Welcome to The Wild Soul Experiment
- Kim Reindl
- Nov 12, 2024
- 7 min read
Updated: Jan 6
"The glory of God is the human person fully alive"-Irenaeus of Lyon
Do you hold a deep longing to wake up to your own life?
Do you feel like you’re missing something?
Do you ever get the sense that life is a wild and wonderful adventure that is meant to be more fully LIVED?
Years ago during a point of angst, I remember my husband crying out, "I WANNA LIVE!" His longing resonated with me then as it does now. Somehow I know this is a longing that will never leave me. In fact, that deep desire to LIVE, to live more fully and freely, seems to be a human calling. There seems to be a wilder part of me, dare I say a wild soul, that exists just below the surface of my usual way of moving through the world that is always calling out, "I WANNA LIVE!"
The work of Thin Place is about living into the fullness of life. Not thinking about life, but actually living life. This work is about experience of life, experience that is fostered through PRACTICE...spiritual practice that helps you connect with your truest and deepest self, with others, with the world around you, and with the Divine. Such practices can offer you a way into what it is like to be more fully alive.
Every Monday, “The Wild Soul Experiment,” will explore the question,
“What brings me alive?”
More specifically, “How can I become more fully alive through the teachings of wisdom, the tools of spiritual practice, and the togetherness of human community?”
What is Meant by “Fully Alive?”
Full aliveness is about engaging life, this life, all of it, with every joy, disappointment, anger, frustration, beauty, wonder, sadness, and elation. It is about NOT missing your life. It is about LIVING it! It is about awareness of and engagement in the miracle of what it means to be here.
Jesus said, “I came so that they could have life—indeed, so that they could live life to the fullest.”—John 10:10 (CEB)
The gift of life is life itself! This world, this body, this experience here and now matters. Incarnational theology from the Christian tradition teaches that Jesus came to reveal that the temporal, material world is good and that such is of eternal significance.
Throughout human history people have made pilgrimages to what are called “Thin Places,” places considered to be holy because in these places it is easier to feel or experience connection with what is ultimate. A miracle and mystery of life is that the separation between the temporal and the eternal is very thin. In thin places it is easier to experience what it means to be more fully alive because the stuff of this world and that which transcends this world are experienced in connection.
Life itself is a thin place. Moment by moment, day by day, you encounter thin places. These thin places arrive with the sun every morning, are present in the birds’ song, are known in the touch of a lover’s hand, are felt in the hug of a child, and are experienced at the sight of sunlight dancing on the water. Life is full of thin places, not only in joy, but also in sorrow and grief. Wherever human kindness shows up or whenever grace enters in, we sense that life is full of possibilities and connections beyond ourselves.
We are made to know and recognize thin places because we ourselves hold within the mystery of a thin place. Wisdom teaches that human beings engage life through three ways of knowing, heart, mind, and body, all of which are enlivened by a life force that we call spirit. This mysterious conjoining of the temporal and the eternal into a particular form creates what we call a human being. Hence, to be human is to be a place where both the temporal and the eternal exist. The separation between the two is merely thinly veiled. The stuff of this world and the stuff of the Divine are not separate but are always in a dynamic dance that we call life. To awaken to life is to awaken more fully to this connection. Such is the journey of a WILD SOUL.
Why Teaching, Tools, and Togetherness?
“May you find a harmony between your soul and your life.”
—John O’Donohue
Awareness of and connection between the temporal and the eternal can be experienced through Teaching, Tools, and Togetherness. Teaching grounds you in ways that free you for experiential knowing. Tools, otherwise known as spiritual practices, invite you into the experience itself. Togetherness offers love, connection, and support for the experiential journey.
Wise teaching based in the perennial tradition is necessary to ground you. These teachings offer wisdom in how to be present to your life. Every journey needs a roadmap with way markers that point you in the direction you are desiring to go. The journey itself is in the walking, the way markers (teachings) are what keep you on the path.
For this reason, the journey to becoming more alive requires wise teaching. Here at Thin Place, teachings from the wisdom traditions have been curated and formed into a list of
Touchstones. These Touchstones are meant to ground you, paradoxically offering you freedom…freedom to move, explore, and discover what such wisdom has to teach you within your own life. You can think of these Touchstones as your own personal spiritual guide who is accompanying you through each step of your journey.
Every weekly article of “The Wild Soul Experiment” will tell a story of what it is like to live with at least one of these Touchstones through the journey of everyday life.
