I just love this.  The line speaking to my heart today (keeping in mind my post from yesterday) is "Dance until you’re sweating, and beads of perspiration remind you of life’s best things, down your back like a brook of blessings."

How about you?  Where are you finding the solace of solitude these late summer days?

If you are at first lonely, be patient. If you’ve not been alone much, or if when you were, you weren’t okay with it, then just wait. You’ll find it’s fine to be alone once you’re embracing it.

We could start with the acceptable places, the bathroom, the coffee shop, the library. Where you can stall and read the paper, where you can get your caffeine fix and sit and stay there. Where you can browse the stacks and smell the books. You’re not supposed to talk much anyway so it’s safe there.

There’s also the gym. If you’re shy you could hang out with yourself in mirrors, you could put headphones in.

And there’s public transportation, because we all gotta go places.

And there’s prayer and meditation. No one will think less if you’re hanging with your breath seeking peace and salvation.

Start simple. Things you may have previously avoided based on your avoid being alone principles.

The lunch counter. Where you will be surrounded by chow-downers. Employees that only have an hour and their spouses work across town and so they — like you — will be alone.

Resist the urge to hang out with your cell phone.

When you are comfortable with eat lunch and run, take yourself out for dinner. A restaurant with linen and silverware. You’re no less intriguing a person when you’re eating solo desserts and cleaning the whipped cream from the dish with your finger. In fact, some people at full tables will wish they were where you were.

Go to the movies. Where it is dark and soothing. Alone in your seat amidst a fleeting community.

And then, take yourself out dancing to a club where no one knows you. Stand on the outside of the floor until the lights convince you more and more and the music shows you. Dance like no one’s watching, because, they’re probably not. And, if they are, assume it is with best of human intentions. The way bodies move genuinely to beats is, after all, gorgeous and affecting. Dance until you’re sweating, and beads of perspiration remind you of life’s best things, down your back like a brook of blessings.

Go to the woods alone, and the trees and squirrels will watch for you.

Go to an unfamiliar city, roam the streets, there are always statues to talk to and benches made for sitting give strangers a shared existence if only for a minute and these moments can be so uplifting and the conversations you get in by sitting alone on benches might’ve never happened had you not been there by yourself.

Society is afraid of alone though, like lonely hearts are wasting away in basements, like people must have problems if, after a while, nobody is dating them. But lonely is a freedom that breathes easy and weightless and lonely is healing if you make it.

You could stand, swathed by groups and mobs or hold hands with your partner. Look both further and farther in the endless quest for company. But no one’s in your head and by the time you translate your thoughts, some essence of them may be lost or perhaps it is just kept.

Perhaps in the interest of loving oneself, perhaps all those sappy slogans from preschool over to high school’s groaning were tokens for holding the lonely at bay. Cause if you’re happy in your head than solitude is blessed and alone is okay.

It’s okay if no one believes like you. All experience is unique, no one has the same synapses, can’t think like you, for this be relieved, keeps things interesting, life’s magic things in reach.

And it doesn’t mean you aren’t connected, that community’s not present, just take the perspective you get from being one person in one head and feel the effects of it. Take silence and respect it. If you have an art that needs a practice, stop neglecting it. If your family doesn’t get you, or a religious sect is not meant for you, don’t obsess about it.

You could be in an instant surrounded if you needed it. If your heart is bleeding make the best of it. There is heat in freezing, be a testament.

The world and time are the dance of the Lord in emptiness. The silence of the spheres is the music of a wedding feast. The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life, the more we analyze them out into strange finalities and complex purposes of our own, the more we involve ourselves in sadness, absurdity, and despair.

But it does not matter much, because no despair of ours can alter the reality of things, or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there. Indeed we are in the midst of it, and it is in the midst of us, for it beats in our very blood, whether we want it to or not.

Yet the fact remains that we are invited to forget ourselves on purpose, cast our awful solemnity to the winds and join in the general dance.

-Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

O movement of life,
your waters are holy.
Bless us in these contemplations
as we enter your tributaries, rivers, and seas,
preparing to immerse every cell in grace and truth.
Teach us again how to begin the dance,
moving from moment to moment
and day to day.

-Cynthia Winton-Henry, Dance–The Sacred Art: The Joy of Movement as Spiritual Practice (The Art of Spiritual Living)

A couple of weeks ago I was at a BodySoul Writing Workshop (based on the work of Jungian analyst Marion Woodman) and delighted in having the time and space to enter into my own process.  Lately I have been hearing the call of the dance quite strongly.  My body is asking for even deeper attention, discipleship even, a radical listening to what wisdom she has to offer me beyond anything I have ever experienced before.  As with most things in my life, I am responding to the call and not knowing where it will take me.  I just know that it means deepening my practice of yoga, swimming, and walking and allowing the insights to unfold.  In the workshop we created a collage as a part of our experience (you can click on it to enlarge).  I began with absolutely no idea what would emerge, but the power of this figure has captivated me in the days that follow her creation.  I am listening to this vibrant energy which spilled forth and making space for setting her free.

