This first year’s of outdoor gatherings is based on the book, The Soul’s Slow Ripening: 12 Celtic Practices for Seeking the Sacred by Christine Valters Paintner. We have been meeting since September of 2019. While I have used the book’s organization as the starting place for our gatherings I have augmented the material as we went along. Here is the list of the chapters explored so far with some key points from each gathering. Reading the key points only cheats the book because I am leaving behind much of the text behind each point.
The Practice of Thresholds – Sept 2019
Location: Luitpo Park
- Ancient Irish monks valued thresholds
- Transition from one place or status to another are a thresholds
- Night to day, Outside to inside, Child to adult
- Each some version of “Thin times” “Thin places”
- Thresholds can be family and life events: birth, marriage, divorce, illness, and death
- – Discernment & Thresholds
- Stages of our lives where we are thinking about big change
- A knowing that what used to work no longer works but not knowing what needs to come next
- Challenging to enter because of the need to let go w/o knowing in order to find out/encounter the new
- Discernment/threshold spaces are liminal, lit with a spiritual presence
- Stages of our lives where we are thinking about big change
- – Practice
- Notice all the crossings from one place to another
- Room to room, inside to outside, dawn and dusk
- Pause at all crossings and say a quick blessing or prayer
- Do you start to notice anything holy in the transition?
- Go out to edge places and think about the thresholds in your life
- Water/land edge, Garden/pavement edge, Side street/main street edge
- Statio – Monastic practice
- concentrate on one task at a time
- when that task is done, notice ending before beginning the next task
- Then pray/bless the transition
The Practice of Dreaming – Oct 2019
Starting Location: Hauptbahnhoff U1 Platform, heading north
- For the early Celtic faithful, dreams were often considered a message from God.
- A vision or a call of a mission larger then could be imagined when awake
- Dreams also urge Celtic saints to take bold actions such as taking on a long journey or returning to previous homes
- Even today dreams can carry clues about our hidden desires and and strengths
- In a time of transition, it is helpful to write down what we can remember of our dreams. A theme may begin to emerge, a suggestion for focused thinking.
- It helps to write in present tense
- It can help to sketch the images of the dream
- Ask questions (source: Stephen Aizenstat, Dream Tending)
- Who is visiting now?
- What’s happening here?
- What is the dream’s desire?
The Practice of Peregrinatio and Seeking your Place of Resurrection Nov 2019
Starting Location: Deutsche Museum
- Celtic monks wondered, set out on big journeys without specifically chosen destinations
- Called peregrinatio pro Christo, to wonder for love of Christ
- Not pilgramage toward a specfic destination
- Travel with a intuative trust that God will lead the traveler to the place he or she needs to be
- Celtic travelers often went out to sea in small boats but without a paddle or even a rudder.
- Specifically trusting the wind and currents to take them where God wishes them to beThe prompt for the journey was Love
- God becomes both the arrival and the journey
- Where do my gifts best serve God’s purpose? Let God take me there.
- Following God’s prompts remain a possible journey today
- We may see a prompt to move from one city to another, but not yet see what comes after that move.
- The move must first happen before the reason can be revealed
- Discerning the call to move involves noticing where and what the heart is pulled toward and what leaves the heart untouched
- To walk “in front of God” like Abraham and Sarah who God directs to travel until God can say stop traveling
- We may see a prompt to move from one city to another, but not yet see what comes after that move.
- Peregrinatio calls us away from what we know without a map or a set of directions
- Ancient monks headed into the egyptian desert and into the unknown so that God’s love can be more clearly experienced.
- Exile, Peregrination automatically pushes us into vulnerability. We can’t take enough to meet all our own needs as we go. Vulnerability pushes us into see God underneath.
- Peregrination does not always involve a grand journey. The subtle nudges of God often show up in our daily lives. Consider reviewing at the end of the day where you think you sensed God and acted and where you think you might have missed God’s whisper.
The Practice of Blessing Each Moment – Dec 2019
Location: Marianplatz
- Blessings were a daily part of celtic life
- Almost all activities began and endedwith reverence and a sense of blessing
- Recognizing the gifts already present and co-creating with God
- Way of life, noting seasonal changes and daily acitvities
- Incorporate gratitude in our life all the time
- A time of being mindful, aware of what we are doing
- We also give when we bless
–
The Practice of Soul Friendship- Jan 2020
Location: Galeria Stachus Cafeteria
- Soul friend – important
- Spiritual mentor and companion on soul journy
- Some one you could talk to deeply
- Should be long term committment, time is important
- Soul friend shares the work of discernment,
- Soul friend has the ability to not be in your head and thus can name things you are too afraid to name
- Soul friends are also available as spiritual directors
- Tears are a part of the discernment process, esp among those who withdrew into solo contemplation
- Awareness of inner wounds, griefs, needing to surface and then be freed
The Practice of Encircling – Feb 2020
Location: Marianplatz
Encircling
- Lorica – prayer of protection, means shield
- Related to breastplate prayer of St. Patrick
- Call on presence of Christ – protection
- Mindful that sometimes the thing/people we fear is within our circles too
- Boundaries are important in religious communities
- Esp for women to be able to say “no” against time eaters, non heart happy
- Can also ask for protection when dealing with not-healthy people situations
- Boundaries are important in religious communities
- Caim – Irish Galelic means protection, encompassing
- Divine protection prayer and probably has roots in pre-Christian practice
- Orientation to 4 corners of the world; sunwishe and imaginary circle
- Turning sunwise is important, movement in harmony with nature
- Point right index finger to the ground
- Pause before each direction and pray
- Often for traveling
- Can extend beyond self to family, can travel with you
- Not manipulate God but embody and remember God’s presence with us
The Practice of Walking the Rounds – Feb 2020
Location: Marianplatz
- Walk rounds of sacred locations in a sunrise direction
- Walk in harmony w cosmic forces
- Number varies by traditions
- Sometimes the rounds focus on a specific feast or festival day
- Most holy sites known (and several around Munich)
- water, especially ground springs often mark a holy place
- Walking Rounds for Discernment
- affirming that life is not a straight line
- Walking slows us down
- Unfolding, listening to wisdom from dreams and nature
- Walking bless the earth with our feet
- Our whole being becomes a prayer
- Walking in a place rather then from one to the other
- Stuck indoors (weather?) walk inside
- Recite a prayer? Or focus on breath