Stirring in the Belly

Transcription

1 Stirring in the Belly A guided mini-retreat experience for February 1-2 (Feasts of St. Brigid, Imbolc, Candlemas, and Groundhog Day) from Abbey of the Arts 1 Christine Valters Paintner --

2 Preparation Gather Supplies Handouts (Lectio Divina, Contemplative Walk, Poems) Cloth, candle, and fresh flowers Cardboard round (can be a cake round from a baking supply store or a circle cut out of heavy paper suggested diameter of 10 inches) Collage images (magazines, catalogs) Glue stick & Scissors CD/MP3 Player, meditative music, Christine s guided meditation recording Carve out Time Decide on a 3 hour block of time, write it into your schedule and honor this commitment you have made to yourself. Prepare the Space Clear a space in your home where you can sit in stillness and have room to create a collage (this retreat could also be experienced without the art-making element if you prefer to focus on the lectio divina and contemplative walking). Turn off your phone and your computer. Set up an altar space as a focal point with the cloth, candle, and flowers and any other symbol that feels meaningful Suggested Schedule (3+ hours) - adjust the times for your own needs Opening prayer (15) Settle into your space, read about the theme, savor Betsey s poem Lectio Divina (30) Pray with Isaiah 35 (with guided practice audio file) Contemplative Walk (60) Look for signs of stirring in the world around you Art-making Mandala (60) Create a collage mandala intuitively Closing Prayer (15) Journal with the reflection questions and name the graces of the day Read the Closing Blessing 2 Christine Valters Paintner --

3 Settle into the space you have created for this time. Allow a few moments to sink into stillness and connect to your breath, noticing its rise and fall in your body. Introducing the Theme There will be an article at and posted on the Abbey blog this week which will offer more background to these holy days. February 1 st -2 nd marks a confluence of several feasts and occasions including: the Celtic feast of Imbolc, St. Brigid s Day, Candlemas, and Groundhog Day! Imbolc is a Celtic feast that is crossquarter day, meaning it is the midway point between the winter solstice and spring equinox. The sun marks the four Quarter Days of the year (the Solstices and Equinoxes) and the midpoints are the cross-quarter days. In some cultures February 2 nd is the official beginning of spring. As the days slowly lengthen in the northern hemisphere and the sun makes her way higher in the sky, the ground beneath our feet begins to thaw. The earth softens and the seeds deep below stir in the darkness. The word imbolc means in the belly. The earth s belly is beginning to awaken, new life is stirring, seeds are sprouting forth. This mini-retreat draws its invitation from this image. In many places the ground is still frozen or covered with snow, but the call now is tend to those very first signs of movement beneath the fertile ground. What happens when you listen ever so closely in the stillness? What do you hear beginning to emerge? This mini-retreat is an invitation to spend time listening to the stirring in your own belly. Through lectio divina, a contemplative walk, collage-making, and journaling you are invited to slow down and listen deeply to the movements both within and without. 3 Christine Valters Paintner --

4 What Can Be Done While Waiting You can t force open a bud. You can pause to marvel at the petals all tightly packed, compact, held within, barely emerging from the cloak of green. But you can t force it open. You can sit with that bud, and let it know that you are alive to witness its own aliveness waiting, brimming to break forth. You can remind that bud of the long, many long dark hours it spent deep within the earth, as a dream, a hope, a whisper, a promise. With your own long deep breath, you can remember to that bud how water is even now drawn up its very stem to fill the slender stamens sequestered within. You can sit in silence together while the sun beams its light on closed quarters, as if to call Lazarus, come forth! Quietly, you can recall together the dream of what s to come. And while you are believing and waiting and believing sometimes you can spy the almost imperceptible curl of a petal unfolding and the glint of color poking out, streaming through... But mostly it will happen when you close your eyes and open them again: there it will be bursting forth in unabashed inexplicable exquisite beauty a blossom opening itself so boldly, so brilliantly, so divinely to the world, proclaiming such delicate praises before your awe-filled eyes. Betsey Beckman 4 Christine Valters Paintner --

