Engage in the ancient rite of pilgrimage
through myth & story

Come engage your personal journey on a collective adventure to the Sacred Isle of Iona where we together journey through the mythic wilderness, a landscape that resides within you and throughout the whole wild world. We will recover the mythic ground of our being as a way to reconnect to the mundis imaginalis, the soul of the world. The language of myth, one of the primary tongues of our soul, will be a narrative guide on a mythic and heroic journey, one that will demand we depart from the worlds we know and enter into the underbelly of the extraordinary world—the place where puffins speak, seals sanctify, stones tell stories, and our salted tears welcome our exiled ones home.

This is a rite of pilgrimage experience— a journey that has the power to mark thresholds in your life with meaning, intention, pause, and purpose. Through the use of story, we will engage the transformational pilgrimage round of departure, initiation, and return—locating these archetypal themes in the tales and myths we tell, as well as where we might fine ourselves within the stories. The Pilgrim and Percival alike reveal the power of the question that must be asked and carried through a journey of transformation: What ails thee? In a sisterhood story circle intended for women-identifying participants only, we will tenderly hold and respond to this ancient and archetypal question.

The Holy Island of Iona offers herself through the power of a storied and sacred place. This wee island that exists at the edge of it all has also simultaneously been the historic hub of Celtic spirituality. Through this lens, we will experience what it means to experience a “thin place,” a place where the distinctions between this world and the other dissolve, practicing what Carl Jung meant when he said, “I am all for walking in two worlds at once since we are gifted with two legs.” The ancient Celts told many stories of the ways between worlds. The realms we separate as matter and spirit, mundane and mysterious, they experienced as intimately connected, even continuous. Through the story round, we will enter into world of interconnected enchantment.

Together we will put the wisdom of eco-theology and eco-mythology in conversation—a way to engage with the imaginal realm of the Earth being the Body of God, and the Earth speaking in the tongue of tales. We will follow the thread of story and myth as a portal to access our own wild imagination. Trailing such tales as The Selkie, The Handless Maiden, The Lindworm, and others, we will track the heroic journey-round, leaning into what deep truths about ourselves we recover through the mythic tongue. The earth speaks in myth, a truth that mythologist Martin Shaw reminds us. From a Celtic worldview and an eco-theological perspective, the earth is the body of God. Can we then say that myth is the Divine dialect? Let’s find out together as we engage the collective and personal work of rewilding ourselves—re-membering ourselves, re-story-ing ourselves—bringing ourselves back into whole relationship with the Sacred Wild.

Join your guide—spiritual ecologist, ecotheologian, and student of myth and tale, Mary DeJong— in this unique, soul-centric journey that will pursue themes related to the archetypal stages of the ancient heroic journey; engaging the imaginal realm of myth and fairy tale; the recovery of the rich heritage of Celtic spirituality; and remembering sacred rewilding practices as engagement with the wild text of creation. Through these traditions, praxis and lens, you will be invited into the wilds of your own story and the Sacred Wild that resides there and throughout this numinous Earth. You will be provided ample time to relentlessly seek and wander through the island's holy history and explore its wildest nooks and crannies while being guided to explore your own wild interior. Here you will rediscover a land of enchantment where wonder, reverence and delight are experienced in a place through the medium of your attentive presence. Here you will be inspired to return home transformed by the prayerful pace of this holy place. Here you will re-story your connection to your soul and this sacred earth.

What's Included in the Price?

• 7 nights/8 days of communal lodging at the Green Shed, Iona's gold-rated Green Tourism facility, which is situated on the northern turquoise shores of the island surrounded by beautiful, black Hebedrian sheep. Participants are lodged together in comfortable bunk-bed rooms that boast of breathtaking vistas of the Iona Sea! We will have the WHOLE facility to ourselves which will offer spacious places for individual and group work.

• Plentiful and delicious, vegetarian meals created together! This includes daily breakfast, seven lunches, and six dinners. In order to keep the costs of this pilgrimage as low as possible, we will cook our evening meals together with a pre-planned vegetarian menu based on the island's food availability. Buffet style lunch and breakfast will be available daily. Participants are invited to work together on a rotating basis to prep meals and clear dishes as a testament to the pilgrim-community! We ask that community meals be kept substance-free. Menus strive to be whole-food based with minimal processed items. Unfortunately, we are unable to accommodate severe food allergies due to the nature of the communal cooking space.

  One evening towards the end of our pilgrimage, we will dine out at a favorite local restaurant as a celebration of our collective and individual journeys. This meal will be a personal expense.

