualities within us, and lead us closer to the holy birth.

Click here for more details and registration>>

Writing as a Spiritual Practice: Following Your Inner Star (Epiphany online mini-retreat)

Saturday, January 6, 2018

Epiphany is a celebration of revelation, of eyes seeing in new ways, of holy surprise. On this feast we honor the calling of the wise ones across the desert to witness the holy birthing of the Christ child and bearing fragrant and lush gifts. This is a perfect time to pause and reflect, to retreat and write, to see what we discover in this sacred container we will create together. This is the time to follow our inner star.

Click here for more details and registration>>

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

January 8-March 18, 2018

Imagine journeying through a season together in a caravan of souls committed to exploration, curiosity, tenderness, and delight. Imagine breathing deeply and feeling intimacy with an old and wise friend. Imagine, as Buddhist writer Reginald Ray says, to discover the last unexplored wilderness, which is the body. Each week breaks open a different theme to help us make the descent into our body's experience and receive its wisdom.

Click here for more details and registration>>

Dreaming of the Sea: A Women's Discernment Journey through the Story of the Selkie

March 26-May 12, 2018

Stories invite us into transformation. We step inside their dream space. We are invited to release our thinking and striving minds, to surrender to a wisdom that is far deeper and more expansive. They call forth new archetypal energies within us that have been hidden and forgotten. Stories call us to re-member which means to make whole again. In the ancient Celtic stories Selkies are shapeshifters. They move between worlds. They are women who take the form of a seal when in the sea and human form on land.

Click here for more details and registration>>

**Also coming: An online retreat for Lent on exploring the scriptures with John Valters Paintner, Richard Bruxvoort Colligan, and Melissa Layer (February 14-April 1, 2018). More details posted soon!

Monk in the World Guest Post: Kathy Roy

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World Guest Post series from the community. Read on for Kathy Roy's reflection, "The Gifts of Silent Retreat."

Every year, I go on a silent retreat as part of my commitment to living the contemplative path.  I always choose a place that is secluded and nestled into nature.  This year, I rented a home in Peggy’s Cove with beautiful walking trails and views of the Atlantic Ocean.

I was entering the silence to prepare myself for crossing the threshold into ministry.  I had been studying the mystical heart of the world’s wisdom traditions for the past two years and was about to be ordained as an Interfaith/Interspiritual minister.

There was a question that I carried with me into the silence:  How then shall I live?  This question had been echoing in my heart as ordination approached and I yearned for this time of silence and reflection.

The day I arrived at the retreat, I parked in the driveway and was about to get out of my car when I saw a rustling in the trees in front of me.  The face of a deer emerged from behind the branches.  This beautiful animal was having its dinner and when it saw me, it stopped and stared.  It must have determined that I wasn’t much of a threat because it soon went back to munching leaves and I was able to sit and watch it.  I have always had an affinity for deer and having this one so close was a gift.  I sat there feeling a need to hush in awe, thus started my entry into silence.

It didn’t take me long to discover that this house I was nestling into was, first and foremost, the home of the deer.  The house was surrounded by windows and I could watch the deer, five in all, come wandering out of the woods at the back of the house, slowly munching on leaves as they meandered to the front where there were tender bushes to dine on.  The deer brought with them a reminder of gentleness and compassion.  When they were close enough, I was able to see their eyes and could feel the gentleness of their spirit.  Yet these deer were not skittish.  When I went out on the deck to watch them, the youngest one turned to me, stamped its front hoof firmly on the ground as if to say ‘This is mine’.  It was easy to agree.  This was the deer’s land.  They knew it inside and out and I was but a guest.

This feeling of being the guest of nature stayed with me throughout my retreat.  One morning, I woke very early and watched the sun rise over the water.  I went out for a walk and sat on the rocks by the sea.  A duck was also up to greet the day and swam a few feet from me, periodically diving under the water to feed.  Over to the right of me, a heron stood perfectly still, he too was watching for his morning meal.  Ripples formed around the duck as it slowly paddled away from me.  Small circles expanding ever outward. My heart seemed to echo the movement and to grow inside my chest.  The communion I felt in this place was softening me, helping me breathe easier and feel more peace.

