I concluded my ‘forty days in the wilderness’ during the second week of Eastertide. On Monday I left Edinburgh for Cumbria and then concluded my ‘monastery crawl’ in a Franciscan house (above) near Worcester, before arriving back in rural Devon on Friday. So this final post concludes this short series on my ‘wild monastery pilgrimage’. As before daily updates and photos were posted in our River Dart Wild Church fb community, so this journal entry draws on and links to those.

Day 36 and I am back at the beautiful Sacred Space Foundation near Mungrisdale in Cumbria. It’s interesting being in this return stage of a journey… it highlights both the inner changes and the shift of outer seasons. When I was last here, the hills were covered in snow. Whereas now there are new lambs (as above) & flowers… all of which resonates with the renewed vitality I feel within. This pilgrimage has felt like the journey of a labyrinth, that winding way into our centre and source, that enables a revitalised return to the world.

Click here to see the fb post and further photos.

Day 37 was one of those enchanted days, starting with morning prayer in the presence of a lovely icon of Christ, followed by breakfast with red squirrels! Then I wandered through the larksong, over the moor and into spring green fields full of lambs and bordered by lichened walls with their worn stone stiles. I ended up at the most perfect country church, St Kentigern’s in Mungrisdale. It’s rare to find such a cared for sacred space, where a beautiful traditional simplicity is brought so lovingly alive. There was a cobbled porch with willow and daffodils at the door and a basket of naturally dyed eggs. Inside, the plain dark wood and white walls were brightened with local flowers, including a mossy Easter garden on the altar. This is how I would wish to tend to a church building if I had one to tend to.. with this natural and creative embodying of the beauty of holiness.

While there I rescued a queen wasp. She must have hibernated here and then couldn’t find her way out after waking on this sunny day. While gazing at the lovely Madonna lilies on the east windowsill and chanting the Angelus, I suddenly noticed her hunched up towards the top of the east window. I seemed to feel her longing to get through the glass to the sun, open spaces and fertile life outside. So after struggling to fit a chair behind the altar, climbing onto the sill & persuading her onto a willow catkin, I managed to carry her out and have the great pleasure of seeing her drooping antennae lift as she felt the breeze and then flew high into the trees and away. Such joy and freedom – Christ was a queen wasp today!

Click here to see the fb post and further photos.

Day 38 and a lovely sunny start to the day in Cumbria sharing morning prayer with a deer and three hares… followed by several hours of torment on the M6! So I was very happy to arrive back in Japan for lunch (aka Tatton Park). One of the strange aspects of having moved quite quickly from the sub Arctic to more southerly climes is that spring seems to me to have exploded into life. So I am in a state of awe to see pear blossom, bee flies (as shown above) and my first wild bluebell.

After a few more hours in the hell realm of the motorways (where there was ‘debris on road’… ‘abandoned vehicle’… ‘roadworks’… ‘queues’… ‘junction closed’ and ‘diversion’… arghh!) I finally arrived in a heavenly realm in the form of my final monastery, St Mary at the Cross, Glasshampton. More about this lovely Anglican Franciscan sacred space tomorrow, as I have to get ready for Night Prayer and to enter the Greater Silence…

Click here to see the fb post and further photos.

Day 39 and my final night away from my own bed (it will be a joyful reunion!) I can highly recommend retreat time here at Glasshampton, which has a particular emphasis on silence and contemplation. It was started by a courageous monk, Fr William Sirr, who was a member of the first Anglican Franciscan Community. He lived at this converted stable (of a grand house, which burnt down in 1810) for many years, while others came and left. A history sheet here says: ‘the diet was said to be atrocious, the chapel worship conducted at a painfully slow pace, and the life proved to be beyond surviving’! How wonderful that his vision of a contemplation enclosure did come to fruition and that women guests are now also welcome. Above is a picture of the life of St Clare that sits at the bottom of the stairs to my room – perfect!

I spotted a church tower on the horizon this morning, so walked over to Eastley, through the woods with their flowering wild garlic and past the old quarry, from where it looks as if the beautiful red sandstone of the church was cut. I discovered that this was once a Priory Church and has been a sacred space since at least Saxon times. After crawling around in the undergrowth, I even managed to find the old arch of the Priory well, now choked with mud to become an overgrown boggy pool. How sad that our sacred waters are often so little valued. There were many other fascinating details inside the church and churchyard, but I’ll just mention one here: the wonderful, watery new stained glass shown below.

More about Anglican Franciscan retreat houses, where you can come as a guest on a donation basis are on this link: https://www.franciscans.org.uk/hospitality/

Click here to see the fb post and further photos.

Day 40 and my final day of travelling. I was quite sad to leave the Franciscan Brothers at Glasshampton Monastery, as I felt so welcomed by them and at home there in a house dedicated to contemplation & study. They have a great library & I let myself start reading books again after mostly just reading the book of nature for these weeks.

On my way back to Devon, I re-visited Tyntesfield & was able to go inside the chapel this time. It’s physically exquisite but was never consecrated, and to me felt somehow spiritually bereft. The contrast of the simplicity and depth of the monastery (below is a glimpse of their Lady Chapel, where the monks meditate silently each morning) compared with the complex demonstration of wealth at Tyntesfield felt very strong. In the former one is a pilgrim, in the latter a tourist… Yet I still enjoyed all the natural beauty in both crafted details of the house and outside in the garden.

How happy I am to now be sitting back home in my bed! It is a blessing to travel and to return home at the journey’s end… and lovely to be welcomed back by Leo cat and my friend Cathy. Thank you everyone who has supported me in so many different ways during these forty days. Your donations, interest & comments have been so much appreciated. Now everyday life continues as I start to look ahead to our Wild Church group pilgrimages. So farewell for now and (as T.S Eliot wrote in his poem The Dry Salvages) fare forward travellers!

Click here to see the fb post and further photos.

All text and images are my own, unless otherwise stated – © Sam Wernham 2023