By Christine Valters Paintner
The Monk and Artist Archetypes
I have spent most of my professional career exploring the connections between twoarchetypes – the monk and the artist. Archetypes are universal patterns of energyfound across cultures. Each of us has an inner monk and artist and we are invitedto cultivate those aspects of ourselves. The monk is the part of ourselves that seeksconnection with the divine in each moment of time, through the objects of daily life,and through encounters with other people. The artist is the part of ourselves thatseeks to give expression to an inner set of images in an outward form. That form mightbe words, paint, film, movement, or other artistic medium. The monk and artist supportand nourish one another.
Creativity as Process Over Product
I was not drawn to a professional life in the arts. I was much more interested inpeoples’ experiences of creating. I loved what happened when I led retreats or satwith people in spiritual direction and opened up spaces where people had permissionto follow their creative impulses, to make a mess, to perhaps create “bad art” andset aside old messages about what an artist is. Externalizing something you are wrestlingwith can be very healing. I discovered this is all very spiritual and soulful work.
I am most enlivened by engaging in creativity as a process, rather than focus on creatinga product. Process means following the flow of what is unfolding in the moment. Itmeans being open to a journey of discovery as we create instead of thinking we knowwhere we are heading. It means getting out of our own way, surrendering agendas andplans, as well as fears and judgement. It is an ongoing journey. It is a lot likeprayer.
Art as Pilgrimage
I liken the art-making process to going on pilgrimage, which is a soulful journeywhere we seek the Holy. Pilgrimage is also an embodied practice - we walk, we travelacross land and water, we encounter our physical needs often more keenly.
The Buddhist writer and meditation teacher Reginald Ray describes the body as “thelast unexplored wilderness.” When I first read this description my heart sang withrecognition. I have a great love of the desert monastic tradition – the ammas andabbas who journeyed out into the wilderness to strip away what was not necessary andcome into radical communion with the divine.
In a culture that promotes endless self-improvement, to descend into our bodies andnavigate that territory, honoring it as a place of sacred encounter is a tremendousgift. To see it as wilderness means we open to the holiness of our flesh. When I ammore attuned to my body and her needs, I write and create from a more deeply groundedplace. I find yoga and dance hugely beneficial to both my contemplation and creativitybecause these practices help me to move out of my mind which wants to direct, control,plan, and expect things, and move into my body which is a more spacious, open, receiving,and generative vessel. Making this shift is at the heart of the creative process.
Sacred Rhythms
One key way to bring embodied awareness to our creative practice is by paying attentionto the rhythms of creation around us, especially in the rise and fall of each dayand the rise and fall of the seasons. The ancient monks would pause to pray eighttimes during the day. This was to remind themselves of the orientation and directionof their lives and hearts. It also helped them to attune to the distinctive rhythmsand invitations each day offered – praying at dawn we listen to what is awakeningin us, at midday we listen for what is coming to fullness, in the evening we pay attentionto what we want to release, and at night we move into rest and mystery and unknowing.
The seasons of the year follow this same pattern of blossoming, fruitfulness, releasing,and resting. The more we attend to these rhythms, the more they can support our creativeprocess. We live in a culture that promotes perpetual productivity, asking us to alwaysbe blossoming or bearing fruit. However, the release and rest, the letting go andtimes of being are as essential to creative work as the doing. Again, this helps ushonor our physical bodies as well with their limitations and possibilities. When wehonor sacred rhythms we guard against burning ourselves out. We start to see “artist’sblock” as a time when we are invited to rest and set aside our work. We begin to reverencethe body’s needs as foundational to our creative and spiritual practice.
Lectio Divina
In the Benedictine monastic tradition, lectio divina is an ancient contemplative wayof reading the scriptures. It is a way of slowing ourselves down and listening deeplyfor how God might be speaking to us through a given text. We choose a text, we readit several times over, we allow images and feelings to arise in our imaginations,we listen for an invitation, and then we rest into silence. The text we choose couldbe scripture or a poem or other text. We can also practice lectio divina with an imageor with music.
Lectio divina is a wonderful way of activating the creative imagination. As a poet,one of my primary practices is to begin the day choosing a poem to read several timesthrough slowly. Poetry has a way of moving us out of the linear, analytic mind andhelping us descend into a more intuitive and embodied kind of knowing. As I listenfor the images sparked by lines in the poem I make space for them to expand. WhenI attend to the invitation arising, I let it arise from my body’s wisdom and how Iam being invited to express my response through my own poetry.
An Artist’s Rule of Life
One of the central practices of monastic communities is to create a Rule of Life.Rather than a rigid document, a Rule is more like a trellis to give structure to ourspiritual practice while leaving room for growth and change.
Creating an Artist’s Rule of Life means to contemplate what are the practices andrhythms that help to nourish your creative life the most. You must first considerthe times of day and times of year that feel most supportive of entering into a placeof open-ended flow. Let those become the heart of your Rule, protect these times.Then build a set of practices that help to support this. Time spent sitting in silence,time for lectio divina, time for ritual.
Create a simple ritual to begin your creative time to remind yourself of its sacredconnection and grounding. Lighting a candle, saying a blessing, or singing a songare all ways to mark this transition into intentional creative work. Weave in bodypractices that help you to regularly drop into your embodied experience and stay attunedto the wisdom being offered. This might include a walk where you aren’t trying toget anywhere, but simply savoring the gift of movement and paying attention to nature’sdelights around you.
To become a holistic artist means to connect our creative capacity and expressionintentionally to our spiritual path and practice as well as to our bodies. This requirespractices from us, habits and ways of being that support us in staying open to receivingwisdom and insight from other sources beyond our own desire to plan and control theoutcome.