My final morning, I made myself a cup of coffee and stood at the window looking out over the beauty of the land and ocean.  I had enjoyed my time here.  I felt fed and nourished by nature, by my meditation and by rest.

The words, You know what to do, were the only response I had received to my question:  how then shall I live?  I was a little perplexed by this, because my intellect wanted a more directive answer.  Suddenly, as I stood in front of the window gazing outward, I felt a deep outpouring from my heart.  It was like my heart poured out over the land, the water, the animals and the people to hold it all in an embrace.  A deep welling up and pouring forth that was accompanied by the words from deep within – ‘I want to care for this.’

Months later, I am still affected by those words.  This is how I am to live.  With deep and abiding care for all of creation.  I have always had a love for nature, but something shifted during that retreat.  My love for this earth expanded, deepened, transformed . . . I don’t have the exact word to describe it . . . the moment was a humble outpouring, while at the same time a deep filling up took place.  I felt awash with love for it all.

The gifts that arise out of these times of silent retreat are always deeply soul nourishing.  Entering the silence is an invitation to dance with God.  I find this dedicated time of silence is my willingness and consent to be ‘done unto’ and surrender my role of being the doer.  I like this place of sweet surrender.  My soul yearns for it.

I returned home from my retreat to write my vow for ordination.  The words formed themselves: I vow to show up with my heart and to live in service to Love.  This is how I shall live.

Kathy Roy is an Interfaith/Interspiritual Minister and a Spiritual Director trained in the Contemplative path.  She can often be found walking local beaches where she draws inspiration from nature.  She shares her reflections about the Contemplative on her blog KathyRoy.com.

Samhain Blessings and Feast of All Saints & Souls ~ A love note from your online abbess

Dearest monks and artists,

Tuesday night and Wednesday in the Celtic seasonal calendar is the feast of Samhain and in the Christian liturgical cycle the Feast of All Saints (followed by All Souls). It is a very special time of year when the northern hemisphere is moving toward growing darkness and is time of preparation for stillness and rest. In the Irish imagination, this is a threshold time, when the veil between worlds feels especially thin. Darkness invites us to rest into the mystery of things.

This is one of my favorite moments of the year’s unfolding. Three years ago at this time the belongings we had kept in storage in Seattle – two pieces of family furniture and boxes of family photos – arrived to our home in Galway, bringing a deeper sense of rootedness here for us. Having those tangible connections to our ancestors felt like a gift in those November days.

In May 2016, we traveled to Vienna, Austria to lead a pilgrimage group and spent some time at the beautiful Central Cemetery. This is the place where my father is buried alongside his parents. I visited his grave and encountered there a cuckoo bird circling from tree to tree, calling out to me again and again. I had never had an encounter like this before with my father’s spirit. As many of you know, much of our travel over the last several years and the time we spent living in Vienna had to do with healing this difficult relationship.

I took the cuckoo bird to be a sign of his reaching out to me and have been holding that image for the last several months, savoring the solace it brought. What puzzled me about the cuckoo bird’s appearance is that it lays its eggs in the nest of another bird, removing the eggs already there, and lets the other bird warm its own offspring to hatching.

Then in October 2016, on the anniversary of my mother’s death and while receiving a massage from a very gifted woman here in Galway, I had a waking dream while lying on the table in the liminal space between waking and sleeping. I had been dealing with a difficult situation and my father appeared to me saying that the eggs that had been given to me were not mine to mind and doing so would take away the nurturing from my own new birthings. I began to weep at this gift of clarity.

In the dream, my father then asked me for an embrace, and I felt such an overflow of love toward him like I have never experienced. I could suddenly see him as both his innocent child self and the grown man he had become. His parents also appeared and encircled us both with their embrace. I saw this gorgeous light in the distance, the stunning gold light of October sun. I said to the three of them that they didn’t need to stay here any longer, they could walk toward the light, and so they did.

