Waking on this blustery autumn morning I (Cami) realize two weeks have passed since our Wild Harvest Fundraiser at Dartington Church. A rich and deeply nourishing day of community gathering in celebration of this blessed land. The intention was to bring awareness to Wild Church and our monthly tree pilgrimages that we will be hosting this year…. and through them to deepen connection to and care of the earth.
Sun rays poured through the stain glass windows as the pews filled with autumn colours and bundled bodies, warmed by the anticipation of the offerings to come.
The Wild Harvest journey began with Ian Adam’s exquisite poetry from his latest book, Unfurling. His connection with the natural world and his ability to share from his heart was deeply inspiring and he encouraged us “to paint the town green!” with his closing poem. Thank you Ian. Here are three tiny tastes of his poetry in Haiku form:
this sense, how fragile: a leaf
falling in autumn.
I catch breath, see stars.
into the forest, the more
joy seems to be choice.
After poetry, tea and cake was particularly abundant with all of the overflowing generosity from the community! A lovely opportunity for Wild Church folk to get to know each other a little better and share in the festivities.
After tea, Helen shared her story of the White Hart. It was very powerful to learn more of the history of the land and begin to unravel some of the mysteries of the White Hart and the Dartington Estate. Julia Thomas played some very beautiful medieval music throughout the story, really bringing it to life. Thank you Helen and Julia!
The story concluded our afternoon and we then had a few hours before returning for Peter Owen Jones talk on Spiritual Ecology. Pete was in full prophetic flow as he expressed the deep distress of the current ecological crisis facing us all – with climate change, loss of bio-diversity and the pain of ongoing extinctions. His call was for each of us to face the realities of our own contribution to this crisis, to resist the temptation to blame others or sink into despair and to find our passion and commitment for engaging with positive change and helping the planet in the choices we make in our own daily lives.
The moon was waxing on that Sunday of Wild Harvest and now here we are descending once more as she wanes and draws us towards Samhain/All Hallows and our first Wild Church Tree Pilgrimage. On Sunday 30th October we’ll be communing with the Dartington sweet chestnut trees with Myrtle of Wild & Curious. Full details are on our Facebook page here. We hope you can join us for this magical outdoor retreat day…
Deep gratitude for all of your support and contributions that made our Wild Harvest day possible. We are delighted with how it unfolded and even managed to fill our financial honey pot for the year to come (Added to our seed funding from NOW this will enable us to continue to offer most of our events on a donation basis and be accessible to all.) We are so looking forward to communing with you and the trees this year.
Click here see the outline of the year. Please feel free to share with your friends and family!
(Words by Cami Robyn and photos by Ian Adams and Stu McLellan)