"This week has been an incredible journey. Thank you so very much for guiding us through this window to deeper spirituality. Your loving patience and expertise created a warm and safe environment to open, trust and explore....to welcome Spirit. It has been treasured, blessed time."
- Icon participant, 2011 A Beginner's Experience The six-day journey from the first brush stroke to the final blessing of the icons was laden with laughter, tears, confusion, frustration, joy, camaraderie, doubt, faith, anxiety, hope ... most any emotion I could name.
Teresa was faithfully there as our guide. At one point when I came to her crying, she offered this consolation: "The process is very forgiving." And so it is. No "mistake" was irreparable. No lack of experience or inability to concentrate or faintness of heart got in the way of our icons coming to magnificent completion for our celebration on the last morning.God willing, this won't be my last experience with icon-writing. — Maggie Dimon, Atlanta A week at St. Paul's Cathedral
June 2015 http://stpaulcathedral.blogspot.com/2015/06/icon-retreat-at-st-pauls-cathedral-june.html |
Gazing at the icon this morning, I reflected upon what made this icon-writing workshop extraordinary in its own way. It was helpful that you had your own finished version of the icon for us to refer to, and it was genius that you had a "starter" icon of your own on which you could demonstrate each step. Those two ingredients made it much easier for me to figure things out and to ask less frequently for individual help. I love it when the majority of the people in the studio are writing the same icon. It enhances my experience of sacred space and communal prayer. Having you instruct one icon instead of two or more brings a certain focus to our shared endeavor. You and Sandra and Anne did a masterful job of embracing and supporting a large group.
I learned something new about the process of icon-writing for me this year. As much as I love my finished icon, it is the PROCESS which is most precious to me. I guess that's why I prefer to go on retreat to write an icon, and to do it in community...for the shared experience of prayer—through liturgy, meals, brush strokes, silence... I was telling a friend yesterday how much it is like yoga—moving with the breath, mindfully, intentionally, prayerfully..In yoga it's your whole body, while in icon-writing it's from the heart through the hand. Although I am perfectly able to practice yoga on my mat alone, I choose to practice in community where we can share our energy... And I am thinking about how icon-writing might be like the Tibetan sand paintings: though I love having the finished icon to share, to make into Christmas cards, to continue to pray with and to learn from, I could also have let it disappear after the blessing the way the Tibetan monks eventually destroy their sand mandalas. It is, above all, the shared experience of creating our icons in prayerful community that it so powerful to me. That intentional focus and bringing forth of something beautiful and holy. — Icon participant, 2012 |