What shifts in your imagination when you consider "world and time" and "moment to moment" as one unending dance?

How might you surrender into this invitation more freely?  How might you learn to dance again?

The winner of this week's random drawing is Julett Broadnax – I will be sending Julett a copy of Sacred Poetry: An Invitation to Write.

Blessings on your weekend.  More Abbey goodness next week and the next Poetry Party will begin on Monday, September 6!

Sending you blessings of illumination during these late summer days. 

Where in your life do you feel luminous and radiant?

Have you joined the 298 other monks and signed the Monk Manifesto?

Tentative dates right now are May 31-June 5, 2011 with the strong possibility of another session scheduled in September 2011 if the first one fills quickly (and given the response to our email newsletter request for being on an early notification list, that is very likely, and our our Northwest November 2010 program filled several months in advance).

Email Christine@AbbeyoftheArts.com if you want to be on an early notification list and get details early next week once dates and details are confirmed and before they are posted to the general public.

Initial lodging information: we will be staying in a large house on Lake Michigan, everyone would have their own room (limited to 10 participants) and bathrooms would be shared.  Cost will be about $1400 for all food, lodging, instruction, and materials – everything except your travel to the workshop location. 

We will also be scheduling another session in the beautiful Northwest in October or November 2011 – more details to come very soon!

Make sure to stop by this week's Poetry Party on being a Monk in the World!

As promised there are some prizes to be given away, here are the winners of the random drawing:

• Winner of a space in Eyes of the Heart: Photography as a Contemplative Practice (6-week online class) is: Dawna Petersen
• Winner of a space in Lectio Divina: The Sacred Art of Reading the World (6-week online class) is: Bethany Pollins
• Winner of a space in Way of the Monk, Path of the Artist (6-week online class) is: Jennifer Burns Lewis
• Winner of a set of five Reflective Art Journals is: Amy J.

Email notifications have been sent to all of the winners.  You can still sign the Monk Manifesto and sign up for the accompanying free e-course Monk in the World.  Please consider helping to spread the word!

For another chance to win a prize, consider stopping by this week's Poetry Party and share your own poetic response to being a Monk in the World.

The Poetry Parties have been on hiatus for a few months and I am delighted to bring them back as a regular feature this week.

I select an image and suggest a theme/title and invite you to respond with your poems or other reflections. Add your responses in the comments section. Feel free to take your poem in any direction and then post the image and invitation on your blog (if you have one) and encourage others to come join the party! (permission is granted to reprint the image if a link is provided back to this post)

On Friday, August 27th, I will draw a name at random from those who participate and send the winner a copy of Sacred Poetry: An Invitation to Write (an art journal I published with a collection of previous Poetry Party prompts).

Poetry Party Theme: Monk in the World

I have been so deeply moved by the outpouring of response to my recent Monk Manifesto with almost 300 of you signing (and over 500 are participating in my free 7-day Monk in the World e-course).

As a way to deepen your personal expression of this commitment to live in contemplative, creative, and compassionate ways in the world, I invite you to write a poem which explores what it means for you to be a Monk in the World.  The image above is the reflection of St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City in the shimmering glass of an adjacent office building.  I love this image because it speaks to me of the meeting place of ancient and modern which is really what living out a monastic way of life in the world is all about.

There is a wonderful poetry-writing exercise from poetry therapist John Fox's book Finding What You Didn't Lose: Expressing Your Truth and Creativity through Poem-Making (I equally recommend his other book Poetic Medicine: The Healing Art of Poem-Making) about exploring your inner poet.  I share the questions here, transposed to explore your inner monk.  Feel free to let this be a prompt for your own writing or take it in an entirely different direction.

Reclaiming Your Inner Monk:

What does your inner monk look like?
What does your inner monk feel like?
Where was your inner monk born?
What does your inner monk see?
Where is your inner monk recognized?
What does your inner monk know?
What does your inner monk imagine?
Where does your inner monk live?
What must your inner monk say aloud?
Why does your inner monk exist?

So please share your own poetic inspirations in the comments section below of living the contemplative life!  Let this be a gathering of monks in a virtual celebration!

The idea for the Monk Manifesto emerged several months ago while I was away on a retreat.  Last spring was a very full season of my life and I was claiming a few days of silence to listen.  I was in a threshold space, moving into my own work more fully, and I knew my call was to spread ways of being a Monk in the World to as many people as I could.

