Get all 8 Abbey of the Arts releases available on Bandcamp and save 20%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of The Love of Thousands: Singing with Angels, Saints, and Ancestors, Sound and Stillness II: An audio collection of poems by Christine Valters Paintner, Birthing the Holy: Singing with Mary and the Sacred Feminine, Monk in the World: Songs for Contemplative Living, Sound and Stillness: An audio collection of poems by Christine Valters Paintner, Earth, Our Original Monastery: Singing Our Way to the Sacred, The Soul's Slow Ripening: Songs for Celtic Seekers, and Singing with Monks and Mystics.
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God Among the Pots and Pans
(After St. Teresa of Avila)
Sifting flour for daily bread
white mist rises
dough multiplies before my eyes
Chopped carrots
form a broken string
of orange prayer beads
The sharp knife cuts through
any confusion
bone gleaming exposed
Sizzle of steak
onions and mushrooms
alchemy of steel and flame
My cup of coffee
is of course
always a revelation
And the glasses of wine
waiting on the table
a wonder of earth and time
Magpie caws outside
an apparition in black and white
among russet leaves
The sun descends slowly
in violet reverie recalling
the beauty of endings
The timer bell rings
calling me back again
to this prayer
To the miracles
of dinner and dishwater
and our long slow sighs.
*By Christine Valters Paintner from the collection "Dreaming of Stones: Poems" published by Paraclete Press.
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2. |
Listen
02:00
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Listen
I wake to a rising of robin voices,
their tiny chests puffed like ripe persimmons.
Acres of clouds strum across the day-blue sky,
wind breathes its endless score over heathered hills
and the sea beyond my window churns.
Somewhere a hazelnut drops rustling to the ground.
Peony peels herself open in a slow yawn
to reveal a multitude of pleasures.
Fox darts between hedgerows, breaking her silent reverie,
orange fur brushing against golden gorse profusion.
Beneath sirens and the perpetual groan of cars,
the march of trains and planes propelled by timetables,
beneath the endless clatter of your own mind, you can,
for a moment, hear the asparagus heaving headlong into spring.
My labor is to love this secret symphony.
You curl yourself around me at night,
song of your breath stuns me into the sweetest sleep.
And the blue glass vase sits on the table beside me,
holding roses you bought because they smelled like an aria.
When this is over, all I want to say is that I heard the music
of the very last petal
drop.
*By Christine Valters Paintner from the collection "Dreaming of Stones: Poems" published by Paraclete Press.
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3. |
Sabbath
01:33
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Sabbath
Even as the subway car hurtles
into the tunnel and calendars heave
under growing weight of entries,
even under the familiar lament
for more hours to do
a bell rings somewhere
and a man lays down
his hammer, as if to say
the world can build without me,
a woman sets down
her pen as if to say,
the world will carry on
without my words.
The project left undone,
dust on the shelves,
dishes crusted with morning
egg, the vase of drooping
flowers, and so much work
still to complete,
I journey across the long field
where trees cling to the edges
free to not do anything but
stand their ground,
where buttercups
and bluebells sway
and in this taste of paradise
where rest becomes luminous
and play a prayer of gratitude,
even the stones sing
of a different time,
where burden is lifted
and eternity endures.
*By Christine Valters Paintner from the collection "Dreaming of Stones: Poems" published by Paraclete Press.
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“A Glimpse of the Underglimmer”
(after Basho)
You can see it sometimes in October
when the sun’s low angle slides
gold over the field,
effervescence of light,
or you stand in a forest of cedars
and March rain pads
hundreds of tiny feet across
the emerald canopy,
or the fireflies of July form
new constellations, then vanish
into summer’s night leaving only
trails of light in your memory,
or you stand in a May meadow,
a fox crossing quietly, you hold
still as possible, the sliver of moon
above, holding its breath with you.
*By Christine Valters Paintner from the collection "The Wisdom of Wild Grace: Poems" published by Paraclete Press.
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5. |
Crossing the Divide
01:21
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Crossing the Divide
She walks, as if from a dream, into your life,
ribboned hair unraveling, brown eyes
like cups of tea, come to whisper
a secret into your trembling ear.
