Apocalypse? with Mary DeJong

The AllCreation Podcast

Mary DeJong, is founder of Waymarkers, a project offering an exceptional collection of curricula, retreat experiences, writings, spiritual companioning experiences, and nature-based art to help Christians and people of all backgrounds restore their relationships to the sacred in each other and the more than human world. "Waymarkers", the word, is derived from Jeremiah 31:21. Mary is also co-founder and chair of Cheasty Green Space, a 43-acre public park rewilding project in Seattle, and a noted theologian. In this podcast we discuss Apocalypse as the end of all things and Apokalypsis as a revelatory uncovering of transformative knowledge.

Mary shares her views on:

• The importance of place and how we understand the presence of the Divine
• Her journey into a Faith tradition rooted in Earth-based spirituality
• Apocalypse and Apokalypsis
• Living in "journey consciousness"
• What an optimal future looks like

To connect to Mary and learn more about her work visit Waymarkers.net.

Key quotes

It is magical, this profound connection to place.

Rewilding is restoring whole relationships.

When we begin to recover ways of seeing the Earth as sacred, as recovering the numinous in Nature, of an imminent and wildly-present God — when we being to reconnect to that reality, then our posture shifts from this “I, it” way of relating to an “I, Thou,” with a capital T… where we see and interact with the Holy in every step we take…

"Put your ear to the Earth." (Job 14) Learn the basics... This is the Apokalypsis -- you’ll find revelation, you will find divine guidance and wisdom, you’ll find waymarkers when you listen well to your bioregion... When we do the work of putting our ear to the Earth, we find that we have revelation and great knowledge right, literally, in our own backyards.

Re-member who you are.

Randy offered me a challenge to convert my Western mind to an Indigenous mind.

We have to have the courage now to emerge in new ways; through listening and learning from Indigenous communities, and that will bring us collectively into world views that will see the Earth as sacred once again.

Will this save us from the Apocalypse? ... Possibly.

It’s very interesting to play with the idea of the apocalypse as invitation to "the (hero's) journey"... And we’re being asked to walk in or walk out, and when we return we’re going to hold The Village to account.

We find the Apokalypsis through listening deeply to our journeys and finding the revelation that leaving the Village provides us, because ultimately the heroine has to come home. Because through this journey you return home utterly transformed.

What we are going for is a collective flourishing within the human and non-human communities alike.

We have our courage as a resource... our flourishing is going to be dependent upon linking arms with everyone and no longer seeing ourselves as an isolated individual... "We are on a common journey on our common home." (Pope Francis)

Terms

• Indigeneity
• Numinous
• Rewilding
• Imminent
• Bioregion

References

• Jeremiah 31:21
• Job 14
• Martin Buber
• Hildegard of Bingen
• Veriditas
• Randy Woodley
• John Trudell
• Wendell Berry, "I go and lie down where the wood drake"
• Sallie McFague, "Talking about God in the metaphorical language of the Earth"
• Joseph Campbell
• Laudato Si, Pope Francis

This episode is hosted by Chris Searles, co-founder and exec. editor of AllCreation.org.

Waymarkers is currently offering "Wild Summer," part of a virtual rewilding course which provides guidance and accompaniment in moving through the seasons of the Earth with intentionality and sacramentality. Learn more at: waymarkers.net/wild-summer