Tools, or spiritual practices, open you to experiences of being present to your life. These experiences can help you see, hear, feel, and acknowledge the beauty, depth, and goodness of life that is always right in front of you. The problem is that you often don’t know how to be present to what is already yours. Spiritual practices can wake you up, make you aware, open you, and offer you something that you need. These practices are the tools for the journey, helping you to grow more and more into a person that is more fully alive.
Every week “The Wild Soul Experiment” Practice Guide offers subscribers an opportunity to engage in spiritual practices for yourself. A new practice is sent each week with “How To” instructions so that you can experiment with the practice.
Togetherness found in human community provides much needed support and courage for the process of living. You need companionship. You cannot live this life alone. Loving and supportive community allows you to be vulnerable and open. Within such community you find that you are able to show up as you are, with all that you are carrying, and claim the complexity of what it means to be human.
You need communities that are intentionally structured and held in ways that bring forth spaciousness, grace, generosity, and compassion. Such communities create a fertile soil in which you can grow more fully into your truest and deepest self. Building and practicing such communities of human companionship is the intention of this work.
Thin Place offers several opportunities for togetherness. As a subscriber, you may choose to “opt in,” to join the Thin Place Community, an online gathering where those of you engaging in your own “Wild Soul Experiment” can share your stories, favorite practices, and resonant wisdom.
Teaching, Tools, and Togetherness
To summarize, “The Wild Soul Experiment” is here to offer you insights into wise teaching, engagement with spiritual practice tools, and opportunities for connection and support in communities that foster togetherness. This is an entry way into the work of Thin Place which is designed to offer ways for you to step into your life and live it more fully.
How can you engage in your own “Wild Soul Experiment” to become more fully alive?
“We sense that something is missing in our lives and search the world for it, not understanding that what is missing is us.”
—Parker Palmer
The work of Thin Place is about inviting you into YOUR OWN journey to become more fully alive. You are invited to partner with us in this journey…
1) Sign up to receive “The Wild Soul Experiment” Article and Weekly Practice Guide delivered directly to your inbox.
Each Week You Will Receive:
“The Wild Soul Experiment” Weekly Practice Guide (Each Monday) containing:
A Spiritual Practice with "How To" Instructions
A Focus Intention
A Quote
Questions for Reflection and/or Journaling
Option for Membership in the online Thin Place Community
“The Wild Soul Experiment” Weekly Article (Each Monday)
2) Register for Classes, Workshops, or Retreats
Becoming more fully alive requires wise teaching that is large enough to free you into new ways of thinking and being.
Learn from Ancient and Modern Wisdom that transcends time and context to offer fuller engagement with life.
Hold Wisdom in a Way that Grounds and Guides You in wise ways of thinking, feeling, and being in the world.
3) Download Spiritual Practice Guides and Other Resources
Becoming More Alive requires practice... Spiritual Practice ...intentional practice that helps you see, experience, and connect with the Divine, others, the world around you, and your own soul. Thin Place offers “Tools” such as Practice Guides and Online Courses that can be used at your own pace and in ways that fit your life.
Engage in Spiritual Practices that invite experiences of being alive.
Practice Ways to Cease Over-Thinking or engaging life from the belief that you ARE your thoughts.
Experience Life More Fully through all three ways of knowing: the heart (i.e., emotional engagement), the body (i.e., sensory/bodily awareness), as well as the head (i.e., thoughts and ideas).
4) Join Thin Place Communities for Support and Companionship
Your journey to become more alive is fostered by the togetherness of communities that offer connection, support, and companionship. Thin Place is dedicated to building such communities, both online and in-person.
Experience Human Companionship through communities that hold space for the joys, complexities, and challenges of life in a loving, non-judgmental way.
Grow in Compassion for yourself and others through communities that provide real life experience of support and connection.
Receive Wisdom, Experience, and Companionship for Living into the Fullness of Life
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild
and precious life?”—Mary Oliver
One Final Thing
What you will find here is an EXPERIMENT. I am not offering you answers. I am offering you an invitation. This is an invitation into a journey... a journey to become more fully alive. I will provide you with resources through teaching, tools, and togetherness. My commitment to you is to provide teaching, to curate practices, and to build communities so that you can discover for yourself what supports you most in living more fully.
My hope is that you will join me and others as we seek to LIVE this one wild and precious life! The magnificence of this messy life is all around us. We simply need eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to know.
I’m ready to give it a try! Are you? If your heart is as my heart, lend me your hand!
With love and gratitude,
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