Winter 2019

Due to an new development beginning in the Spring in an adjoining garden, The Wild Fortune Quiet Garden will be closing in Spring 2020. Our last open morning will be in March.

You are warmly invited to journey with us in the quiet and stillness of our home, garden and the beautiful woods of Sandgate Park on the following dates in 2020:

January 15th
February 12th
March 11th

We begin at 10am and finish by 12.30pm. As previously, places are limited to 8 and booking is essential. Please be in touch with your preferred date and we will confirm that a place has been reserved for you. There is no charge; donations are welcome for the Quiet Garden movement to whom we are affiliated.

Peace be with you through the seasons of Advent & Christmas

Tessa & Mark Holland
Email: wildfortune@btinternet.com

Autumn 2019 - there is everything to look forward to ...

You are warmly invited to join us on the following Quiet Garden mornings at Wild Fortune this autumn - October 9th, November 13th and December 11th. Places are limited to 8, so please be in touch via email with your preferred date to reserve a space.

Below, we reflect on the last 25 years at Wild Fortune and look to the future.

Peace be with you

Tessa & Mark Holland 

email: wildfortune@btinternet.com

Affiliated to the Quiet Garden Movement

https://quietgarden.org

  

Wild Fortune: the prayer spiral in spring 

It all started with a problem which became an opportunity. Twenty-five years ago, we moved with our young family to a spacious home at the edge of woodland near the South Downs in West Sussex. A plot of derelict land beside our home became available for purchase and we took the opportunity with a view to restore it to its former life as a woodland garden. And we had two questions. How do we do this? And how do we share it?

The cycle of the seasons and time spent in all weathers listening, looking and working with the lie of the land, the trees and plants answered the first question. A friend’s question offered an answer to the second; have you heard of the Quiet Garden movement?


This year, 2019, is our 20th anniversary of being an affiliated Quiet Garden and through all the joys and sorrows that life brings, we continue to be deeply thankful to be part of this very gentle, vital and often hidden ministry of prayer and welcome. The quiet vibrancy of ‘God’s big book’ of creation has taught us so much, as has the presence and friendship of fellow pilgrims who have joined us over the years in response to the invitation of Jesus to ‘Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest’. 


Everything is for a season and we are living with a new challenge and the opportunity it presents. As a family home Wild Fortune is too big for us now. Also, in the last few months planning approval has been granted for three separate building projects by neighbours either side of us. As a result, at some point in the next couple of years we are anticipating having to close the Wild Fortune Quiet Garden as it will no longer be a quiet place to welcome people. Less immediately we are looking to move away so that we can continue to live prayerfully as contemplatives and we hope to be able offer a quiet space of welcome to others once again. We have seen this as a new chapter in our journey of faith and an opportunity to think outside the box! So we are now in a time of transition between Sussex and rural Wales, where we have been fortunate to find a place (which needs work) and where we feel at home. In the meantime we are giving thanks for all that Wild Fortune has given us over the years and listening afresh to the quiet raw beauty of the Welsh landscape and the rhythm of life of the people and place. And the mystery that is God beckons us forward in the quiet.


Tessa & Mark Holland

Arrival

Not conscious

that you have been seeking

suddenly

you come upon it

the village in the Welsh hills

dust free

with no road out

but the one you came in by.

A bird chimes

from a green tree

the hour that is no hour

you know. The river dawdles

to hold a mirror for you

where you may see yourself

as you are, a traveller

with the moon’s halo

above him, who has arrived after long journeying where he

began, catching this

one truth by surprise

that there is everything to look forward to.

R S Thomas

   

To arrive where we started ...

Dear friends and fellow travelling companions

Following the renovation of our home after the extensive water damage in November last year, we are looking forward to opening the Wild Fortune Quiet Garden for the summer on May 8th, June 12th and July 10th, 10am-12.30pm. This year is our 20th anniversary of being afflilated to the Quiet Garden movement so we are especially pleased to be able to continue to be part of this very gentle, vital and often hidden ministry of prayer and welcome. 

As previously, places are limited to eight and booking is essential. If you would like to come, please let us know your preferred date; our email address is below. There is no charge, but donations are welcomed in aid of the Quiet Garden movement. 

Arrivals are from 9.45am. Each morning will begin at 10am with a time of welcome and focus, followed by personal time to sit, walk, pray, read, be, in the house and prayer loft, garden or woods. Refreshments are available through the morning on a self-serve basis. We shall then gather at the end of the morning for shared reflection and closing prayer. The mornings finish by 12.30pm.

With gratitude for the journey made and for your companionship on the way. 

In Christ,

Tessa & Mark

wildfortune@btinternet.com