• Unique tours that will deepen our sense of place and connection to this sacred, storied landscape. We will tour the Iona Abbey and the Iona Heritage Museum; we will make an excursion to Staffa Island and explore Scoor Cave on the Isle of Mull; meet with local artisans; and discover the wildest nooks of the island! While considered a priceless value to the journey, all tours and walks are optional; however, do note that not all are ADA accessible and require a moderately active fitness level.

• Daily Circle Sessions where together in a circle of sisterhood we will explore the archetypal themes of the heroic journey; deepen into applied mythology with a daily story that will track and trail your journey; rediscover the rich and wild heritage of Celtic spirituality; recover wisdom and a flourishing imagination through myth work; and remember our belonging through rewilding prayers, practices, rites and rituals. These sessions will be held in various places including the sacred space of The Byre, roofed walls containing stories, dreams, and laughter; the teal-tinted north beach; St. Oran's chapel; and other powerful places throughout the island. Ceremony and sacred space will be held and engaged together daily to engage the the work of the holy descent that is requisite within any transformational journey. We will also gather nightly for Council, an ancient way to bear witness to one another’s stories and make a welcome landing place for our wild and tentative souls to show up for ourselves, and to one another.

• Personal Time will be held and honored every day, ensuring that your soul can be nourished by silence and the sacred presence of the sacred land and sea.

• Reflections and resources to guide your journey planning and integration both before you leave home and upon your return. Upon securing your spot with your nonrefundable deposit, you will receive communications and materials that provide in-depth information on how best to travel to Iona as well as thoughtful writings and resources on the various stages of the journey.

DESCRIPTIONS & INTENTIONS

The Green Shed

The decision to lodge at the Green Shed, previously known as the Iona Hostel, is intentional and has been the primary location of the Waymarkers pilgrimages and retreats since 2004. Here we must walk to return to our island-home passing many a stranger on the only road on Iona. We not only are in close quarters with one another, but we may very well be sharing the community-oriented croft with other seekers. At the Iona Hostel we engage the ancient practice of hospitality and discover more about ourselves in the company of the other. 

For this retreat we have reserved the entire facility for our group. Our intimate group of twelve journeyers will share these sleeping quarters. There are two rooms that sleep four; and two rooms that sleep two. There are no en-suite facilities; all rooms share bathroom facilities.

The Green Shed is set up as a self-catering facility and as a group we manage the collective energy and upkeep of the place. The facilities are full of care and conscientious creativity. The Green Shed’s fully appointed kitchen is a joy in which to cook communally. The comfortable restroom facilities provide both poetry and prose to cultivate an ecological mindset. This location fully deserves its Green Tourism Gold award!

Our group will meet in the Byre for our morning and evening circle times. Here we have the private space to work with the weft and weave of stories, and have these ancient myths guide us deeper into our own inner soulscape. The daily circle we create in this salty and storied stable holds ceremony, courage, and a profound and precious kindness that is created when stories are told and heard with our hearts. Meditation materials and art-response supplies are provided in this space. 

The Green Shed is a working croft that tends a wild and wooly flock of black Hebedrian sheep, and cattle. The land of Lagondorian (Gaelic for Hollow of the Otter) is also an example of an ecological rewilding project, another fantastic reason to stay at this site as our group works at the wild edges of our stories and understanding of the Sacred Mystery as we journey together.

Wild Iona Journey Program Elements

The Waymarkers Wild Iona Journey aims to create unique space for you to engage Iona's wild and enchanting elements through its rich Hebedrian history, residence of ancient and contemporary creativity and imagination, and its particular location within the Celtic spiritual tradition. Over the course of our week together, you will be given the bones of a story, and it will be your personal work to flesh it out with the blood of your own experience. You will track and trail this mythic through line in your life, weaving it into the physical experience of the journey itself to the wild-edged place of Iona. The structure of the Wild Iona Journey is very similar to the Waymarkers’ Iona Pilgrimage: one will explore the island’s geology; sacred and storied history; visit Staffa Island; and engage in soulful encounters with themselves and one another. While the Waymarkers’ Iona Pilgrimage engages in an embodied form of the pilgrimage round, the Wild Iona Journey rides the back of story as a way to engage a journey of transformation and sacred eco-awakening.

We will look at false myths we’ve been culturally given through a Western worldview, and reorient how we recover a sense of the Sacred’s guiding presence—not as a remote and transcendent energy—but as one that has feathers, fins, or fronds, and resides within the elements and speaks through the old stories. Applied Mythology will be our lens as we engage with ancient tales from around the world as a way-in to our own worn and storied souls. The story round is a cyclical narrative structure where a hero/ine embarks on a journey, faces challenges, undergoes transformation, and returns home with newfound wisdom or a gift that benefits their community. This cycle, often associated with the "Hero’s Journey," reflects the recurring patterns of growth, challenge, and renewal in human experience—patterns which are also found within the pilgrimage journey.

