Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims,

On October 20^th my fourth and newest collection of poems, What Enters Through the Open Heart, will be published by Monkfish publishing. The poem above, “I Kneel” is part of this collection which includes several poems about illness and grief. 

This is the introduction to the book to give you a sense of the kinds of poems included:

There is so much that can close our hearts off to the world. Choosing to live in an open-hearted way in the midst of illness or grief is a path of courage. 

Life is both tender and fragile, and at times profoundly enduring. This collection of poems centers on the former but often touches on the latter, revealing how this fleeting and frail quality of so many of our experiences, often shows the way toward what is most deeply true.

I have lived over thirty-five years of my adult life with a degenerative autoimmune illness, which my mother had as well. She became so disabled she used a power wheelchair to get around the last few years of her life and the illness ultimately claimed her life. In the section of poems, “Illness and Grief,” I explore some of what it means for me to live with ongoing pain and fatigue and how I both honor the grief as well as strive to make meaning from this (when possible, it isn’t always).

The world itself feels very fragile in these times of climate chaos. Some of the poems in “The Natural World” are a celebration of things I want to hold onto and remember, others are expressions of grief and resistance.

In “Ancestors,” I offer some poems for that often-tenuous link we have with those who have walked before us. The grief, the longing, the confusion we feel and the stories that run through our blood can offer us a sense of direction for our lives. 

The penultimate section is “Saints and Mystics.” These wise and well ones who shimmer from beyond the veil have provided me with daily sustenance to continue to show up in this world honoring my own vulnerability and bringing my strengths as gift. Many of the mystics experienced illness themselves and wrestled with the limitations it brings. 

Mostly, this collection for me is one long unfolding prayer of grieving and hoping, of witnessing all that feels fleeting, and rooting myself in all that endures.

Next week on Monday, October 19^th Simon de Voil and I will be offering a free poetry book launch where I will share more about the book and read several poems, and Simon will offer his beautiful gift of music. I hope you will join us and pre-order the book. The session will be recorded if you can’t join live.

Cultivating Seeds of Liberation prayer cycle

This week we release the video podcasts for day 2 of our Cultivating Seeds of Liberation Prayer Cycle. The theme for Day 2: Morning and Evening Prayer is Vision. The following prayer was written by our program director, Melinda Thomas. 

Breath of Life, your sacred imagination danced creation into being. It can be so hard to see ourselves with the same loving gaze with which you look upon us. Help us to see ourselves with clarity and non-judgement. Open our vision to honor stories of the past, respond to the present, and cultivate a future in which our diversity is celebrated, and our similarities grounded in the recognition of shared humanity.

Watch the video podcasts here. They are also available on Vimeo and YouTube.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, OblSB, PhD, REACE

P.S. Marissa Papula at The Christian Century wrote a lovely review of my book A Book of Everyday Blessings.She writes, “As both a spiritual resource and a work of contemplative art, this collection succeeds in what it sets out to do: to widen the circle of who can bless and what is worthy of blessing.” Read the full review here.

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One of the best lessons from the pandemic was the art of slow living. My backyard became my sanctuary, and everything happening in it was suddenly much more interesting to me. The less human contact I had, the more kinship I felt with all the animals who lived just a few steps away. My greatest teachers during that time were a pair of Eastern bluebirds. As the female brooded for a couple of weeks and received support from the male, I began to see the lockdown as a container where something good might grow. I wrote more poems during that period than I ever had before, and those lessons about slowing down, observing, and nurturing my creative self have stayed with me.

Winged Teachers

When the human world had shut down,
the natural world stayed open,
signs still blinking like they always had,
though subdued by brighter lights.

More of us noticed what was happening
in our own backyards.

A bird house nailed to the fence the year before
became occupied with Eastern bluebirds,
the cobalt hue of their feathers nourishing me
like good medicine from an old bottle.

Nesting, they taught me about acceptance of what is,
how brooding does not have to mean captivity,
how the stillness can bring forth something 
new and hungry for life.

Jennifer Miller’s work has appeared in Humana Obscura, Gypsophila, and anthologies by Womancraft Publishing. Born and raised in the North Georgia Mountains, she lives with her husband and a black cat named Raven in lower Alabama. Find her at JenMillerPoetry.com and on Instagram @jenmillerpoetry. 

