Big Feels on Wilding Out

6.5

Listen to Big Feels 6.5 here👇🏻

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“The Wild Church is a congregation that gathers among nature (i.e., in the wild) to appreciate what [god] has revealed through [their] creation.”

My friend in the city is starting a wild church. Though I am still spooked by the idea of organized religious gatherings, I decided I would go. I was curious to meet other crazy/sexy/cool people who also believe god is talking to them through nature, plus I trust this friend within an inch of my life, so there was little to lose and perhaps some to gain.

I arrived late, driving across the city directly after work. My feet were sore, my goddamn hip was sore, but I had put together a cute work fit for the day and felt hot and gay as I parked my car and ran through the hottest and gayest neighbourhood in the city to find my friend and the others making a pilgrimage from city park to city park.

We met at a lookout, and after some quiet and hurried hellos, we were instructed to take in the valley and absorb whatever it was that was meant to be revealed. 

Late August is about as big and lush and green as everything is able to get before mother nature starts the alchemy of fall. I was struck by the colours. Caught off guard by the hues. 

I was also caught off guard by a warning flare of an emotion I’d never pinpointed before: a deep-seated mistrust in the divine and their desire for my ultimate good. 

I wonder what kind of emotional landscape you have to grow up in to be able to trust the divine. I remember fervent prayers while lying in the top bunk of my shared bedroom, repeating the same request again and again. A sign of the anxious child, sure; but also a sign of someone who has learned that the people in charge can’t be trusted to have a handle on things, to remember the important bits, to follow through on what they said. 

There are connections I crave. There is a richness I’m hungry for. And it feels true when my meditation app makes me repeat, “Everything that is meant for me will flow to me,” but that’s not my baseline. The baseline is, “Don’t get excited until you’re sure it won’t get fucked up,” and “Absolutely don’t trust anyone else to pull through for you.” 

Emotional repression and hyper-independence? For spring? Groundbreaking.

I had a thought that struck me as funny and revealing while standing at the lookout, bowled over by the maximalist onslaught of a rigorous/weathered/resilient/intricate/abundant landscape, a collection of foliage that I still, despite my mistrust, ascribe to a divine knowing. 

The thought: that I am just a part of the same wildness that is currently unfurled before me, and how silly it is to think I have any control over which way the seeds blow.

But the question remains whether the wind blowing the seeds is interested in my ultimate good—or is every good thing simply my own hellbent determination to turn the rocks in my shoe into a bit of fool’s gold. Stupid. Stubborn. Resilient. I wonder if other people’s joy feels so hard won (please sound off in the comments, lol). 

Would also love if you could sound off in the comments about whether I should trust (??) the flow (??) of things (??) or try to arm wrestle life to bend to my will one (??) more (??) time (??). I’ll wait.

Jokes (??) aside, the wild church evening ended at a community garden and the small group of us shared some of what we had heard, or felt, or seen. It was good and calm and I only panicked one time for like one second when I thought it was going to get more “church-y” than I had gambled for. 

Then my friend-who-I-trust-within-an-inch-of-my-life and I went out for chai and sat in the summer air and talked about what was ultimately good and ultimately bad in our lives; and it was heaven.

Talk soon,

Natahna

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The Recommends: Watch the latest season of Love Island USA, then text me what your sun, moon, and rising is, but with the characters as your signs, PLEASE.

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