You try hard not to listen, clinging
to your calendar, your achievements,
your loneliness, until the silver ache
of it all spreads through your limbs
and she holds out her hand across
the ravine, and you see how the chasm
is not empty, but filled with a rushing
river, and you can swim until
you become fish and flow, until
you are the ancient stream
emerging from stone,
until her face becomes yours.
*By Christine Valters Paintner from the collection "The Wisdom of Wild Grace: Poems" published by Paraclete Press.
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6. |
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St. Kevin Holds Open His Hand
Imagine being like Kevin.
Your grasping fist softens,
fingers uncurl and
palms open, rest upward,
and the blackbird
weaves twigs and straw and bits of string
in the bowl of your hand,
you feel the delicate weight of
speckled blue orbs descend,
and her feathered warmth
settling in.
How many days can you stay,
open,
waiting
for the shell
to fissure and crack,
awaiting the slow emergence
of tiny gaping mouths
and slick wings
that need time to strengthen?
Are you willing to wait and watch?
Not to withdraw your
affections too soon?
Can you fall in love with the
exquisite ache in your arms
knowing the hatching it holds?
Can you stay not knowing
how broad those wings will
become, or how they will fly
awkwardly at first,
then soar above you
until you have become the sky
and all that remains is
your tiny shadow
swooping across the earth.
*By Christine Valters Paintner from the collection "The Wisdom of Wild Grace: Poems" published by Paraclete Press.
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7. |
Corcomroe Abbey
01:43
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Corcomroe Abbey
If you pause
you can hear the whispered longings and wailings
carried across this threshold, the desperate cries
for healing, the shouts of praise, the stones are keepers
of these prayers, and to stand there is to feel
your heart both leap and break all at once.
The roof is gone which means this place
is no longer shielded from the elements but holds
its mouth up to catch raindrops on the tongue,
sunlight pours down and fills the space with gold.
The cawing of rooks nesting echoes off the walls,
nettles grow in corners, dandelions in cracks,
and you see this place is not a ruin, is not empty,
and you offer up a prayer, not certain who is listening,
but knowing this prayer does not live alone, but finds a place
nestled among birds and spirits and growing things.
*By Christine Valters Paintner from the collection "Love Holds You: Poems and Devotions for Times of Uncertainty" published by Paraclete Press.
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I want to be the kind of woman
(after Jenni Fagan)
I want to be the kind of woman
who milks goats each morning
and drinks straight from the bucket —
who isn’t afraid to reach into the hive.
I want to be the kind of woman
who lies down in winter,
in the brown mulch of leaves
and sleeps until spring
who loves the generous folds of her body.
I want to be the kind of woman
who has found her sealskin,
who would cross oceans to make
her dead father love her once again.
I want to be the kind of woman
who can name hyssop, nettle, lady’s mantle
and knows all their healing uses.
I want to be the kind of woman
who goes out under the night sky
to chant with owls and wolves,
who falls more in love each day
with her husband, her little dog, her life.
I want to be the kind of woman
who knows she is daughter of sunlight and mud
who knows that her grandmothers
are still singing her name.
*By Christine Valters Paintner from the collection "Love Holds You: Poems and Devotions for Times of Uncertainty" published by Paraclete Press.
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9. |
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A Letter to My Adolescent Self
“listen I love you joy is coming”
—Kim Addonizio
Listen, I know life right now
feels like heartache
is your mother tongue,
parents who live in the shadows,
you stumbling down
the dark corridors of youth
trying all the locked doors
and knobs breaking off in your hands.
I won’t promise this heartache ends.
You’ll lose people you love: death, betrayal,
a slow fade. Some will dissolve
like salt on the tongue. There will be moments
you’re sure you are drowning, arms flailing,
but sometimes your frantic waving
will summon a joy you never knew could exist
arriving like an elephant emerging
from a still forest or a hatching egg placed
in your palm, and you will know delight
is not an afterthought, nor a luxury,
but an amaryllis opening the first petal,
its red tongue whispering secrets
of all the loves it has ever known.