I lay there for several minutes following and savored this encounter, it felt like such a gift. After I got dressed and went out to see my massage therapist, she said that she felt my father’s presence in the room and this beautiful golden light surrounding us both. I was stunned, because I had said nothing to her of the dream and there is no way she could have known what had transpired. It was a gift of confirmation.

I have continued to savor this opening to deeper love and freedom in the months that have followed. These are the kind of magical encounters that can happen when we open ourselves to them. Almost twenty years after my father’s passing, a great healing arrived.

May you experience the thinness of the veil in your own life and may the ancestors guide you with their wisdom and love.

Join us for our online retreat Honoring Saints and Ancestors, and together we will make a journey of remembrance during this holy time of year

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

Writing on the Wild Edges: Participant Poems (Anne MacDermaid)

This past October we led one of our Writing on the Wild Edges retreats on the beautiful island of Inismor off the coast of Galway. We will be sharing some of the writing which participants gave us permission to share here in the next few weeks. Up next are poems by Anne McDermaid.

Dry Stone Walls

Sea walls of boulders

look invincible

barricades constructed

against the tides and

forces of nature

yet here and there

I see breaks where

fresh air and storm surges

wash into sparse fields and

change the patterns of

survival once again.

Stone can fence you in or

protect you,

crush you or

give you a vantage point

become a fortress or

a chapel or

a vault.

I must choose

what to build.

An Intention

What ancestral memories

call me home to a land of

rugged rocks and roiling sea?

Not much comfort evident here

yet there is a bright peat fire

at the hearth

warming both heart and soul

if I should choose to

look both inward and beyond.

St. Kieran’s Church

I saved the smoothest roundest stone

til last

warmed in the palm of my hand

most precious like memory

because it is small yet

heavy with imaginings and

echoes of pilgrims

whose hands have bequeathed

this stone and this time

to me.

Grey Day

A benediction of blackberries

reaches over the dry stone wall

and offers a rich dense gift to savor

against the grey stone and

the grey sea

flat with a long surge

that washes all colour and hue away

except for the splash of red

on my fingers.

 Before Words

“These were perhaps the original poetry” —Moya Cannon

Hands moving across a table

towards each other or

stretching in unison to the

words of a song

swaying in rhythm guided by

the metre of breathing or

hearts beating as one

like a repetitive chorus that

grows and swells to a

sustained  chord

echoing and ringing and then

finally finding words.

Seven Churches

Rings and roads of rocks

lead to the sea with

salt air tangy in the nostrils

lead to the pier where the

boat pushes off and the

invitation is there to

come aboard

head to new waters and

find a new country

rising out of the mist

unexpected to the eye but

foreshadowed by the ears’

quick attention to surf pounding

on the shore and the

scent of sweet mown hay

drifting seaward on the breeze.

The Beehive Hut

I sit in the silence

feel sun warming every bone

feet on pilgrims’ ground

winding path before and beyond

scattered with blackberries and birds

ripple of breeze and

breath of the Spirit.

In the long low light

sparseness and simplicity

turn into a holy feast.

Rev. Anne MacDermaid is a retired United Church of Canada minister, who was called to ordained ministry after a previous career as University Archivist at Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada. Of Irish and United Empire Loyalist heritage, Anne served in several pastoral charges, chaired the Board of Queen’s Theological College, and has had a lifelong passion for creative writing, proclaimed in sermons and in poetry.  Quilting, hiking, gourmet cooking, photography, travelling the world with friends old and new, and spending time with her son and his family and her own far-flung siblings add richness to the joys of living.   Her lifelong journey of faith has been “before the Lord” as a comfort and a companion.

Mystics and Makers Podcast – Interview with Christine

Stephen Roach who hosts the wonderful Mystics and Makers podcast interviewed me for an episode about my book The Artist’s Rule, creativity and spirituality, and ways to nourish the artistic life.

Click here to listen to the podcast >>

Monk in the World Guest Post: Cheryl Bartky

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Cheryl Bartky's reflection, "Eclipses and Shooting Stars."

