What are Waymarkers?

Sep 24, 2024

View from a hut on Cradle Mountain, 2021

You’re walking on an overgrown forest trail, or you’re driving down a lonely dirt road, or you’re lost in the maze of identical looking corridors in a badly designed shopping mall which was built in the 1980s and was recently upgraded but not, apparently, with any budget for signage. Wherever you are, your eyes are constantly scanning for directions, all your senses heightened and stretching to find that guiding word or symbol that says ‘yes, you’re going the right way’, or ‘take a left turn here’, or ‘you’ve reached a dead-end, buddy, you’d better turn around and head back to the underground carpark and drive home’. You, me, all of us — we’re constantly seeking these waymarkers.

And on a deeper, spiritual level, we are seeking the same kinds of markers, but we’re worse at recognising them. In the journey of life, and especially in the adventure of tuning into our souls, it would be wonderful if there were lovely little stone cairns along the way, aesthetic inukshuks that some wise and caring guru had left in her wake for us to diligently follow. Sadly, I haven’t stumbled across such physical guidances as of yet (I’ll let you know if I do); but in a truer sense, there are clear directions for each of us to follow. The question is, are we looking for them? Are we seeking the deeper truth, the meaning of our existence in this creation? Or are we stuck on the travelator they recently installed on level 2 which takes you directly from the H&M to the Taco Bell in less than three minutes?

Some of my attempts at inukshuks over the years

When I think of waymarkers in this way, I think of things like stories and poetry and music and national parks and camping and travel and photography and artwork and hiking. Of course, only certain types of these things qualify as waymarkers in the deeper sense. It’s stories like The Chronicles of Narnia or The Clowns of God, and poems like Invictus or Crossing the Bar. It’s camping trips with family members and hiking new trails with old friends. It’s songs like Fallen by Gert Taberner or Saturn by Sleeping At Last. Or it’s finding the perfect combination of book and album, like when you’re reading East of Eden by John Steinbeck and listening to Sigh No More by Mumford & Sons at the same time (pairing the right album with the right book is seriously underrated, you should try it).

My long-lost shelf of books and records before our last move

If we follow the right waymarkers then we aren’t just on an inward journey but we are led out of ourselves and toward something greater, and our relationship with the rest of creation is changed. Because gaining new ground within should result in gaining new ground in how we relate to the Divine and to our fellow human beings. A really good waymarker can help us make the magical transition from being a tourist adrift on this planet to a traveller and adventurer; or even better, into a pilgrim.

The best waymarkers — and by ‘best’ I mean totally irreplaceable for the nourishment of your soul — are other people. In our modern world, it’s far too easy to spend your life consuming artwork and literature or even experiencing the natural beauty of our world, and manage to avoid the best part of it all, which is to love and be loved. As the film Into the Wild (which is one of the best book, film, and album combos to have ever been achieved) tragically teaches: “happiness is only real when shared”.

So this journal/newsletter/blog will be about spiritual waymarkers, but it will also be about encouraging you to seek and find the waymarkers in your own life. To follow the little nudges which have been tugging at your soul, but have gone ignored. To double back to that particularly diverting country lane you were contemplating before you got swept along the eight-lane expressway with everybody else. Most likely, this newsletter will be like peeking inside my notebook — except it will be legible to the human eye and there will (hopefully) be less spelling mistakes.

What this will not be is political or preachy. I’ll share some waymarkers I’ve found along the way, and maybe even share some I’ve constructed myself. And we’ll see how it goes. An important part of following a faith-based path is remaining open to being led and not getting too set in our own ideas of where we ought to be going or how fast we ought to get there. As for me, my faith is in God the Father as revealed through Jesus the Son and experienced via the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. But I don’t intend to force my personal faith on anyone.

I’m looking forward to seeing where we go together.