Meet George, a Rule-Breaking Non-Conformist with a Message

Field Note #1: Amelia, Virginia

When my husband, who grew up raising cattle, sees a cow, he sees a nice juicy steak. He literally had a pet cow named Beef Steak. When I see a cow, I have a strange urge to hug it!

I grew up in Central Texas surrounded by cattle ranchers. Several of my friends lived on these ranches, and I always thought they were so lucky to get to hang out with these gentle hoofed creatures. My family lived in town with cats, dogs, and squirrels as our furry companions – a boring substitute in my book.

My First Conversation with a Cow

“Mystical experiences in nature—those moments when you sense your interconnection with all things—are more than just interesting encounters. They are invitations into relationship.” Veronica Loorz

A few weeks ago, I participated in my first wild church experience, hosted by my friend Callie and Dan Walker on their farm in Amelia, Virginia. The solo wander is a central part of most wild church experiences. Before we began our wander, Callie turned off the electric fence as Dan led us through the pasture along freshly mown trails toward a more forested part of their property.

As he opened the first gate, I glanced across the field to the left, and there in the adjacent pasture were his neighbor’s cows - all huddled up against the fence line on this unseasonably cool April afternoon. They were all just standing there staring at us. I resisted the urge to run across the field and hug them, reminding myself that I was a grown woman.

As Dan walked, he invited us to enter the forest as we felt led. At each trail into the forest, I felt no interest. Then we came to a mown path that appeared to loop around and back toward the cows - it called to me. My pace quickened, and when the path ended, I stepped forward, anxious about the amount of poison ivy emerging all around me. I looked for a tree to converse with deeper in the understory, where the tree canopy had choked out the tall grasses, and found a large oak. I tried to strike up a conversation and was about to give it a big hug when I saw a large vine of poison ivy snaking its way up the trunk. I took that as a sign to move on.

I felt an urge to find the field with the cows, which I assumed lay ahead of me. It would require walking through high grass and a lot of poison ivy. I had foolishly worn shorts, so this was a bit of a dangerous venture. I decided the cows were worth it.

When I arrived at the fence, the cows were all still on the other side of the field. I tried to get their attention, but I was too far away. I knew I was running out of time and that the group would be waiting back at the fire circle, so I turned around, feeling a mild level of disappointment and a lot of frustration with myself for not following the initial prompting and running across the field of buttercups toward the big-eyed beasts that were beckoning me.

As I returned to the gathering, I came back into the buttercup-filled field, glanced over at the cows, and saw two of my fellow participants walking away from them. I was jealous that they had met the cud-chewing neighbors and decided that I would go say a quick hello. When I was roughly 20 feet from the herd, all of whom were staring at me, I placed my cushion on the ground and sat down.

I noticed that rather than a fence with two wires holding them in, there was one section with only one wire. I assume this was the area where the farmer entered and exited. I knew the electricity was off, but I assumed the cows did not. I was wrong.

I reached into my bag for my journal, intending to write down a few notes. When I glanced up a few minutes later, a defiant juvenile had slipped under the wire and was cautiously heading toward me. The whole cow community had stopped chewing and was now staring at the young steer and at me. Their big eyes looked stunned to see one of their own so defiantly on the human side of the line.

His curiosity, like mine, had gotten the better of him. We were both breaking the rules. He was outside the fence meant to contain him, and I was out of time. I feared I was disrupting the flow of the event with my last-minute sidetrack, but I could not move. As we both persisted in our disobedience, he drew closer. As he did, I grew more still, seeing that my every move frightened him, and he would jump back, stare back at me, blink, and then reassert himself. His extended family had stopped eating and were all breathlessly leaning toward the fence. I am not sure if they were fearful for his safety or perhaps jealous of his courage.

Conversation Starters

I had decided to use a conversation guide that I adapted from my friend Cheryl Groce-Wright’s Soul College practice to help guide me in my encounters with my non-verbal kin. I had used it in my own forest in conversations with trees, flowers, the wind, and water, but never with a cow. Here are the questions:

1. Who are you? Allow your partner to complete this sentence, “I am one who….” Listen at a soulful level. Ask yourself what the core energy of this other being is?

2. What do you want me to know?

3. What gift do you have for me?

4. What gift can I offer you?

5. How will I remember you?

I asked my new friend, “Who are you?” The tag on his ear told me his humans knew him as #42, but he responded, “I am one who is curious.” I decided to call him Curious George, though my husband has made an argument that his name is “The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything,” a reference to Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I think I will stick with George.