5 Lectio Divina (Sacred Reading) There is a guided meditation podcast accompanying this retreat where I lead you through the lectio practice with the following scripture passage. If you would rather pray lectio on your own, please feel free to disregard the recording. The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing... Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp, the grass shall become reeds and rushes. A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way. -Isaiah 35:1-2, 5-8 Preparation: Take some time to become fully present to the moment. Close your eyes and become conscious of your breathing. Place your hand on your own belly. Feel your stomach slowly rise and fall. Draw your attention down into your belly and see if you can begin to notice what movement is happening there. Sit in silence for several minutes quieting your mind and opening your imagination to the blossoming within. What are the colors you notice? What is the fragrance? What is the shape of the blossom sprouting deep in your belly? What is the invitation calling you to new growth in this season? First Reading: READING Lectio (Listening for God s Address) What is the word or phrase calling to me? In your initial encounter with the text listen for a word or phrase that shimmers, beckons, addresses you, unnerves you, disturbs you, stirs you, seems especially ripe with meaning. Repeat this word to yourself in the silence. 5 Christine Valters Paintner --

6 Second: RECEIVING Meditatio (Receiving God s Address) What are the memories, images, and feelings being stirred within me? Gently repeating the word or phrase to yourself, allowing it to interact with the feelings, images, memories, and symbols that come to you during this time. Allow the word or phrase that has spoken to you to unfold in your imagination and speak even more deeply. Third Reading: RESPONDING Oratio (Responding to God s Address) What is my invitation in this moment of my life? How am I being called to respond? Allow your whole being to become prayer by the honest expression of your deepest thoughts, feelings, and desires in dialogue with God. Attend to the way this word, phrase, feeling or image connects with the context and situation of your life right now. How does it relate to what you have heard and seen this day? How does it connect with what is happening at home, at work, in your leisure time? Take an extended time of exploring this connection (In thought, in a journal, in art, in movement) How is God present to you there? Is God calling you to anything in your present circumstances? Is there a challenge presented here? Contemplative Silence: RESTING Contemplatio (Beholding God s beauty) A time for simply resting in God and offering gratitude for God s presence Reflection and Journaling Close with some time to reflect in writing about what has emerged during your prayer. You might want to write down the word or phrase, the images which unfolded, and the invitation you experienced. Excerpted & Adapted from Lectio Divina: Contemplative Awakening and Awareness Christine Valters Paintner & Lucy Wynkoop, OSB (Paulist Press 2008) 6 Christine Valters Paintner --

7 Groundhog Day Celebrate this unlikely oracle, this ball of fat and fur, whom we so mysteriously endow with the power to predict spring. Let s hear it for the improbable heroes who, frightened at their own shadows, nonetheless unwittingly work miracles. Why shouldn t we believe this peculiar rodent holds power over sun and seasons in his stubby paw? Who says that God is all grandeur and glory? Unnoticed in the earth, worms are busily, brainlessly, tilling the soil. Field mice, all unthinking, have scattered seeds that will take root and grow. Grape hyacinths, against all reason, have been holding up green shoots beneath the snow. How do you think spring arrives? There is nothing quieter, nothing more secret, miraculous, mundane. Do you want to play your part in bringing it to birth? Nothing simpler. Find a spot not too far from the ground and wait. Lynn Ungar, from Blessing the Bread 7 Christine Valters Paintner --

