An Invitation to Community

Our Earth Group - a book group I wrote about several posts ago - is reading Zoe Schlanger’s The Light Eaters. Although I read the book a few years ago, I’ve been captured anew by the richly researched, poetic description that reminds us that we live within an ancient, intelligent, interconnected Earth who, moment by moment, lavishly pours out gifts that make life possible. I am struck by the question: How is it that we know this intellectually and still persist in following the drumbeat of individualism, competition, greed?

Not long after that conversation, my friend laments: “I was so busy pulling weeds in order to check that job off my list that I ignored the wild noises above me. After several minutes I finally looked up and was stunned to catch the final phase of two eagles in their mating ritual. They were there so long before the sound penetrated by consciousness. I miss so much of life.”

I know that feeling. The busy mind that recites my grocery list in the middle of an incredible sunset. The pull to attend to this text or that email instead of the morning chorus of birdsong filling the air. The fast walk that brings me quickly to my front door without really seeing the brown-eyed Susans bowing as I pass or relishing the sweet perfume of milkweed beckoning bees and me to attend.

It’s as if Mary Oliver is describing me in her compelling poem “When I Am Among the Trees”:

I am so distant from the hope of myself,

in which I have goodness, and discernment,

and never hurry through the world

but walk slowly, and bow often.

And here’s the thing: I don’t think I am alone. You may be struggling as I am, intending to offer loving attention to the world, hoping to be captured by awe and wonder, longing to live with greater gratitude, to claim kinship, to be part of the shift in consciousness that will take us to the “great turning.”

This seeming inability to attend to life around us is not because we are weak or flawed. We have been shaped by modernity, well trained in the “business as usual” mode that continues to deny our connection to Earth even as we witness daily “the great unraveling.”1 Our culture has turned away from moving to the rhythm of the seasons, speaking the language of birds, learning from the wisdom of trees. We were not taught to read the changes in weather, to be at home with the animals, to respect our elders whose lives prepared and made possible the evolution of our species. We are undergoing what Francis Weller has called “a rough initiation” as we seek to re-member the “natural rhythms of our souls.”2

We need to create new rituals of deep and loving attention to this Earth. This will take repeated practice, falling short, starting over, re-membering. We cannot do this alone. We are interconnected, wired to live within a mycelial web of mutual support and thriving.

Of course, simply being together is not magic fix. The ground is shifting; the boulders are large; the path, unclear. Yet I am confident that a community of committed souls - human and more than human - can offer the encouragement and support we so desperately need for living in edge times. I am sensing that you may need this. I know that I do.

And so I am inviting you to join me in the newly evolving Church of the Wild Earth & Soul:

• to gather monthly online on the first Sunday of each month from 3-5pm EDT; and

• for those near to the Eastern Panhandle of WV, for in-person, seasonal gatherings.

In each wild gathering we will seek to create a space where we might:

• Attend to beauty, awe, and wonder even as we bear witness to losses;

• Listen deeply to each other and the living world;

• Open to rich conversations with all beings - especially when answers elude us;

• Reweave the frayed tapestry of Earth & soul.

There is an underlying sacredness in the Cosmos, an original blessing, calling us to compassion and unity. We welcome anyone who seeks to deepen community and spirituality through an open-hearted embrace of each other and the living world.

Our gatherings are not about religion, dogma or creed. We have no physical structure, no bylaws. There is no membership or “joining.” It’s all free. However, there are requirements: Respect, compassion, gentle curiosity, listening from the heart, and a willingness and desire to deepen our kinship with all beings.

Registration is free via the button below.

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We are called repeatedly to bear witness to loss in these edge times. Our broken hearts long to be sustained by wonder, beauty, and belonging. The living Earth opens herself to us in every moment, gifting us even on the bleakest of days. As we pause to accept, honor, and cherish the wonder of this world, we deepen our relationship beyond the bounds of language and re-member our place “in the family of things.”3

In our time together, you can expect shared conversations, small group discussions, and space for quiet reflection as we open to discovering Wonder Amid the Ordinary. An important part of every online gathering will be approximately 30 minutes of silence where you can move away from technology to be present to the more than human world.

In preparation for participating: Consider how you might engage in an extended offline opportunity for opening to wonder in the living world around you. This might take the form of sitting silently to rediscover a small space in your yard; attending to a tree or the sky from your deck or porch; lingering with leaves, seeds, or stones that you have placed nearby; or even attending closely to a special location in your memory.

I would be delighted to have you at this gathering.

Near equinox and solstice, we will gather at retreat centers, nature preserves, or other special places in or around the Eastern Panhandle of WV. These will be scheduled on different days of the week for 3-5 hours, a time apart from the more hectic pace of our busy lives. Amid the sacred beauty of the living world, we will slow our pace as we deepen our relationship with the family of things.

SAVE THE DATE: Sunday afternoon, September 20, Details and Location TBA. As we near the Autumnal Equinox, gather with us to wander the woods and celebrate the Honorable Harvest.

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Going forward, announcements will be sent out approximately a week ahead of the monthly gatherings and a month before in-person gatherings.

In my regularly recurring Substack offerings, you can choose to receive the essays I write via Reweaving Earth & Soul and/or Church of the Wild invitations. Those can be managed through subscriptions. Both offerings are free unless you choose otherwise - and please feel no pressure about any payment.

Church of the Wild Earth & Soul evolved from Church of the Wild Two Rivers that has been gathering regularly for over six years. We are part of the Wild Church Network that you may have read about in Church of the Wild by Victoria Loorz.4 However, as I suspect is true of most wild churches, we are our own unique manifestation of our ongoig discernment about how to live into our soul calling in this sacred, broken, beautiful world.

And with that, we’ll let Victoria have the last word on what “church of the wild” means to her:

“There are no magic words to incant, no spiritual laws to memorize, no ruby-slippered heels to click three times. You don’t need to read a hundred new ecotheology books or leave the church or become an animist or pantheist. (But you can if you want to.) <Interjection from Leah: Or consider panenthism: the belief that the sacred is simultaneously present within and greater than everything, everywhere.>

You simply need to learn how to listen. And allow your heart to be broken, just like you do every time you fall in love.

Because the holy is in your place too. You open the gates into this enchanted land, your home, with hands muddied from the soil outside your house and a raw, scabby, and unprotected heart. You enter naked and brave.” ~ Victoria Loorz, Church of the Wild prologue