The solar eclipse may be a forgotten memory for many of the millions of people who watched it on August 21st.  But for me, it is still alive: the slow progression of the moon’s shadow sweeping across the Sun.  The moments of complete darkness.   The shimmer of the Sun’s corona surrounding its now blackened center.  The re-emergence of the Sun’s light with a dazzling diamond flash.  The progressive unveiling of the Sun’s radiant orb until it resumes reign over the day sky.  I savor it still.  And it fills me with the sense of child-like wonder that I feel is my essence—the very best of me.  Nature has always been my favorite temple.  As a youth I aspired to be an astronomer and to this day it is in the awesome expanse of the sky that I still feel a deep connection to the magic and mystery of life.

This year’s total eclipse of the sun captured the imaginations of millions across the USA and the world.  Yet nature is around us all the time—in the weather we enjoy or suffer, the trees we climbed as kids or shelter beneath in the heat or rain as adults, the clouds we watch morph into angelic or demonic shapes, the weeds that thrive even in sidewalk cracks.  But it can take spectacular events like a rare solar eclipse to grab our attention.  Just as it takes sudden miracles that cause us to cry out in relief or amazement to alert us that grace indeed exists.  Events like an eclipse give us pause.  To register its magnificence, we actually have to stand or sit still to notice it.  Just as we have to stay still at times to absorb the gradual change that is always happening in our lives if we only pay attention.  A solar eclipse awakens our ability to be mindful.  To be present to the magic that unfolds in life.  As a person whose adult career choices include dance-movement therapist and spiritual director, noticing the movement of spirit in daily life is what my life centers on.  Nature grounds me in this awareness.  It keeps me hopeful.  It rejuvenates me.  It keeps me present.

As an avid reader all my life, I remember poring over astronomy books as a child, inspired by the origins and images of the planets, the moon, and the stars.  A city born and bred kid with night skies hidden by street lights and apartment buildings, these books fed my nature-yearning soul to the wonder and awe of the universe.  To this day I vividly remember a dream that visited me decades ago: the brilliant planet Saturn is just beyond my New York fire escape—so close I could sit on its glorious rings, my legs swinging in the brisk night air.

Last August, I sat, not on Saturn’s rings, but on my deck in the San Francisco Bay area.  Blessed with a rare clear night sky, I tucked a blanket around me against the chill of the evening and looked up, awaiting the annual Perseid meteor showers.   I watched and waited.  And waited.  And waited.  And then, gasping with surprise, a picture perfect shooting star streaked across the complete canvas of the sky.  Several other shooting stars danced across the sky as I watched and waited . . . and waited . . . and waited.  They were all exquisite.  But I have to say, that first one—which caught me by surprise—was the best.  Because of its suddenness, its unexpectedness, it felt like a gift—a grace.

The Perseids are at their peak for at least two nights.  So I attempted to indulge in a second night of sky watching.  But instead of shooting stars—or even “still” stars—all I was able to see was fog.  At first I was annoyed.  I mean seriously, of all nights, couldn’t God give me one more clear night?  But soon, I was bedazzled by the dance of the fog.  It flowed along in waves and tufts and streams and was deliciously beautiful.  I didn’t see the show I had hoped for, but the show I got was delightful nonetheless.

The total solar eclipse was something—because of modern science, we could prepare for, we knew exactly what time it was destined to happen.  But this isn’t the case with so much of everyday life.  We plan, we work hard, we pray, but then, it’s often like searching for a shooting star—we might know the general time frame and we might know the general direction, but still we wait . . . and wait . . . and wait and hopefully our eyes are open when the miracle finally happens.  Or, while we’re waiting for a shooting star and life brings us fog instead, hopefully we can muster the resilience to transform our disappointment into appreciation for the miracle in the dance that is.

Maybe it’s because I was born on the first day of spring that nature and its wonders are so significant to me.  Or maybe it’s because my Jewish faith is based so deeply in the seasonal cycles of life.  Or maybe it’s simply because I’m human and unlike faith traditions which can divide and separate us—nature belongs to us all and we are all a part of nature.  Nature teaches us that we all live in this one world—this one Earth—this one universe.  And so, when I watch a solar eclipse, or search the night sky for a shooting star, or sit on Saturn’s rings in my dreams, while I can’t deny feeling so small against a backdrop so huge, rather than feeling insignificant, those are the times I feel most whole.  Those are the times I feel most connected to the majesty and enigma of the All.  Those are the times I feel like my largest and truest and perhaps most divine self.

