A Message From The Forest

God's Favoured Fields

Hello friends – from the woods for this year’s Peregrini Sit. There’s around twelve of us hunkered down in an extremely damp and lovely old growth English forest. At basecamp there is a fire that almost never goes out, a kettle that splutters and a robin that hops around the kitchen tent, looking jaunty and a bit deranged.

Dotted throughout the forest are eight fasting Peregrini, digging into the old hermetic endeavour of sitting in a wild place and listening to God. Could be through the song of a blackbird, the rough bark of a yew tree on your back, the high, grand stars overhead. We at basecamp cluck and pace and pray till they return safely. It will appear we have started to tip from late summer to hints of early autumn. I’d swear I caught a snowflake in my beard, and there are silvery pools of water gathering on the tarp.

What follows is a little like living inside my own head for twenty minutes. Their roots are the story of the The Woman At The Well & Jacob & Esau. I do appreciate this is something of a wander so you may wish to remind yourself of those stories first. This was read by the fire to the guides Lucy Cooper and Michael Martin on Friday morning.

Good cheer from the bush,

M.

Peregrinis: August 2024