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

Winter 2018

Through the winter seasons of 

Advent, Christmas and Epiphany 2018-19, 

the Wild Fortune Quiet Garden will be closed. 

We give thanks for all those who have journeyed with us over this last year and look forward to welcoming you again in the Spring of 2019. 

With love and prayer for Advent and Christmastide

Tessa & Mark

‘The Father spoke one Word, which was his Son,

and this Word he speaks in eternal silence, 

and in silence, It must be heard by the soul.’

John of the Cross

+

The Wild Fortune Quiet Garden - Spring & Summer 2018

Jesus said,

‘Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest’

Mark 6:31

2018 spring and summer dates for The Wild Fortune Quiet Garden 

May 9th

June 13th
July 11th

We shall be closed during August.

Booking is required; please email to enquire about available spaces

Rooted in the Christian contemplative tradition of prayer and hospitality, the vision of the Wild Fortune Quiet Garden is to provide space for stillness and quiet prayer in accompanied silence in the surroundings of our home and garden and the adjoining woods of Sandgate Park.                                                                            

Each Quiet Garden morning begins at 10am with introduction and short meditation, followed by time for personal space. The morning closes with shared reflections and prayer, finishing by 12.30pm. We are open monthly through the year on a Wednesday morning. The house and garden are closed during August.

                                       

Each morning begins promptly at 10am and finishes by 12.30pm. 

Spaces are limited (8 max) and booking is essential.

To reserve a place, please contact:
Tessa & Mark Holland
Email: wildfortune@btinternet.com

   

Affiliated to the Quiet Garden Trust.

Details of other Quiet Gardens in West Sussex and worldwide are available on the Trust’s website. www.quietgarden.org

Love bade me welcome

Love

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
Guiltie of dust and sinne.
But quick-ey’d Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lack’d anything.

A guest, I answer’d, worthy to be here:
Love said, you shall be he.
I the unkinde, ungratefull? Ah my deare,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?

Truth Lord, but I have marr’d them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, sayes Love, who bore the blame?
My deare, then I will serve.
You must sit down, sayes Love, and taste my meat:
So I did sit and eat.

George Herbert (1593-1633)

The Wild Fortune Quiet Garden
Ash Wednesday - 14th February 2018, St Valentines.

Peace be with you

Epiphanytide 2018

The Wild Fortune Quiet Garden Spring 2018

Dates:
January 10th
February 14th
March 14th
Spaces are limited (8 max) and booking is essential.
Contact: Tessa & Mark Holland  - email:

The Wild Fortune Quiet Garden
 Tessa Holland 

wildfortune@btinternet.com

All Quiet Garden mornings begin at 10am with a short welcome and led meditation which leads into the shared silence of the rest of the morning. You are then welcome to use the house and prayer loft, garden or woods for some personal time, to read, pray, be still, walk, gaze, fall asleep - whatever your body, mind and soul require in the quiet. Teas and coffee are available in the kitchen. We then gather again at 12 for shared reflections and closing prayer, finishing by 12.30.

Peace be with you

For Chantal and Nick

                           

Prayers for marriage from a Quiet Garden

 For Chantal and Nick – 24^th June 2017   

As brother Oak grows deep within the earth,

may your marriage be deeply rooted in

the Creative Source of all Life;

As the oak is strong and long-lived,

may your young love grow into the maturity

of Belovedness, which endures all things.

As Rosemary is for remembrance

may your home be a place

of welcome and friendship,

where good memories of times past

are cherished and where new ones are created.

As Earth is for humility, may you be blessed

with the grace to admit wrongs;

And as Herbs are for healing, may you know

the gift of forgiveness for one another.

As sister Beech, dressed in green, reaches high for the heavens, 

may your life together flow over 

with the goodness and beauty of God;

 As Silver Birch dances in the breeze,

may you know laughter and joy

in the years ahead.

As Rose is for Love, perfumed and thorned,

May your vows to one another

in this sacred place,

be a fragrant offering of hope and faith,

where Love pierces to the deepest place

of the hardest times and guides you together

in ways of peace.

 

And may the friendship of the God

who creates all, Loves all, sustains all,

Strengthen and enliven the ties

of friendship and family gathered here,

as you begin your married life together,

on this your wedding day.

Tessa Holland

if my people ...

If my people

who are called by my name

humble themselves,

pray,

seek my face,

and turn from their wicked ways,

then I will hear from heaven,

and will forgive their sin

and heal their land....

2 Chronicles 7:14

  Choose life  

Choose love

For everything ...

... there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven ...

Ecclesiastes 3:1

For me, the spiritual life in Christ is very organic; the hidden work of rootedness, the slow growth, the need for nurture, the living tradition at its best supportive and resourcing one another in community and solitude, the unfurling edge of insight, creativity and mystery. 

Our practice of contemplative presence is deepening, holding within it the ebb and flow of the journey; monthly Quiet Garden days and a still new - for us - shared practice of Lectio Divina continue as previously and there is a shift, which has presented itself in the need of the local parish. As my friend and colleague continues to recover from serious illness, the fourth Sunday 8am service at Sullington church will be, for the foreseeable future, an Iona Communion, using liturgy from the Iona community. Whilst this will be instead of A Service of Silence and Beholding, it will continue to be a contemplative space and time - with a more traditional format and a few more words than usual! 

Forthcoming dates are :

Saturday 6th May, 8.30 - 10. Lectio Divina: a time of listening to and reflecting together on the Word of God. The prayer loft will be open from 8.30 for stillness and silence and we begin the session at 9am. If you would like to come, please let us know by Friday morning.  

The Wild Fortune Quiet Garden on May 10th is fully booked, but at the moment there are spaces for Wednesday 14th June, 10-12.30. Please phone or email to book.   

Sunday 28th May, St. Mary's Sullington, 8am. An Iona Communion.  All are welcome. 

 Peace be with you. 

Equinox: As far as the East is from the West ...

A Service of Silence & Beholding:

an unhurried time in which to dwell at the heart of the Eucharist 

Sunday 26th March 

8am

St. Mary's Church, Sullington RH20 4AE

All are welcome

Lectio-Visio Divina

Saturday 1st April 

8.30-10am

The Wild Fortune Prayer Loft

please let us know you are coming

wildfortune @btinternet.com

The Wild Fortune Quiet Garden

Wednesday 12th April

10am -12.30pm

to book a space please email

wildfortune@btinternet.com

As far as the east is from the west,

so far does God remove 

our transgressions from us

Psalm 103:12

Peace be with you

for the first Sunday in Lent ...

Lectio Divina for the First Sunday in Lent  

Saturday 4th March 2017

The Wild Fortune Prayer Loft

8.30 am stillness and silence

9 - 10am - Lectio Divina 

Lectio Divina is an ancient practice of reading and reflecting on the Word of God, which many have found to be a deeply enriching and creative process of contemplative listening. It has been called a communion beyond words, a time of becoming one with the Word. There will be a time of stillness and silence from 8.30 and then from 9am the process of reading the chosen passage (lectio), reflecting (meditatio), responding (oratio) and resting (contemplatio), finishing by 10am. If you would like to join us, please let us know via email - wildfortune@btinternet.com; no expertise necessary, it is a very gentle and prayerful guided process.

Peace be with you.

When the time came ...

Lectio Divina 

Saturday 4th February 2017

The Wild Fortune Prayer Loft

8.30 am stillness and silence

9 - 10am - Lectio  Divina 

for the Presentation of Christ in the Temple

Lectio Divina is an ancient practice of reading and reflecting on the Word of God, which many have found to be a deeply enriching and creative process of contemplative listening. It has been called a communion beyond words, a time of becoming one with the Word. There will be a time of stillness and silence from 8.30 and then from 9am the process of reading the chosen passage (lectio), reflecting (meditatio), responding (oratio) and resting (contemplatio), finishing by 10am. If you would like to join us, please let us know via email - wildfortune@btinternet.com; no expertise necessary, it is a very gentle and prayerful guided process.

Peace be with you.

Walk with me ...

A Service of Silence & Beholding: 

an unhurried time in which to dwell at the heart of the Eucharist

22nd January 2017
8am
St. Mary's Church, Sullington RH20 4AE

I am no longer my own but yours.

Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will;

put me to doing, put me to suffering;

let me be employed for you, or laid aside for you,

exalted for you, or brought low for you;

let me be full, let me be empty,

let me have all things, let me have nothing:

I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things

to your pleasure and disposal.

And now, glorious and blessèd God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,

you are mine and I am yours.

And the covenant now made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven. 

Amen.

The Methodist Covenant Prayer

Peace be with you

Lectio Divina - an interpretation of the process

Epiphany 2017 - this process and the text following may be used in a group or on one's own. It is a deeply contemplative and creative practice which informs all of life - a process of transformation by which we come to be known ... 

Lectio (Reading):  

This is a practice of reflective reading and listening to a text as the Word of God; of listening with an open heart and mind, rather than an analytical reading where the text is examined, sifted and assessed. Give yourself an hour, allowing a good amount of time for each step. Begin in attentive silence, open to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. Then read the text aloud, listening to the reading as the Word of God for you for this moment today. Reading aloud helps me to listen with all of myself. Allow the spoken words to flow over and through you. Try not to grasp or select; allow yourself to listen gently for a word or phrase that stands out for you in this moment. It is helpful to read the text 3 times – reading more slowly with each repetition. When something stands out for you, allow everything else to fall away and stay with that one word or short phrase – this is God’s gift for you today.

Meditatio (Meditation):

You are invited to name aloud the word or phrase that has stayed with you, followed by a time of silence where this one word or phrase becomes your meditation, quietly repeated in the silence of your heart.

Oratio (Response):

A time in which to respond to God – does your response want to be written, drawn, be a movement, posture, or spoken, silent, a song, a sound?

What challenge or invitation arises from this Lectio for you today?

Contemplatio (Contemplation):

A time to rest silently within the Presence ...  

A suggested text - a slow repeated reading aloud of Matthew 2: 1-12

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.’ When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, ‘In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:
“And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
   are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
   who is to shepherd my people Israel.” ’

 Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, ‘Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.’ When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure-chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

Peace be with you

The Word spoken in silence

As Christmastide becomes the season of Epiphany, as days begin to lengthen and we embrace the new year with all its opportunities and challenges, we invite you to continue to journey with us here at Wild Fortune, a threshold place of contemplative stillness, creativity and welcome.  

Our next Quiet Garden morning is Wednesday 11^th January, 10am – 12.30pm. This is now fully booked, but there are a couple of spaces on March 8th; please let us know if you would like to come as booking is essential. Our focus through the year will be creation as ‘God’s big book’ drawing on celtic spirituality, words from the Christian mystical tradition and the practice of stillness and silence. As previously, along with the garden and woods, the house, prayer loft and ‘shed’ will be available for quiet space and there will be refreshments in the kitchen. Please bring soft shoes or slippers for indoors and stout shoes or wellies for outside.

This Saturday, 7^th January, is Still Waters, in the prayer loft from 8.30-10am. On the basis of numbers and on what we feel able to offer, we do wonder if the current format has run its course? So, in response to a suggestion, we propose a shift in focus to ‘Lectio Divina’, the ancient practice of reading and reflecting on the Word of God, which many have found to be a deeply enriching and creative process of contemplative listening. It has been called a communion beyond words, a time of becoming one with the Word. The format would be something like – 8.30 gathering in quiet and then from 9am the process of reading the chosen passage (lectio), reflecting (meditatio), responding (oratio) and resting (contemplatio), finishing by 10am.  Would you like to join us? Do please let us know; no expertise necessary, it is a very gentle and prayerful guided process.  

The season of Epiphany will be our inspiration for A Service of Silence & Beholding on January 22^nd at 8am at St. Mary’s Sullington. For further details, please select the relevant page on the right hand side. 

The Father spoke one Word, which was his Son,

and this Word he speaks always in eternal silence,

and in silence it must be heard by the soul.

St John of the Cross

Peace be with you 

Come to be born, to bear us to our birth

 O Emmanuel
by Malcolm Guite
 

O Come, O Come, and be our God-with-us

O long sought With-ness for a world without,

O secret seed, O hidden spring of light.