Many of you who signed indicated that having so many others to join with in a public declaration is supportive and hope-filled. Indeed that was part of my motivation for writing them.  I want people to see that there are companions who also hunger for ways of living with deep intention.  I want to start a movement of monks.  I don't know exactly what it will look like, but like most things in my life which are life-giving it begins by following a thread, a sense of awe at the invitation being offered to me, even if I can only see the edges.

Reaching across borders

I attended the World Congress of Benedictine Oblates in Rome last October and our theme was inter-religious dialogue.  I am very aware that I have far more in common with my brothers and sisters who are committed to a contemplative way of life no matter their religion (or perhaps even none) than I am with those in my own faith tradition who use religion to exclude and draw ever-stronger boundaries around what (or who) is holy and what (or who) is not.  My goal is not to water down Christianity – as I will always be deeply rooted in and informed by my relationship to this wisdom tradition – but to discover where we might find companions across perceived boundaries.

Broad and inclusive language

These principles emerged out of my own inner journey of living the Benedictine way (which is my primary spiritual community and commitment) and my outer journey of teaching about various strands of Christian monasticism (including Benedictine, Celtic, and desert traditions).  However each of the principles I set forth can be found across contemplative traditions.  Several of you who signed commented that there is much overlap with your practice of Buddhism or yoga.  What would it be like to create a common language about what it means to live in meaningful ways in the modern world?

Why we need practices

Really each principle is the umbrella for a whole set of practices.  Practices help us to embody new ways of being.  As we commit to living into a particular practice, our hearts are shaped by the daily engagement.  Practices provide us with sacred containers through which we can foster presence to our experience and cultivate a radical sense of compassion for ourselves, our community, and creation. I will explore this more here in the coming weeks.

The act of resistance

I purposely selected the word "resistance" because it is a concept which roots me in a tradition and practice of nonviolence where we stand in resistance to the powers of destruction at work all around us.  Some of the violence is overt – daily abuse, neglect, loss of human life, the unraveling of ecosystems.  But much of the violence is subtle — like the violence we participate in each day as we push our bodies to the point of exhaustion and our spirits to the place of despair.  I believe deeply that we need both a sacred yes and a sacred no in our lives – things which we wholeheartedly embrace and those which we create boundaries around of what is not life-giving.  For me, naming both is a practice of balance and awareness.

Sparking your own reflection

The Monk Manifesto is not meant to be exhaustive, but there is fruitfulness in claiming what is important in a given moment of time.  There are many things that could be added, but part of its power is its conciseness.  I had a lovely email from someone for whom the word "resist" was not helpful and so he changed the language for his own version, something I wholeheartedly encourage.  I hope reading it prompts your own reflection on how you would articulate your declaration of integrated living.

Join with others

If you sign the Monk Manifesto before August 23rd you will be entered into a drawing for a chance to win one of several prizes. 

Making a declaration is just a first step.  Then comes practice – an entire lifetime of practice (see #7).  To support you in beginning or deepening a practice of these principles please subscribe to my 7-day free e-course on becoming a Monk in the World.

Monk Manifesto Button

In addition to the printable PDF version of the Monk Manifesto, now you can also post a badge on your blog or website.  Simply right-click and save the image and then posting an image with a clickable link to: http://abbeyofthearts.com/about/monk-manifesto/.

Or use this code:

<a title="Monk-Manifesto-Button by Abbey of the Arts, on Flickr" href="http://abbeyofthearts.com/about/monk-manifesto/"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4080/4890996549_b428daee29_m.jpg" alt="Monk-Manifesto-Button" width="150" height="150"/></a>

May we nourish peace with our every thought, word, step, and action.  Peace to you dear monks.

Sending blessings and love to you this day – may your heart experience at least one moment of wide-open freedom today - may you breathe in possibility and breathe out hope.

Did you sign up yet for the free e-course on becoming a Monk in the World?

If you live in Seattle and offer compassionate listening to others through spiritual direction, chaplaincy, counseling, or pastoring consider joining our newly added session of Soul Care for Compassionate Listeners (limited to 6 participants / only three spaces left).

Only two spaces left in the fall session of Way of the Monk, Path of the Artist is now FULL.

Professional and personal growth through supervision and the expressive arts for Spiritual Directors, Chaplains, Counselors, & Pastors committed to compassionate listening and care of souls.

with Kayce Stevens Hughlett, MA, LMHC & Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

October 2010-May 2011 – Monthly group meeting on Friday mornings in Capitol Hill, Seattle, WA

Please Note: Our first two groups filled quickly so we have added a third group on a different set of Friday mornings (see flyer for specific dates & details)

Limited to 6 participants

$600 for all 8 sessions / $100 non-refundable deposit to hold your place

Please visit this link for more details and registration

Way of the Monk, Path of the Artist - Update

Just five two spots left in the fall session of this class!  Register today!