About Mary

Mary DeJong is the person behind the work of Waymarkers. She lives in Seattle, Washington's Rainier Valley in Columbia City, at Hedgewood, a home that for over a decade has hosted community connection through the reclamation and restoration of a neighborhood forest. As a long-time urban naturalist, and practitioner and guide of place-based pilgrimage, DeJong received her Masters in Theology & Culture from The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology with a focus in EcoTheology; earned her Religion and Ecology certification from Yale’s Divinity School and School of Forestry, overseen by Mary Evelyn Tucker, John Grim, and Brian Swimme; and received advanced post-graduate certificates in EcoPsychology and Applied Mythology through Pacifica Graduate Institute. She completed John Philip Newell’s School of Celtic Consciousness in early 2020 and has done training with Animas Valley Institute.

Her praxis focus within deep ecology, ecotheology, ecopsychology, applied mythology, and specialization in Thomas Berry's Universe Story delves into why place matters, the sacramentality of creation, and how together this informs the development of our ecological self. Mary terms this work “sacred eco-awakening” and sees this as a critical and holy endeavor as it allows us to come to grievous terms of our human history and to posture ourselves once again side-by-side with the whole of creation, putting our souls back in conversation with the anima mundi, the soul of the world.

Influenced by the lives of Celtic saints, the mythic round of transformation, Christian Animism, and the emerging field of ecopyschology, Mary facilitates retreats and pilgrimages in the Pacific Northwest and in Iona, Scotland, through a post-heroic lens that strengthen the unique and mystical interconnection of participants, the Sacred, and the natural world. She has studied and practiced within the Celtic Christian spiritual tradition, her own matrilineal heritage, for over twenty years, receiving spiritual mentoring and vocational guidance from Vivienne Hull, co-founder of the Chinook Learning center and the Whidbey Institute and the director of the Iona Retreat Programs. She has also been deeply formed by the writings and teachings of Martin Shaw, David Abram, Matthew Fox, Sharon Blackie, Bill Plotkin, Asia Suler, Michael Meade, Randy Woodley, along with so many others whose work falls withing this wild and intersectional hedgerow of sacred stories and place.

Mary's book, Waymarkers (2011), is heralded by pilgrims globally who long to journey to Iona with intention and purpose. More of Mary's writings can be found at A Sacred Journey, The Other Journal, the Godspace writing community, Christ and Cascadia, The School of Theology & Psychology, and the Waymarkers Journal.

Mary guest lectures at area universities (Seattle Pacific University, Northwest University, and The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology) on topics related to deep ecology, ecotheology, and place-based theories such as Place Making, Theology of Place, and sacred bioregionalism. She also has facilitated workshops and webinars for Spiritual Directors International, OneSpirit Learning Alliance, Spirit of Sophia, as well as for other international retreat centers, churches, and organizations. She leads workshops (most notably alongside of internationally acclaimed poet David Whyte) and occasionally will speak behind the pulpit about how our faith and religious traditions must emerge in our age of climate catastrophe and emanate with a sense of solidarity as we move into the planetary era.

Mary has grown up in the Pacific Northwest, taprooting into a soul-nourishing topography that fastens her to ancestors who lived among the towering mountains and ancient trees within the Skykomish Valley corridor, homesteading a town that continues the arc of history of this place, one that was beloved by the Skykomish tribe before European settlers arrived, and one that continues to serve as a sacred connection to the awe and wonder of the natural world. These mountainous landscapes and watersheds formed her from the inside out, serving to create critical attachments to place, the imaginal realm, and how Mystery communicates through the wilds.

She is the co-founder of the Friends of Cheasty Greenspace at Mountain View, an award-winning neighborhood organization committed to creating equitable, safe, and welcoming hyper-local access to nature and play within public forests for urban children and families. This effort to restore this 43 acre urban forested parkland began in 2007 and has engaged thousands of volunteer service hours, making it one of Seattle's most popular service sites in the city.

Her husband Joel DeJong, four children, Loki (the cat) and the Flock (seven sweet hens), medicinal and herbal “Hildagarden,” and yard—a Certified Wildlife Habitat—keep her busy when her pen does not.