After a much needed sabbatical in 2019, what wonderful plans we had for 2020 and how very differently the year unfolded… for the whole world! As I write now in July 2020, so much remains uncertain, even as the ‘lockdown’ we have lived within in recent months begins to ease for many of us. Others are less fortunate, some countries and places are still or back in lockdown, some people are still ‘shielding’ and throughout the world many have lost their lives or their health, their loved ones, their businesses or work and the safety of all that depends on it. Nothing seems as it was, old securities are stripped away and with that comes loss and yet also potential new beginnings.
The global pandemic has certainly had a huge impact on my (Sam’s) life. I am one of those who has been moderately ill with Covid-19 such that I spent the best part of 12 weeks largely in bed and I have yet to fully regain my former energy. Those of you who follow our facebook page, will know that part of my coping strategy was to reframe the narrative of illness for myself as a time of retreat and to look for spiritual insights emerging from it – many about the challenge and beauty of ‘letting go’. In this I was hugely helped by my daily contemplative practice and the loving support of others – thank you!
In my life also, there have been casualties… most importantly, friends sadly lost…
But also a profound impact on my work and earnings. The Hunters Moon Micro Monastery has closed its doors to short term guests, probably until Spring 2021, although long term residents remain. River Dart Wild Church has had to cancel this year’s ‘Sacred Waters Way’ Pilgrimage, though we hope to begin again next year. ‘One to one’ spiritual counselling/mentoring work and Wild Monastics meetings took a short break during my worst weeks and then moved online, with sessions and meetings being ‘Zoomed’ from my bed!
Yesterday Wild Monastics gathered for our final meeting in our ‘academic’ year (begun last autumn in 2019) with a focus on exploring the ‘Prayer of the Heart’. This has been a deeply inspiring and collaborative process, as all the many members who have participated in meetings in Dartington and online have shared their experience and wisdom. For yesterday’s gathering, we held a special, contemplative community consultation around the question, ‘What could church/sacred community be?’ Our shared reflections expressed both the many painful, excluding, boring, infuriating experiences that many of us have experienced in ‘church’ and beautiful moments of love and longing. Before our annual August break begins, I’d like to share here some of the rich, shared words that emerged:
We long for and experience sacred community as:
sacred activism… an ethereal collective… peace… spirit alive… belonging to each other… sacred communion… being as one… sanctuary… safety… eremitic monasticism… alone together… geese flying… sacred work… fellow travelling… feast and festival… joyful… companionship… love… oneness… emergence… sangha and satsang… a space of growth and flourishing… being whole…