About Waymarkers

The name Waymarkers comes from the themes of the exilic journey in the Hebrew Scripture Book of Jeremiah, a journey that guides Israel back to her city, to her homeland. In Jeremiah 31:21 there is a command to set up way marks, collected items from the natural world believed to likely be heaps of stones, or pole-like trees, put upon the path to guide the traveler through wild and spacious landscapes to a place of belonging, home. Here there is a sense that the natural world is coming alongside the traveller to provide guidance, wisdom and a sense of direction towards a place of belonging. 

There is still a deep longing in our Western culture to wander towards wild places and to have this wayfairing lead to deep meaning, renewed ways of seeing, and back to our own sense of grounded belonging to this Earth and the communities in which we live. Where are the markers within creation that mark your path? Can you discern those features within the natural world that are set up to guide your way? Waymarkers exists to provide accompaniment along your personal path of spiritual formation so to receive guidance from your particular places, cultivating a sacred perception of the soul and wild nature.

These way-calling times can be fraught with anxiety and awe, wonderment and worry. How does one begin this kind of journey that transforms the soul and the very story of our lives into one of profound belonging to our places? How do we become an emplaced people once again?

Waymarkers comes along side your journey as a guide, incorporating spiritual traditions and practices that weave the numinous natural world back into our lives.    

Vision

The vision for Waymarkers is that by restoring an inter-communal relationship between humanity, the earth, and the cosmos, our individual and collective journeys will become more illuminated, meaningful, and participatory in the flourishing of all life. 

Mission

The mission of Waymarkers is to expand and deepen our relationship with the sacred found within one another and the more-than-human world.

Aim

The aims of Waymarkers are to provide support for those who are ready to respond to the call to wander into the sacred wild through: 

• spiritual practices, ceremonies, and seasonal rituals that reconnect and deepen our inter-relationship with the natural world as a form of remembrance and resistence

• writings that explore the intersectionality of ecotheological thought, ecofeminist theory, and the emerging field ecopyschology through our localized landscapes

• seasonal retreats and pilgrimages that re-establish a sacred communion with creation through practices and frameworks that will rewild our sense of wonder and worship

• soulful accompaniment as one embarks on a journey of sacred eco-awakening

• consultations that enhance the profound within community place-making projects

• inspired guidance to transform a trip into the journey of a lifetime

Framework 

With Celtic spirituality and sacred ecology providing the framework, Waymarkers offers guidance and support for those who are ready to respond to the call to wander into the sacred wild, seeking wisdom from our interrelated web of life. Without this kind of spiritual formation, there can be no authentic ecological consciousness, because there can be no true sense of the interdependence of all things. We must see the natural world as a sacred Thou, no longer an objectified It. Cultural historian Thomas Berry eloquently insists that "the world is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects." To participate in this communion is sacramental, and the elements are all around us, awaiting our participation in our backyards, neighborhoods, our cities and parks, and the hinterlands beyond. 

We are placed with a purpose. To not know this is to be without waymarkers, to be displaced and lost on the road to our belonging. Waymarkers will journey with you to a way of belonging, to a renewed sense of solid, sacred rooting in the land where you live.