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Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims,

We are absolutely thrilled and delighted to release the first day of our new video podcasts for the Cultivating Seeds of Liberation prayer cycle! We are so grateful to Wisdom Council member and dear friend Betsey Beckman for all her video work and editing in putting these together. She invited many guest dancers to be a part of this project and helps us to bring the dance of liberation alive for all beings! She also provided generous financial support, which along with many other donations and wonderful Sustainers, which help us to continue to offer these as a free resource. 

We will be releasing the seven days of morning and evening podcasts over the next seven weeks, one full day per week. 

The theme for this prayer cycle emerged from a conversation the core planning team had many months ago when this project was in its beginning phase. We wanted to speak to the times we are in and the desire and necessity to be people of liberation, helping point the way toward freedom from all the systems that do us harm. The image of cultivating seeds spoke to us as acknowledging the way music and prayer can plant images of possibility within our hearts. 

The monk and mystic nourishes a contemplative presence with the divine which is always in service to love. This love pours forth from God, and from our own hearts when we are in true connection. This inward journey to the depths of our being, is always in service to the collective of which we are a part. Love calls us out of ourselves and our narrow concerns to see how we are intimately intertwined with all living beings. Where one being suffers, we all suffer. 

St. Francis of Assisi, whose feast day is today, knew this truth with his whole body and soul. In his connection to Love’s overflowing into his own life he was prompted to shed all the trappings of wealth that kept him from a full commitment to following the divine call. He met a leper one day and what would have once been bitter and repulsive to him, now he embraced the leper and saw him as one of his brothers. He knows that kissing the leper is kissing Christ. We are called to the same kind of vision and compassion. 

Here is the opening prayer from Day 1: Love written by Claudia Love Mair.

Mother/Father of Life, Maker of all things, we come together guided by love, with the singular desire to live in love, with creation and with each other, because you are Love. Keep our feet on the path of love, holding hands with our fellow humans, especially those who we were taught were unlovable, unworthy of our time and attention, and to be feared or hated. We are so much more alike than we are different from one another. Help us to be mindful of this today and always.

Tomorrow our monthly contemplative prayer services return! Simon de Voil and I will be leading our community in song, reflection, and meditation and would love for you to join us. Our theme is Cultivating Seeds of Liberation to help celebrate our prayer cycle. 

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, OblSB, PhD, REACE

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Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims,

Blessings! The feast of St. Francis is this Sunday, October 4th! A much-loved dancing monk and saint here at Abbey of the Arts. I wrote the poem above several years ago imagining what Francis would be like at the local pub, knowing his playful delight and joyfulness. 

I offer the following excerpt from our book Dancing Monk Feast Days which includes 52 of our dancing monk icons created by delightful artist Marcy Hall with creative invitations and prayers written by our wonderful Program Director Melinda Thomas. 

St. Francis of Assisi (c. 1182–c. 1226)

“The world is my monastery.”

Francis founded in Italy one of the most widespread and enduring religious orders. His focus on simplicity and spirituality led him to become a reformer within the Catholic Church, helping to rebuild it. He received the Stigmata (or marks of Christ’s Crucifixion) as a sign of his devotion. Francis is known for his strong connection to nature and is the patron saint of animals. Many churches today still hold “blessing of the animals” ceremonies on his feast day, October 4th.

Francis invites you to consider:

How might you deepen your intimacy with nature?

Creative Invitation

You are invited to spend some time connecting with nature. You might choose to take a contemplative walk allowing your gaze to rest upon the vegetation, animals, and elements you see. This can also be done looking out a window. If you have an animal companion, enjoy a few intentional moments where you are fully present to their ways of being in the world: the feel of their fur or skin, the sounds they make, the love they give, etc. You can also do this with animals you see outside your window. Write, dance, sing, or offer a prayer of thanksgiving for the living world that companions you. 

Prayer

Holy and Loving God, we give thanks for all of creation and for the example of St. Francis. Help us hear your call to simplify our lives so we may unearth our authentic connection with you. Like Francis, may we release what is no longer needed. May our letting go free us up to hear the calls of the earth and our plant and animal kin beckoning us into tender relationship with the wild matrix of being.

