Wild Church

 Here is a copy of the collaborative poem we produced in the woods. Each of us spent a short while walking alone amongst the trees recording words and phrases, we then came together to assemble them into an order which seemed to tell a shared story. One beautiful aspect of writing a collaborative poem in nature is that we all come from our different contexts, with our different stories and perspective yet nature bears the weight of them all and knits them into one reality. The only reality we have, we are held within it. Despite our different perceptions and understandings of the natural world, despite our various anthropomorphic projections, there is an underlining ground of being which is above, within and beyond our partial experiences. We are connected to everything else, in a great chain, as a consequence many minds find coherence in the outdoors in a way they would not in a room, the literal spaciousness allows for an expansive grace.   Are the trees lonely? Surrou...

Please meet as usual at 16:00 in the car park for a similar format. The intention this week will be to use writing to creatively respond to our surroundings. It will be a low pressure, simple structure where together we will generate words into a collaborative poem, in response to our environment. We all have different experience and relationships to writing, this will be an open, non judgmental opportunity to explore this creative medium, no mistakes possible - we will embrace the mantra of the beat poets - 'first  thought, best thought'. In the spirit of the theme, if you have a favorite nature poem or your own poem around these themes please bring to share.