8 Contemplative Walk: Listening for what is Stirring This is a slow contemplative walk. Do not be in a hurry. Allow it to take its own shape (you don t need to walk a long distance, perhaps only a few feet.) Begin by reading the poem Groundhog Day by Lynn Ungar. Take some time to center yourself before beginning. Connect to the rhythm of your breath. Bring yourself fully present to the invitation of this moment in time and allow your walk to unfold in this way, without a particular goal or destination, simply listening for what is calling to you next. You might return to placing your hand on your belly, listening for the stirring there as you begin this journey. As you begin the walk notice what is capturing your attention. See if there is something in nature that wants you to spend some time with it simply being present to its wisdom. Pause every few steps and look around you. Notice what the places where nature is quickening and stirring. Listen for what your body is saying in response. When you encounter something you find especially moving, take time to meditate with gratitude on it, appreciating all of its qualities, how it simply is what it was created to be. Allow yourself to fill with joyful gratitude for the gifts of the earth. Open yourself to experience the fullness of this creation and all of the ways God delights in the beauty of it. Then shift your focus from the creation to yourself. Take this sense of wonder and awe at the beauty of the natural object and imagine how God gazes with delight on the beauty of who you are. What aspects of your being can you imagine God relishing? What are the longings inside of you God is asking you to embrace? Rest in this awareness of the joy and delight of God in your own beautiful blossoming for several minutes. Notice what new longings it stirs in you. As you near the end of your time, take a few moments to notice what are the inner invitations you have experienced? What has the Creator been saying to you through creation? Where did you discover a stirring in the world around you. Simply dwell in silence allowing your heart to fill with gratitude for whatever has been revealed. 8 Christine Valters Paintner --

9 Collage Mandala Collage is a wonderfully accessible and simple medium. Gather some magazines and catalogs (if you don t have any, consider purchasing a copy of National Geographic you can often find used copies at library sales or thrift stores and work with the images from just one magazine. Setting limits on your materials can be a helpful way to ignite creativity by working with what you have. Create a base on which to work. I often purchase cake rounds from a local baking supply store in inch sizes, however you could cut a circle from some heavy paper in whatever size feels pleasing. A smaller size is another helpful limit on your creative process because you are forced to make choices about what images to include and which to exclude. Before you start choosing images, allow a few moments to connect with your breath. Sink into your body s wisdom and release your thinking, judging mind. This process is a journey of discovery where you are invited to listen to what your longing is in a given moment and give yourself the freedom to respond without worrying about creating something beautiful. Allow this to be a time of prayer. Open yourself to how the Creative Source is revealing the new stirrings of your heart to you through image. Take some time to sort through the images. Pay attention to those which create an energetic response: either resonance (an experience of joy or delight) or dissonance (an experience of resistance or strong emotion like grief or anger). This is an intuitive process. If you notice yourself drawn to an image, but then your mind starts making judgments about why you shouldn t choose it, connect again to your breath and choose the image without having to make sense out of it. Gather a number of images and after about minutes shift your attention to begin arranging them on the mandala surface. Notice how the images want to be placed in relation to one another. Continue to stay open to the ways God, the Great Artist is moving through you in this time of prayer. Use the scissors to cut away parts of the image which feel extraneous and use the glue stick to fasten your images to the surface. Once your collage is completed, spend some time simply being with the images. Enter into each one in your imagination, imagining that it is a part of yourself, and speak with the words I am describing the internal experience of being this image. Write your responses in your journal, again allowing this to be an intuitive response rather than thinking analysis. 9 Christine Valters Paintner --

10 Reflection Questions What practices would help you to cultivate more spaciousness? In the midst of signs of winter all around us, how might you give yourself some time to just listen for spring s quiet rising? What does the new life stirring in your inner world sound like? Can you hear it deep within you? How might you give room for this new life to grow? How can you nurture this seedling in the fertile dark earth of your soul in the coming days? Closing Blessing May you feel the seeds in your belly rumbling as they yearn to break open and release new life. May the breaking open of these seeds be an earthquake shifting the plates of your soul. May you notice the tiny green shoots breaking through the ground of your awareness. May you feel the pull of your very being reaching toward the abundance of God, as the stem is drawn toward the sunlight. May you experience the unfurling of your petals one by one in a blaze of color. May you feel yourself stretched wide in a posture of welcoming to all that is yet to be spoken within you. As your petals fall gently to the ground May you remember that after blossoming Comes the journey toward fruit. 10 Christine Valters Paintner --

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