We will seek the Sacred not only within the walls of the Iona Abbey and the Nunnery, but we expand our search amongst the ancient stones guided by a resident expert of Iona geology; we take to the sea to feel the enormity of the swells and to experience the awe and wonder of Staffa Island and its resident puffins; we experience the sacred and storied landscape through a deeply meaningful island pilgrimage; and meet with local artists whose ancestry and heritage link them deeply and directly to the creative pulse that thrums within this place. Time is set apart each day for personal solitude with one full day devoted to silence and contemplation. Through it all, your personal story and our collective myth work will be a thread that comes alongside our remembering that the sacred Earth speaks in a mythic tongue. Together these excursions and the lessons from this sacred land weave together a wonderful tapestry of the themes of sacred place, storied myth, and a wild faith that will leave one feeling deeply restored and reclaimed by the land herself. Tune your ear to the story that lives within you that is mirrored by the wild landscape of Iona.

In response to overwhelming requests, the Wild Iona Journey has shifted to a women’s-only retreat space.

Pilgrimage Fee & Registration Requirements

Early Bird Rate $2650.00 per person (register before December 31, 2024)

Regular Rate $2850.00 per person (register after December 31, 2024)

The Fine Print

You reserve your spot on the 2025 Waymarkers Iona Pilrgrimage by registering with your $500 non-refundable/non-transferable deposit. By registering before December 31, 2024, you will secure the Early Bird rate of $2,650.00 and the payment balance of $2,150.00 will be due by March 1, 2024. If you register with your $500 nonrefundable deposit after December 31, 2024, you will secure the Regular registration rate of $2,850.00 and you will owe the payment balance of $2,350.00 by April 1, 2025. Trip balances will be paid by CHECK and sent by post to Waymarkers, LLC | 2809 S. Alaska Place | Seattle, Washington (US) | 98108. If you choose to pay electronically you will be expected to cover the additional electronic processing fees. Your nonrefundable/non-transferable deposit secures your spot on the Waymarkers Iona Pilgrimage and communicates your desire and willing participation in the personal and collective community-oriented journey of the soul-centric program experience. Any cancellation must be notified in writing by the person who made the booking. If you cancel your pilgrimage: More than 120 days prior to the start of the pilgrimage, you will only be charged your deposit; Between 120-90 days, you will be charged 50% of the pilgrimage payment balance in addition to the non-refundable deposit; *90 days or less before the start of the pilgrimage, or on or after the commencement of the pilgrimage, you are responsible for paying the full pilgrimage price. We appreciate that wholly unforeseen events may result in Waymarkers cancelling the program. In this case, Waymarkers reserves the rights to the non-refundable deposit, which covers the un-recoupable costs related to administrative costs, program fees, and site-related deposits. We therefore strongly advise you to take out travel insurance to protect yourself from losing money if you have to cancel, or if the trip is cancelled due to unforeseen events and circumstances beyond our control. You will be advised of the exact amount of any cancellation charge prior to the cancellation being finalised. 

When you register for the Waymarkers Wild Iona Journey, you are committing to the following requirements:

• You are 18 years of age.

• You will need a passport to travel to Scotland. U.S. citizens can visit for up to six months on an automatic travel visa.  EU citizens can enter visa-free.  You are responsible for checking with your local Scottish embassy for requirements.

• You will need to be physically healthy, without a fever, and without virus-related symptoms. If you are symptomatic, you must stay home.

• You will commit to global health recommendations for safe travel, which could look like wearing a mask at all times while outside or on public transit; increased hand sanitation; limited touch of face with hands; and dining outside primarily.

• You will commit to global health recommendations for limiting transmission while on Iona. This could look like wearing a mask at all times while outside or when six feet of distance cannot be maintained; increased hand sanitation; limited touch of face with hands; and preparing food with gloves and masks on.

• While there is one taxi on the island of Iona, walking is our primary mode of transportation. We will be walking to/from the Iona Hostel for most of our excursions and experiences. This pilgrimage will also require some hiking and walking over rough and muddy ground.  You will need to be able to walk 3-4 miles comfortably over very uneven terrain and be able to climb stairs and over things. The day of the Iona Island Pilgrimage will require being able to walk eight miles over the course of the day. 

• While there is intentional programming and effort to ensure that everyone has independent time and reflective solitude, much of this journey is taken within the company of others. Please be ready to graciously share sleeping quarters, meals (including prep and cleanup), and one another's hearts and stories. 

• This journey invites a profound presencing and self-awareness, both of which are invited into growth as we engage the pilgrimage circuit. Your registration indicates that you are of sound mind and body, able to engage in both physical activity and soulful circle times that support the collective of our group experience.

Your Guide

Images to Stoke Your Imagination