After the storm

Listening for the wisdom of the Holy Wild

Sometimes storms seem to come out of no-where. Life is trundling along and then, seemingly out of the blue, a fierce wind comes and batters your landscape. The noise is overwhelming and there is damage to beings and structures you hold dear.

We are no different to the natural world around us. Why do we expect to be when we are made of the same fabric and weave. Sometimes we fool ourselves that somehow we are different to the forest or the scrubland. It helps us feel immune to the chaos and to believe that we are able to control the forces that bring collapse or change.

This week I have felt engulfed by a storm that has swept through a community that I deeply love. I felt overwhelmed by the power of the winds and grief stricken as I witnessed the ensuing breaking and damage to those I love.

At such times, I find words almost impossible to process. So I head out to the land and the woods. I seek the comfort of my non-human kin and try to hear the wisdom the Holy Wild has for me. It has always been the same. As a neurodivergent child I often found the world confusing and being alone amongst the trees soothed my bewildered nervous system.

Yesterday, after hearing some of the details of the harm wreaked by the storm, I went out to walk by the lake and found myself sitting in the woods, in a grove of trees where some friends and I recently spent the solstice.

Silence                                                                                                                                    After the clamour of the storm                                                                                                  I breathe in the silence                                                                                                               Allow myself to be held by the presence of trees.                                                                    Enter the silence                                                                                                                           A silence that is full                                                                                                                    The plaintive call of a wood-pigeon                                                                                          melodies of song thrush and wren                                                                                             the soft rustling of birch leaves                                                                                                                                                         as a wisp of a breeze                                                                                                                      threads its way through her branches.

Lottie the Labrador                                                                                                                soul friend and companion                                                                                                     snores gently at my feet                                                                                                   content to rest her old bones                                                                                                      after a long ramble through the woods,                                                                            where the snapping underfoot                                                                                                  of dried undergrowth and twigs                                                                                                 bears testimony to                                                                                                                         the recent scorching of the land,                                                                                     scorched by rampaging heat                                                                                                       more suited to a desert landscape                                                                                              than this soft                                                                                                                        English farmland.

Silence.

After the clamour of the storm                                                                                                   I lean into the silence                                                                                                            allow my body  to soften,                                                                                                            every cell listening.

As I sit,                                                                                                                                           my hand reaches out                                                                                                                   touches the baked earth beneath me

My whole being is  consumed with a longing                                                                           to know

what is She saying?

There are those who would laugh at the thought that the Earth could be speaking. They may question my doctrinal position; ask if I espouse animism or pantheism panentheism. I got called a ‘foolish woman’ once when I shared that I experienced gravity as the Mother’s embrace. I am told that my views are sentimental or overly emotional when I say we desperately need to find ways to help young people develop a relationship with the Holy Wild. Activism and youth work are acceptable. But a relationship with Earth herself?

I find myself remembering words from a book rooted in the tradition I belonged to for so long — a tradition I now walk alongside, from the edges.

I still love the one whom storyteller Martin Shaw calls the Galilean Druid. Yet I am also weary — deeply weary — of the way Empire-thinking permeates its walls and seeps into its structures.

‘Well, what do those words say?’ you may be asking.

“For we know that all Creation groans.”

Earth doesn’t just speak, she groans.

Are you listening?

Can you hear her?