*By Christine Valters Paintner from the collection "Love Holds You: Poems and Devotions for Times of Uncertainty" published by Paraclete Press.
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10. |
Origins
01:18
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Origins
If I could peer far enough down
a robin’s pulsing throat, would I see
notes piled there waiting to be flung
into freshness of morning?
If I close my eyes and burrow
my face into peony’s petals,
would I discover the source
of its scent, a sacred offering?
Can I plunge inside
and find a lifetime of words
spooled tightly inside my heart
ready for a tug?
If I dig beneath the bedrock
will I find love there,
solid like iron or does it flow like magma
filling in all of the empty spaces?
*By Christine Valters Paintner from the collection "Love Holds You: Poems and Devotions for Times of Uncertainty" published by Paraclete Press.
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11. |
When All Feels Lost
02:26
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When All Feels Lost
The map is not the territory
—Alfred Korzybski
All the old signposts have fallen,
wood cracked and rotted,
atlases crumble, a pile of maps
flutter and dart like hummingbird
wings, the GPS signal is out of range.
Her compass slips from her hand,
the only thing she knows is that
she walks in circles now,
the trees ahead familiar
but really nothing is the same.
She wanders for hours, days,
weeks, loses track of the nights
as one tumbles into another.
Finally, she stops, builds
a bonfire from all the old maps
still in her pack, invites others
who wander by to gather,
each of them savors warmth
from flame and kindness,
laughs while they tell stories
of how they once knew the way.
Her eyes meet another,
hand outstretched, together
their breath rises in white spirals
into cold air and they
stay still long enough
to learn to love the quiet ache,
the old longing to be sure,
to see the country of certainty
as a memory receding
like an evening horizon until
there is only the black bowl of sky.
They begin to hear the whisper
of breezes, the secrets of birds,
follow the underground stream
that runs through each of them,
and they no longer ask
which way to go,
but sit and savor this
together, under night sky
illumined by fire and stars.
*By Christine Valters Paintner from the collection "Love Holds You: Poems and Devotions for Times of Uncertainty" published by Paraclete Press.
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12. |
Where Love Lives
01:21
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Where Love Lives
The sun is a shy lemon
peeking from behind a curtain
before disappearing.
All I want to do is lift away,
live in that weightless place
where gravity has no claim on me,
where lightness is my name.
All I want to do is bend back down
into dust and mud, savor how stones
absorb sunlight and become radiant,
until heaviness is my name.
I see that I am always both:
I am stone, weight, gravity.
I am angel, feathered, floating.
Love lives in the wonder
of the in-between, the longing
for all possible worlds,
the way sunlight explodes
its lemon tartness in my mouth,
the way sunlight lingers
at the heart of every stone.
*By Christine Valters Paintner from the collection "Love Holds You: Poems and Devotions for Times of Uncertainty" published by Paraclete Press.
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Julian of Norwich in Her Sick Bed
The stone walls stay cool on this late summer afternoon.
Bushels of golden apple light tumble through my small window,
casting a yellow square on the floor
which shifts slowly all day like a tired pilgrim.
The tabby cat places herself into this warm glow,
sighing each hour as she rises again to follow its journey.
A breeze rustles in and I gulp down autumn’s early arrival
like being under a waterfall.
All day I watch the sun travel, the cat shift,
the snail who makes its way up my wall leaving a trail
like the tears that streak my face into a map of desire.
At night I dream I can fly, slip out the window into the dark liquid sky,
feel the night lift me onto her back like a wave cresting
and I am suddenly more than these frozen limbs,
I can taste the stars, flakes of sea salt sprinkled across black silk.
The moon opens her wide mouth as if to sing,
then swallows me, takes me inside her
until I know myself as one who waxes and wanes, who shines brightly
and sometimes disappears into darkness.
*By Christine Valters Paintner from the collection "Love Holds You: Poems and Devotions for Times of Uncertainty" published by Paraclete Press.
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Abbey of the Arts Galway, Ireland
Abbey of the Arts, in partnership with The Dancing Word, produces albums to inspire soulful connection to ancient monks and mystics, to Celtic practice and tradition, to the sacred feminine, and to Earth and her creatures.
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