Separate: Cross a threshold of your own choosing to enter into a different kind
of seeing. Stop and intentionally step over a stick or a bridge into a more
enchanted alive relationship with the creation, with God, with your soul.
Wander. Allow yourself to be drawn to something (the river, the sun, shadows,
the breeze?) or someone (a jay, a hawk, a bug, a tree?) that seems to be calling
you. Don’t question or second guess. Just respond by opening your
imagination and offering your full presence. Release agenda and expectations.
Ask Permission. Wait for an answer…a sense of Yes in your body. Don’t
overthink.
Wonder. Fully attentive, listen closely. Use all your senses. Notice little things.
Smell. Listen. Observe. Enter tenderly into this new relationship.
Ask. Tell me about your despair (or whatever question arises in you..allow your
curiosity to be genuine.) And then listen.
Share. Engage in a conversation. This is a new language for you, so words
sometimes don’t work. Journal maybe, or sketch or still meditation, listening
deeply, allowing images and emotions to arise. Tell this “more-than-human-
other” what you know of your own despair and disconnection. What barriers
block you from fully connecting with your own calling, with resurrected life, with
“your place in the family of things.” Write a poem perhaps, sing a song.- What
insight comes up from this encounter that speaks to your own despair and
invites you into a larger story?
Gratitude. A song, a poem, a bowing in reverence. Some acknowledgement of
honor and gratitude. Your full attention is a gift of gratitude. You may be the
only human who paid full attention to that lizard. Like a dog or a chid who
brightens up with your full attention, so it is true with all living beings. -
Return: Cross over the threshold again and offer gratitude. A gift perhaps? Ask
if you can bring back a symbol of your connection to build an ephemeral alter
with your Clan. Share your experience.
Terra Divina: Wild Contemplation
WILD GEESE
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
-Mary Oliver
“But ask the animals, and they
will teach you, or the birds in the
sky, and they will tell you; or
speak to the earth, and it will
teach you, or let the fish in the
sea inform you. Which of all
these does not know that the
hand of Yahweh has done this?
In whose hand is the soul of
every creature and the breath of
all humanity. Job 12:7-10
Victoria Loorz, SeminaryoftheWild.com