Cheryl Bartky is a licensed counselor, board certified dance therapist, board certified life coach, an experienced spiritual director and supervisor.  She’s the author of Angelina’s Prayer and the creator of The Moving On Dance Project and the popular online program Re-CHARGE Your Life Now!  Visit her at www.Counseling4theSoul.com.

Earth is the Original Monastery ~ A love note from your online abbess

Dear monks, artists, and pilgrims,

The following reflection is excerpted and adapted from an article that appeared in Presence: A Journal for Spiritual Directors International earlier this year. It speaks to what feels like the heart of the work I do in reclaiming an intimacy with creation and letting her wisdom guide our contemplative practice.

The creatures and trees are spiritual teachers

“Believe me as one who has experience, you will find much more among the woods then ever you will among books. Woods and stones will teach you what you can never hear from any master.”  — Bernard of Clairvaux

In ancient tradition, there were often holy men and women who were described as having a special relationship to animals.  Benedict of Nursia, for example, befriended a crow who was later said to have saved his life.  It was said of Kevin of Glendalough that an otter would sometimes bring him salmon from the lake so he could eat.  There is a story about Ciaran of Clonmacnoise in which the boar became one of his first monks. These special connections and relationships to animals were once a sign of profound holiness.

In one of his letters, 20th century Trappist monk Thomas Merton wrote that this is what the monastic life is all about: “The monk here and now is supposed to be living the life of the new creation in which right relation to all the rest of God’s creatures is fully restored.”  We are called to live the life of the new creation in which right relationship to all creation is restored.  We are not anticipating its arrival, but living its becoming.

When we allow the creatures to teach us, we move into a posture of humility, of laying down our human-centric perspective and receiving new insight as the ancient monks did.

The elements are spiritual directors

“How necessary it is for the monks to work in the fields, in the sun, in the mud, in the clay, in the wind: These are our spiritual directors and our novice masters.” – Thomas Merton

The elements of water, wind, earth, and fire offer us wisdom and guidance.  They are the original soul friends.  Air is the gift of breath we receive in each moment, the rhythm of life sustaining us. Breath reminds us of Spirit moving through us and guiding our direction. Fire is the gift of life force and energy and we might call to mind mystics across religious traditions that imagine God as the living flame of love which burns in each of our hearts. Fire reminds us of our passions.

Water is the gift of renewal and replenishment, sacred in rituals of cleansing and baptism. The sea calls us to remember our own tidal rhythms. The elements at the communion table and ritual feasting emerge from the earth, the act of eating is sacred and holy, also sustaining our life and work. Earth reminds us of our own earthiness and mortality, calling us to claim what is most precious to us in each moment.

Sometimes we imagine the ideal spiritual life as one of stillness in a retreat center or monastery. But as Merton reminds us, it is our embodied engagement with the world that reinvigorates our connection to the earth and how we might learn from the elements.

The mountains and flowers are the Saints  

“The bass and trout hiding in the deep pools of the river are canonized by their beauty and their strength. The lakes hidden among the hills are saints, and the sea too is a saint who praises God without interruption in her majestic dance.” – Thomas Merton

Humans are not the original Saints, we find the first examples in nature. Poet David Whyte has a beautiful line in one of his poems where he asks, “Why are we the one terrible part of creation privileged to refuse our own flowering?” The animals and the elements live their fullness without holding back and in them we can discover what it truly means to become a saint.  They teach us how to live out our own sainthood by no longer refusing our true nature.

This is the heart of contemplation, to remember our true nature, to free ourselves from the ways we refuse each day, to listen into the invitation to become who we really are. We might consider inviting in nature as an ally in this journey and invite in trees and companion animals as witness to what it means to live into the true self.

(We are offering a brand new live intensive/retreat in Scotland next June 12-17, 2018 at the beautiful Bield retreat center to explore nature as wisdom guide more deeply.)

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner