Contemplating Nature in the City

9.45am Sunday 25th October 2026 at St Pancras Euston Rd

led by Petra Griffiths

Our Grow Box at St Pancras, photo by Audrey da Costa

Gathering
We start with a short stilling exercise. Let us be still, slow and deepen our breathing, enabling our whole body to let go of tension.  Feel the connection your feet are making with the ground, imagining roots reaching down deep into the earth. As we become present in this place, we will hear the sounds of the city around us, as well as the sounds of nature in this garden.

Readings
October is the last harvest, the harvest of nuts and fruits of the earth. Samhain, on 31 October, was a Celtic festival celebrated at the summer’s end, when the animals were brought back from the summer pastures for their winter confinement. It was celebrated at the gateway to the darkest months of winter. For us today the clocks have gone back and the afternoons are darkening. Samhain, now Halloween, precedes the festivals of All Saints and All Souls, when we remember our ancestors and the communion of saints.

From The Celtic Wheel of the Year. Celtic and Christian Seasonal Prayers by Tess Ward

Praise to you, generative Spirit, for as the wind blows the leaves,
And all around crisps and curls with brownness and death,
You show your care with pumpkins, squashes and gourds,
Golden and ochre, bulbous and buxom.
Underfoot, cream and magenta root vegetables ready to pull,
Hardy turnips, parsnips, beetroot and swede.
In tree and bush, clusters of berries in scarlet and October orange,
And nuts cradled in silken case within hard clasp of shell,
Feeding birds and squirrels in scarce times,
Praise to you.

Praise by Tess Ward

As we prepare for our pilgrimage to St Martin in the Fields’ borehole this afternoon, we hear extracts from The City is my Monastery, A contemporary rule of life, by Richard Carter who for many years has led the Nazareth Community at St Martin’s:

Seek natural spaces for your prayer. In the Nazareth Community, as part of our spiritual practice, we try to spend an hour of silence in the park or garden each week. It is often good to come back to the same place so that you can be attentive to the silent changes, and rhythm of the days, seasons and year - noticing how this same space undergoes the rhythm of change.

I step outside
I find an ordinary place.
Wet grass
Grey sky
A path
Rain falling.
I wait for God to open my heart and nourish me,
As God nourishes all creation.

 A church bell chimes
Two swans begin a noisy take off in St James’s Park
I pray in the park
And the day opens.
Large drops of rain splosh.
A wind comes filling the trees
Filling me.

 The ordinary opens
To reveal a life,
A life that is always there
If only we have the space to see.
I am a prayer in the park.

‘Prayer in the Park’ (abbreviated) 

The stiller you become the more you see.
You actually need to be with a landscape
To inhabit it
To dwell in it
To let it speak
To live with it.
It’s not about doing it.
It’s about breathing it in
Assimilating it through the pores of your skin,
Every sense awake.
A deeper conversation
A deeper life
This beholding.

We must become present to the deeper rhythms of our lives,
Notice our autumn dying,
Open our lives to the seasons of God.

‘Beholding’ (abbreviated)

Individual contemplative time (15 minutes)
We now have 15 minutes for silent contemplation in the garden or, for those online, a space where you feel you can connect with the nature around you.

Regathering
A time to share any experiences we have had in our time of contemplation

Concluding reading
Blessed are the clear in heart, for they see the Living Presence.

Matthew 5:8, translated by the Celtic spirituality leader John Phillip Newell.

Closing Prayer
At the beginning of this day, may we see Your countenance among us, O God,
in the countless forms of creation all around us, in the sun’s rising glory,
in the face of friend and stranger, in the vibrancy of the city. 
Your Presence within every presence,
Your Light within all light,
Your Heart at the heart of this moment.
May the fresh light of morning wash our sight
That we may see Your life in every life this day.
Amen.

Adapted from John Philip Newell

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