Why do we need WilderHouse?

**THERE ARE SO MANY REASONS WE NEED WILDERHOUSE. HERE ARE SOME BEGINNINGS OF AN EFFORT TO GET THEM ON THE PAGE.  YOUR COMMENTS AND REFLECTIONS ON THIS WORK IN PROGRESS ARE OH SO WELCOME**

We are experiencing cavernous isolation from each other and all of our systems encourage the widening of this gap. As we get further from each other and imagine we are separate from this planet, it is increasing depression and anxiety and all kinds of mental health issues that we try to cure with solutions that address the symptoms only, ignoring the cause. Imagine a fruit tree that has stopped fruiting prematurely, showing signs of poison in its leaves. Day after day we spray the leaves in hopes it will heal, but it only gets worse. Meanwhile, up the hill a ways where no one has gone for a very long time, the poison is being pumped into the the water systems, and we have no reason to think to check.

The promise of convenience to save time has the affect of isolating us from every angle. We order our groceries from an app and have no relationship to the food or the people who cultivated it.

Internet shopping isolates, at home entertainment isolates, and social media facilitates constant other-ing of each other in order to feel good about ourselves by comparison.

Even “nature” is a concept that separates us from the planet. Humans are civilized, and nature is over there. At best, it is a precious thing to be preserved and the unnatural humans should stay out to keep it pristine, and at worst, it is where the resources that run the capitalist machine come from.

Deep down we all yearn for a sense of belonging, an evolution into love. Our DNA remembers what it felt like to live interdependently and it has a homesickness for this feeling. I think this is why when I was reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver and came across the passage depicting her and her family and friends around the dining room table canning the tomatoes from their garden, preparing for the winter, I suddenly started weeping. Brushing it off, thinking I must just be feeling hormonal, I tried reading through it again a few days later. Again, a sense that this is what I am missing, that the lack of this kind of teamwork and built in time to share together is the true cause the constant feeling that there is something missing, that I’m more lonely that I need to be, that I’m disconnected and this would be the way back home washed over me and I found myself with snot running down my face again. We are robbing ourselves by working the busy job so we can earn enough money to afford the convenience of ordering everything we need from the internet. Instead, we could spend that precious time differently, in a way that connects us to each other, to ourselves, to the earth and reminds us that there is actually no true separation of these things.

WilderHouse is here to show us through storytelling and play that we are the earth, the earth is us. We are the land with legs! It is a place where the stories told with humor and love, are surround sound immersive, providing an opportunity for the realization that separation is a myth to become gnosis.

WilderHouse opens a door to food that brings us together, that asks us for teamwork, time spent canning tomatoes for the winter while we gather together to tell stories in the crisp fall air by the fire. WilderHouse invites us to see that the “sacrifice” we make to live symbiotically with the land, leaving behind groceries delivered to our doorstop, we are leaving behind something good to step into something much better. A way of life that leaves us satisfied and grateful and tired in the best of ways. Life full of meaning and belonging and perfect love.

This prayer sits above my desk, keeping the fire under me to realize this dream. If ever there was a way to articulate the call in my heart, these are the words. (Thank you Alana Fairchild, Sacred Rebel Oracle Deck.)