Wild Church – A New (Old) Spiritual Practice

It’s a blustery April day on Nantucket Island and I am hunkered down inside under pandemic quarantine orders.  Wrapped in a blanket and sipping tea, I notice a message come through from my friend Emily.  “Would you be willing to lead prayers in some form of virtual service?” Something of the earth?” she asks. Emily knows my strong connection to the natural world and earth-honoring ceremonies.  Then she mentions a place she has heard about in New Hampshire called “Church of the Woods” Immediately I am intrigued and look up the website. I feel the warm tingles of resonance as I read about this “Wild Church” practice where they meet on sacred land (106 acres of wild woods and wetlands!) and practice community and contemplation. As Stephen Blackmer, founder, said:

“We seek to renew a widespread understanding of the natural world as a bearer of the sacred and to restore this awareness as a foundation of both religious practice and practical action to conserve the Earth”

As a minister trained in an Earth-based and cross-cultural ministry school, I know that ancient communities practiced ceremony and spiritual connection in nature, on the land, under the sun and moon, with the elements and all beings. Our modern world has led us away from this practice, calling us inside churches to pray.  Many have become disconnected from the natural world.

Many are seeking something more, that they can’t put their finger on.

Immediately I procure a copy of the book “Church of the Wild: How Nature Invites Us Into the Sacred”, by Victoria Loorz, an Episcopal minister and one of the founders of Wild Church.  There is so much resonance in these pages! I go on to enroll in a Wild Church facilitator training, twice.

The Wild Church Network site describes the Wild Church movement as guiding us:

·      “from isolation to connection”

·      “from detachment to immersion”

·      “from dualism to interbeing”

Wild Church is an opportunity to connect with the sacred in the natural world.  We gather as a community with reverence for all of life.  The earth herself becomes the container for ceremony, and we are invited to restore a loving, respectful relationship with all beings. It is a space to contemplate, to praise, to express grief, or joy, and to share deeply held beliefs.

When the quarantine precautions were relaxed, I met my friend Emily on conservation land where we created an Earth Mandala, sang, shared stories and said prayers. Thus began my relationship with Wild Church, which continues to this day and has followed me to the different communities where I have lived.  It has been a beautiful experience of discovering the holy in nature.

“The divine communicates with us primarily through the natural world”

-Thomas Berry