Christine Valters Paintner: The Spiral Way: Celtic Spirituality and the Creative Imagination

Check out Christine’s article, How Ireland Changed the World– and Me!

Celtic spirituality is a spiral way, one that honors non-linear consciousness, follows nature’s rhythms closely, listens to dreams, learns through story, and cultivates a more expansive imagination. This form of early Christianity that developed was woven through with more ancient practices and traditions from both Druidic and megalithic time periods. For many who have European roots, there is a strong draw to a path that is indigenous to ones’ ancestors. For others, the call is to a way that honors Earth wisdom alongside human wisdom and the presence of the Otherworld just beyond the surface of everyday appearances.

Join us for this 4-week online retreat delivered via a weekly 90-minute session on Zoom and a private Facebook group for sharing in between. We gather at what the Celts considered to be an especially thin time of year, where the veil between heaven and earth was especially permeable.

In each live session Christine will engage us in story, poetry, music, gentle movement, writing explorations, meditation and contemplative practice, calling on saints and ancestors for support, as well as opportunities to share in large and small groups to help move us into this threshold way of thinking and being in the world which is more organic and intuitive. She will draw on stories and practices from both the Christian and pre-Christian traditions in ways that make them accessible to people of any belief or practice. No previous writing experience necessary.

As with all our paid programs, recordings will be shared with registered participants for a limited time and with sharing restrictions.

Week 1: Thresholds and Wild Edges

Week 2: Moving in Circles Around the Center

Week 3: Wisdom of Cycles and Seasons

Week 4: Following the Currents of Our Lives