Folks contact me regularly to ask what our wild monastery and wild church is about and what is on offer. Well, it keeps emerging and as a creative person that’s what I find life giving. We are not an institution but a very loose-knit and constantly changing community, which I simply serve and shepherd as best I can, on a self employed basis. Picture a metaphorical, ‘semi eremitic’ monastery, a collection of small monastic cells scattered across the land, where each monastic gets on with living in their own quiet and kind way and some of whom may then periodically come together. So here for the beginning of 2024 is a summary of my understanding of how this is happening…

Wild Monastics

For me our ‘wild monastics’ group is core, which currently meets fortnightly on Zoom. Here we explore our central sacred practices. On the second Wednesday of each month this focuses on the prayer of the heart and on exploring the sacred rhythm of the year. Heart prayer draws inspiration from Eastern Orthodox Christianity and yet we practice in an open way, as we are a diverse group coming from different sacred & secular backgrounds. So my intention is to offer a little guidance and hold a safe space in which all at our gathering can practice shifting from the head to the heart, and from here listen to ourselves and each other more deeply. Some of us do our best to practice heart prayer daily (morning, noon & night) in our own lives and in doing so become the heart of our monastery. This is not organised in anyway, the commitment is yours to make, or not. If heart prayer provides the night & day rhythm of our monastic life, then our exploration of holy days mark out the moons and seasons. So in our second Weds meetings we also take time to reflect on the natural seasons and upcoming festivals, mostly but not exclusively from within the Christian tradition and often through contemplating icons. See more about the fourth Wednesday ‘Wild Scripture’ Zoom meeting below.

Wild Church

Once a moon, during the growing season, those who wish can also gather for Wild Church on the first Sunday of the month. This is not about being in a particular ‘sacred’ place (like a church building) but choosing to come together (‘church’ as sacred community) in an open hearted and deeply present way, within the community of all beings in which all places are sacred when we are awake to this. We come into communion with this Holy One-ness, Blessed Be She, through the practice of silent pilgrimage and our focus in this particular context is an ongoing and deepening relationship with the River Dart and on sacred activism on her behalf.

Our fourth Wednesday Wild Monastery Zoom also supports this, as here we practice the reading of wild scripture. This includes time to silently contemplate natural tokens and also to grapple with meditative and feminist approaches to the Bible. Taken altogether, our wild monastics meetings and wild church pilgrimages are part of how we engage with the monastic disciplines of prayer, study and work… and the ‘we’ is not fixed in any way, it’s simply whoever shows up and keeps showing up. This is sacred community in a way that may feel unfamiliar and even uncomfortable at times, where we may meet at depth and mostly in silence, and yet hardly know each other at all in worldly ways… welcome to wild monastery!

Wild Wisdom School

This has been fallow in recent years and yet is returning in 2024 with a pilot of our new ‘wild cat(echetical) course’. I imagine our Wild Wisdom School as a kind of ‘scriptorium’ within our Wild Monastery, in the sense of a coming together to deepen our learning, study, writing and engagement with mystical Christian traditions, ourselves and each other. This will be a small group (6-12) meeting in person, on the afternoon of the third Sunday of each month and virtually on the fourth Sunday, to explore contemplative, feminist, creative Christianity more deeply and followed by Vespers – a time of evening prayer. Catechism is a way of learning together through the art of asking ‘beautiful questions’ and engaging in enquiry in relationship to Christian tradition. My hope is to run this course each year, from Lent (mid February in 2024) and to culminate in the option to be baptised or renew baptismal vows in the River Dart during the following Eastertide.

In future I hope other courses may emerge, including a return to our original, mystical, Christian herstory course. I’d also like to offer a course on the Way of Mary, which is how I live my own contemplative life and which I enjoy exploring with my sisters in our closed, contemplative, dispersed Community of Sophia and Mary.

Virtual Monastery

Many people feel a connection with Wild Monastery and its River Dart Wild Church without ever coming to a meeting. They may follow the journals on our websites, read the monthly newsletter or be part of the River Dart Wild Church facebook community. If you are one of these people, I want you to know how much I appreciate you, even if we never meet, and that I pray for you most days. Spiritual community is mysterious and the ways in which we inspire, encourage and support each other are so diverse, which I feel is a real blessing.

Deep Hospitality

In addition to the groups offered above, which are all given on a donation basis, I also try to offer deep hospitality in my Hunters Moon Micro Monastery in Dartington. This is in the form of one to one meetings, either on Zoom or in person in my garden sanctuary in Dartington and also short stays/retreats. Please get in touch for more details.