Join frequent and beloved Not Sorry faculty member, Naomi Westwater and Common Ground Pilgrimages on our first ever Mary Oliver pilgrimage on Cape Cod in November of 2023! 

This pilgrimage, with space for twenty pilgrims, will examine Mary Oliver’s Pulitzer-prize winning poetry collection, Dream Work, and its themes of nature, connection, and longing. Using Common Ground’s traditional mix of sacred reading, rigorous discussion, meditative walks, and guided journaling, Naomi will lead pilgrims through close engagement with Oliver’s poetry, encouraging them to reflect on questions like: how does observing the natural world connect me to others? How am I called to wildness, and how am I called to rest, by the world that surrounds me?  

For its terrain, the pilgrimage will take the rugged, sublime beauty of Cape Cod’s southern coast in autumn, with Auto Camp Cape Cod as its home base. As with all of Common Grounds’ pilgrimages, the trip will feature daily hikes designed to immerse you in the landscape, allowing you to soak in the tiny details of this environment that Mary Oliver loved so dearly. Pilgrims will share communal meals of delicious food and conversation and retreat to rest each night in one of Auto Camp’s gorgeous Airstream Suites, where they will be surrounded by nature but provided with every possible comfort.

We want this pilgrimage to provide a moment of deep peace and reflection for those that partake, a space where they can catch their breath and center themselves before being plunged into the welter of commitments that characterize the end of the year. While the Cape is familiar territory for many in our organization, and perhaps for many of you, we cannot wait to see how differently we experience it in late autumn, free of the sunbathing tourists who throng its shores all summer. We are likewise thrilled to be able to devote a trip to Mary Oliver, an artist to whom we have never previously dedicated programming, but whose work is much beloved amongst us all. We hope you are excited, too.