Since returning from my ‘wild monastery pilgrimage’ in late April, I’ve been back at work and also taking time for some deep discernment into what the Holy One – Blessed be She – is calling me into for this next season of life. Part of the purpose of journeying to the far North was to ‘test a call’ to manage the vacant monastery I visited on Unst, for at least a sabbatical year or perhaps longer? Being there & meeting some key people in the previous life of the monastery was interesting and inspiring. It was previously the mother house of the Society of Our Lady of the Isles (SOLI) under Reverend Mother Mary Agnes. These meetings also made it clear that there are complex reasons why it is presently not in use, including some challenging circumstances within the wider Diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney (within the Scottish Episcopal Church of which SOLI is a part). Given that I have spent the last year recovering from challenging and complex circumstances in the Exeter Diocese, it really didn’t seem wise to risk a major relocation into yet more uncertainty…

So it’s good to feel clear that I am meant to stay in Devon for now and to focus on discovering more about living a wild monastic way here. As part of this our wild church is back on pilgrimage – I’ve written about that here. Meanwhile our regular Wild Monastics group continues to meet, mostly on Zoom. Together we reflect on seasonal themes, often with visual inspiration from iconography and we share time in silent contemplation. From September we are returning to our previous rhythm of meeting fortnightly. The second Wednesday gathering will continue to meet at 5.30pm and focus on silent ‘Heart prayer and Holy Days’, while the fourth Wednesday meeting will be at a later time of 7.30pm and the focus will be on ‘Wild Scripture’.

What does this mean? I am looking forward to bringing together all the group work done over the years and exploring the following:

  • Reading of the ‘big book’ of nature – what I call the Wild Word (as in the beetle inscribed text in the photo above!) – using ancient contemplative practices combined with contemporary, secular perspectives. This will include an invitation to deepen relationship over the year with a particular local wild being of your own choosing.
  • Studying the ‘small book’ of human written scripture together. Starting with Torah (Hebrew Bible) study from a Kabbalistic (mystical Jewish) perspective and using ‘The Women’s Torah Commentary’, as shown opposite.
  • Plus engaging with inclusive, feminist approaches to the Christian Testament using ‘A Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church’ created by Womanist scholar Wilda C. Gafney. We will focus on Year W – for women as shown opposite. This lectionary has a gender expansive approach to scripture that focusses on passages featuring women and uses female pronouns for the Divine.

I hope this will enable us to deepen further into our spiritual practice and study together as a community and to offer and model a radical way of being new monastics and being church. See you in September!