Come to us Wisdom, come unspoken Name,

Come Root, and Key, and King, and Holy Flame.

O quickened little wick so tightly curled,

Be folded with us into time and place,

Unfold for us the mystery of grace

And make a womb of all this wounded world.

O heart of heaven beating in the earth,

O tiny hope within our hopelessness

Come to be born, to bear us to our birth,

To touch a dying world with new-made hands

And make these rags of time our swaddling bands. 

from Waiting on The Word

 by Malcolm Guite

This Christmastide, wherever you are, 

whatever your circumstances, 

may you know the peace and joy of 

Emmanuel, God-with-us.

Advent Words & Images - Doorways into Mystery and Promise

Advent: Alpha, Omega and the Eternal Now

In my preparation for the Advent Service of Silence & Beholding last Sunday, I stumbled (and there is no other word for it) across the online blog by Malcolm Guite, poet and author. His words resonate with me at the start of this season, with what has been a year of paradox for us as a family; in his introduction to his book 'Waiting on the Word' (Canterbury Press 2015), Guite both honours the tradition of looking back to the birth of Christ and looking forward to the promises of fulfilment in the new heaven and new earth. At the same time, he invites us to find a third focus, one of awakening to the possibility that "the God in whom we live and move and have our being may come and meet us when and where he pleases, and any door we open, may be the door to the 'chapel perilous'" (Guite: 2015). For me, this speaks of the 'Eternal Now' of Christ. 

Throughout Advent, Malcolm Guite is publishing his poetry to the Advent Antiphons with accompanying art-works on his blog, with the option of signing up for a daily email. The link is:   https://malcolmguite.wordpress.com/tag/advent-antiphons/

               

Maranatha: Come, O You Who Are Come

Come, O You Who Are Come ...

An Advent Service of Silence & Beholding

an unhurried time in which to dwell at the heart of the Eucharist

Sunday November 27th

8am St. Mary's Church, 

Sullington, RH20 4AE

O Wisdom:

I cannot think unless I have been thought,

Nor can I speak unless I have been spoken.

I cannot teach except as I am taught,

Or break the bread except as I am broken.

O Mind behind the mind through which I seek,

O Light within the light by which I see,

O Word beneath the words with which I speak,

O founding, unfound Wisdom, finding me,

O sounding Song whose depth is sounding me,

O Memory of time, reminding me,

My Ground of Being, always grounding me,

My Maker’s Bounding Line, defining me,

Come, hidden Wisdom, come with all you bring,

Come to me now, disguised as everything.

Advent Antiphons

Malcolm Guite

https://malcolmguite.wordpress.com/tag/advent-antiphons/

Peace be with you

the energies of love ...

As leaves fall, evenings darken and the temperature drops, it seems to me that there is a withdrawal of natural energy into the depths of the earth's being, not into passivity but into the quiet inner activity of preparation, resourcing and renewal. So it is with contemplative practice ...

So, for this month of remembrance of the saints of the ages and of all those fallen in the wars of this world, past and current, I offer these words from The Unbearable Wholeness of Being by Ilea Delio for meditation and reflection.

Without religious convergence, evolution cannot go forward because we cannot harness the energies of love for greater unity and being. Religious convergence is not by way of doctrine but of what we hold together across languages, cultures, and religions: earth, community, peace and justice. We must enter into communion 'with the very source of all interior drive' (Teilhard de Chardin). The convergence of religions must be centred on love, as each religion expresses love and union with the divine in its own particular way. To live from the inner depth of love, as persons in evolution, is to live with purpose and direction not as an 'I' but as a 'we', a collective whole. To know God as the wholeness of love is to enter into oneness at the heart of all life. That is why prayer and contemplation are essential for the next stage of evolution. Without the eye of the heart or the inner space to welcome the new ways love shows itself in others, we cannot love toward greater unity. God is the ultimacy of love, the heart of life, and the power of the future. Any religion that attempts to grasp or control God kills cosmic hope. To recognise the face of God in the face of the other liberates the other ... Rather the other becomes a brother or sister, bound together by the luminous thread of love. 

May our practice be graced with love for one another 

across time, distance and difference.

The peace of Christ be with you