Guest Author: Katy Taylor
I offer Wild Church because I am seeking to feel more connected to my own roots in the living earth (aka nature). I want to develop kinship relationships with the other-than-human beings that live around me. I want to feel my belonging with them. So, I trained in how to offer an experience that helps me and others along this path.

It turns out that in order to feel our belonging, we need to practice to open our awareness. Just like with belonging with friends, we can’t really know each other or be known if we don’t show up and get curious about who we are. To feel more connected to the living earth, we have to engage our physical senses – really noticing what we see, smell, hear, touch, taste. This helps us to notice what is really here and not just what we think or know about it. This lights up our curiosity and our sense of wonder, our appreciation for the tiniest miraculous details that weave together the world, our delight and kinship. We come more fully alive, awake, and enchanted.

At Wild Church, we do this in 3 parts: Greeting & Grounding, Wondering & Wandering, Circling Up & Sharing.

We meet under the big Doug Fir in the big field at Old Fort Townsend. This being’s protective branches keep us mostly dry in the winter and cool in the summer. It’s such a gift!

We start with our names, followed by a Land Acknowledgment that acknowledges the land, the First Peoples, and the watersheds that nourish us. We speak an invocation and sing a chant to help us remember who we are more deeply. Then we move into a grounding practice. I vary what the practice is, but it’s always about getting out of our heads and into our bodies and hearts so that more of us is available to explore connection with the other-than-human beings when we go out onto the land.

Wandering on the land for 30 minutes is our main practice. Before that, I share a poem or reading and offer an invitation to wander with. The wander is not a walk or a hike. It is a time to follow the call of the living earth—not the mind and its ideas. We let ourselves be drawn, guided, more from the body, heart, and soul than from the mind. We focus on being in relationship with the other-than-human beings we meet.

The last 30 minutes is spent sharing about our Wander experiences in a circle with no cross talk. During the Sharing time, here are some examples of the kinds of things people shared about a recent time on the land:

• Letting go of my skepticism.
• Contemplating what I want to release in this season of Fall.
• Lying down on my belly and when getting up, watching the grass also slowly unbend itself and rise back up.
• Just loving being present, drinking it in.
• Smelling the scent of the resin in the grass while lying on it.
• Seeing all these mushrooms on the trail and remembering them being called “eyes of the earth.”
• Enjoying moving slowly, not having a destination.
• Loving watching a little squirrel eating a pinecone – its tiny hands holding the cone and the way it nibbled at it.

It is a joy and a privilege to witness each other lighting up, feeling touched by our experiences. We come away feeling more connected and more belonging, more enchanted and more present. We end with a song and gratitude for each other, the living earth, and the circle.

Please join us if you feel called! Find more information here.