10/14/2026
Join Christine Valters Paintner at Spirituality & Practice for a new course exploring medieval women mystics.
Four Gates of Mystical Wisdom
November 2 - 27, 2026
We live in liminal times, when the old is falling away and the new has not yet come into being. Join us as we explore the wisdom four medieval women mystics offer us in standing on the threshold between worlds. These holy women lived through the personal and cultural ravages of their times. In the midst of this they also experienced profound and embodied love which took them to the depths of their own beings and then sent them back out into the world over and over again to engage the world with love. Their voices and visions shimmer across hundreds of years to meet us where we are.
Each week of this new e-course will include reflections on one of these mystics and her teachings as well as invitations to spiritual practice which embody aspects of her wisdom. Emails delivered on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays will each contain a teaching/essay about a particular mystic: Teresa of Avila, Julian of Norwich, Mechtild of Magdeburg, and Hildegard of Bingen. This will be followed by a reading of the spiritual practice for the day on an audio file. You will then be invited to share your responses to the wisdom and your experiences with the practice in the online Practice Circle.
Our leader will be Christine Valters Painter, the online abbess of Abbey of the Arts who is profiled in S&P’s Living Spiritual Teachers Project. She has previously led several online programs for Spirituality & Practice.
In this e-course, she will explore:
Week 1: Teresa of Avila | Carmelite nun and mystic in Spain
The Seven Doors Within
Go on a journey across the threshold into your most intimate being with Teresa’s teachings on the interior castle which reveals the holy dwelling place at your center and a diamond glimmering with utmost beauty. The movement is from engaging effort and will in our prayer into a prayer of deep surrender and abiding. In a culture that demands relentless productivity, Teresa shows us that the deepest wisdom arises from letting go of our doing and opening up to receive.
Week 2: Julian of Norwich | anchoress and mystic in England
The Anchorhold as Alchemical Vessel
Julian invites us across the threshold into the sacred cave within each of our hearts. She teaches us the profound message that “all shall be well,” not as a means of spiritual bypassing the very real suffering in this world, but as a call to the depth of trust in a God whose foundation is love. She also invites us into the image of the motherhood of Christ to expand our sacred connection to one of nurturing and nourishing love.
Week 3: Mechtild of Magdeburg | Beguine lay woman in Germany
Encountering God as Lover
Mechtild’s teachings were rooted in an understanding of God’s essence as that of a flowing light of generosity, love, and abundance, always overflowing. She was inspired by the tradition of the Song of Songs, popular in medieval monasteries, to relate to the divine through the power of eros, the love that is not limited to sexual expression, but is the energy that draws us out into creative expression and our relationship with the world.
Week 4: Hildegard of Bingen | Benedictine abbess and mystic in Germany
Cultivating the Greening Flow
Hildegard was an amazing woman, artist, musician, healer, teacher, theologian, preacher, and more. Her fundamental vision of the world was of viriditas: the greening power of the divine flowing through every living thing as well as through all celestial beings. This greening is her discernment principle, releasing all that gets in the way of this power. One way to help greening to flourish is through song which connects us back to a primordial memory of singing with the entire cosmos.
Persons of any gender are welcome to join us. The medieval women mystics have wisdom for us all. While we focus on four Christian mystics every effort will be made to keep the language as inclusive as possible for those from other traditions (or none at all) who are interested in joining us.
https://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/MysticalWisdom