When I asked him what message he had for me, he invited me to remember the barefoot young girl who never got a chance to run barefoot through fields of buttercups. He encouraged me to let her run free before it’s too late - to leave the rule-following adult behind and follow a wilder spirit, even if it told me to do something foolish like hug a cow.

My Inability to Silence the Internal Timekeeper

While this message resonated deeply with me, the rule-following mature adult was now screaming in my head to get back in line and was shaming me for inconveniencing my fellow human participants by being so late getting back to the circle.

I said a hurried goodbye to George, thanked him for spending time with me, and tried to get him to go back to his family. He refused. He obviously had more to say, and sadly, I did not give him a chance. When he refused to return to the herd, I began to experience a sense of panic. I feared I would somehow cause harm to George. I imagined him escaping or getting hurt. Perhaps his defiance would expedite his journey to market and the inevitable butcher’s knife.

I gave up on trying to return him to the pen. I hurried back to the circle, confessed my sin of having lured him away from the herd. Dan assured me that #42 would be fine and that he would make sure he was returned to his family before they turned the fence back on.

Back in the circle, Dan invited us to tell the rest of the group about our time wandering. I shared a picture of George. I know #42 will likely end up on someone’s dinner plate, but that does not mean he can’t also be my friend and wise teacher while he is on this earth. Though George’s life will likely be a short one, I admire his determination to live by his own rules and seek out new adventures. That is the gift he gave me.

My Commitment to George

The gift I will strive to give George in the future is to cherish what time I have on this earth. To run barefoot through fields of buttercups, to hug cows and trees, to follow butterflies, and to listen to the streams that cross my path with the same level of curiosity as George.

For me to do this, I have to redefine the rules and hold the invitation to commune with the more-than-human world at the same level of importance as my commitments to my human companions. All this requires a much slower pace and intentional time to see my more-than-human kin as fellow earthlings and as neighbors whose companionship enriches life.

Practicing my Commitment to George

I now realize that Dan, Callie, and my peers around that circle would have much preferred that I finish my conversation with George. It is not their expectation that I need to change, but my own inner conformist. The conformist that told me to follow the crowd into the forest, the conformist that made me cut my time with George short, the conformist that is afraid of sharing this encounter and being labeled a crazy woman for talking to cows.

One week after my George experience, I hosted my first book group gathering for Veronica Loorz book, Church of the Wild: How Nature Invites Us into the Sacred. As a part of our in-person experience, I am inviting my guests to do a solo wander on our property. I made a point of telling my guests that we would meet back at the circle in 30 minutes, but that if you are engaged in a conversation, do not feel obligated to return until you feel it has ended.

One of the individuals who participated, a lovely woman named Jess, did what I failed to do the week before. She left her watch and phone behind and listened to the invitation to stay a bit longer. As I was on my own wander, I glanced up and saw Jess meditating at one of my favorite spots in our forest – it filled me with joy. That image is how I will remember George. The same spirit that led Jess to experience communion with my forest is the same spirit that invited me to commune with George. I hope next time, I choose that non-conformist spirit and am able to hit the snooze button on my inner timekeeper.

What I love about Loorz’s book is its invitation to be non-conformists, not simply to get outside the walls of the church, but to explore the boundary lines – real or imagined of our own beliefs. As the Apostle Paul put it in Romans 12:2, to stop conforming to the patterns of the world and be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

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An Invitation to Hug a Cow or a Tree or a Frog…Your Choice

In many ways, I think George sums up the lesson of Veronica Loorz’s book, which invites us to tap into the curiosity of our younger self, break a few rules, run barefoot through a field of buttercups, and hug a cow.

It is not too late to join the book study. We have three options: an online discussion here on Substack, a virtual discussion on Zoom, and an in-person gathering in Appomattox, Virginia. All are open to anyone interested. If you would prefer to participate in the wilderness time but not the book study, we invite you to join us for the second hour of our in-person gathering or to practice on your own and share your experiences. If you want to join the virtual or in-person gatherings, send me a chat message, and I will send you more information.

You are also invited to participate in Callie and Dan’s wild church, which meets on the 4th Sunday of the month at 3:00 pm in Amelia, Virginia. I will even introduce you to George if you decide to join us. Send me a chat message, and I will connect you to that opportunity.

Other Resources:

My post, Reconnecting Land, Spirit and Community is full of resources on this topic. One of my favorites is Leah Rampy ’s book Earth and Soul.

This is also the second cow-themed post I have written. If you want more cute cow pictures, check out An Invitation to Be a Cow. If Elk are more your style, check out Stalking Elk in the Moonlight on a Cloudy Night.

If you are interested in finding a wild church near you, I encourage you to visit the Wild Church Network.