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In October 2000, I traveled to Assisi, Italy. During a two-and-a-half-mile walk through the nearby forest to Eremo Delle Carceri (Hermitage of the Prisons), I felt God’s presence vividly. I had an undisturbed awareness of each step and breath I took. Trees, stones, and a twirling leaf in a spider’s web drew me in, calming the turbulence in my mind.  

I had recently completed a six-month volunteer position at the Camas Centre on the Isle of Mull in Scotland. I struggled to make sense of how to move forward after this transformative time of community living.

As I wrote in my journal the night of my hike, “It is my first sense of real peace since Camas. This stillness enfolds me and I return there, not in place but in wholeness of spirit.” I wrote how the spirituality I had found on the Isles of Mull and Iona made sense. “It is incorporated into theatre and story, poetry and ecology, simplicity and beauty. St. Francis joins my spirit and I feel the warmth of God.”

The immediate sensation left me, yet the encounter made a lasting impression. I came away with the consolation that God was with me. I left the woods outside of Assisi with greater trust to let my life unfold.

As I established my life—developed a more standard career, enjoyed the security of a good-paying job—practicality and pride eroded the raw and simple trust of a twenty-four-year-old with only a couple hundred dollars and a few boxes of possessions to her name. I might have still said I trusted God, but I had grown comfortable in an illusion that I was able to control my circumstances, direct all aspects of my life, and prevent unwanted outcomes. 

As the years passed, I rarely spoke of my hike in Assisi to others. Even remembering it brought a little internal embarrassment. What happened in those woods? Did I let my youthful sensibilities sweep me away into romantic notions?

My connection to nature, however, didn’t change over the years. In 2013, I bought a farm in Sonoma County, California, setting out to build my own kind of hermitage with the trees of my orchard and my flock of chickens as companions. 

Then, during another October seventeen years after my time in Assisi, my relationship with forests and nature, that which had comforted and soothed me, shifted in one night. I woke around 1:45 a.m. the warm night of October 9, 2017, to the sound of popping and the smell of smoke. Within a few hours thousands of homes were destroyed, including 1,400 a half a mile from my home.

When I evacuated my farm the first night of the fires, one of the few items I took with me was a stick in the shape of a cross. I had found it on my hike to the hermitage outside of Assisi. In taking that wooden cross on that tremendous night, I carried a concrete reminder of the unique something that had once happened to me. Perhaps I knew whatever had happened in Assisi was something I needed to remember more than ever.

The encounter with nature through a firestorm left a different kind of mark. One that continued to burn deeper with each new devastating season of fire and smoke. I now see how the trauma of wildfires set kindling for what ignited in my nervous system after my Covid infection in 2021.

Before the fires, I had seen nature and my farm as a refuge. I found comfort in the land, the birds, my garden. But after the fires, a drive into a wooded area caused my heart to quicken and my chest to tighten. I had learned what I hadn’t wanted to know — nature, a beloved sibling in creation, is not benign. My relationship to the forests, the dry summer, the fall winds — these all had to be rebuilt. It took me almost four years to retrain my mind and body to reside again in a place of trust and safety.

A main portion of this retraining was acknowledging what author and historian Kate Bowler refers to as my “limited agency.” I came to greater acceptance that I wasn’t able to control or prevent all discomfort, pain, difficulty, or suffering. Through a variety of practices like meditation, somatic tracking, and exposure therapy, I learned to be present to all my emotions, including my discomfort and fear.

In my youthful hike through Assisi in 2000, I had encountered God in the beauty and serenity of nature which calmed my inner turmoil. In my middle age, I learned the practice of welcoming God to sit with me in the uncertainty and impermanence of the natural world. It is a different trust.

At twenty-four, subconsciously I believed that if I worked hard enough and “trusted” in God then life would unfold harmoniously. Now I am learning that trusting in God is trusting that God will be with me, in both the harmony and disharmony. I have moved toward accepting how little I can control, and I have found how much I can change my experience from within.  Both can be true. At the intersection of what might seem opposites, at this meeting place of the cross, God is there.

Natalie Gould is a coach, storyteller, and retreat leader who made a full recovery from a three-year debilitating illness, discovering what is possible even in situations that seem impossible. She is the author of the memoir Enough Feathers to Fly: Stories of a Farm and a Life Made Whole. She lives on a small farm in Northern California. SparrowCrowFarm.com

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