Red Cedar Zen Community's Wilderness Dharma Program begins another year of mindful and ritual journeys throughout our local watersheds, and we warmly invite you to come out for a walk, a hike, or a full backpack.

We offer a wide variety of experiences, suitable for a wide range of interests and abilities. Our walks and hikes are arranged into two broad groups - our "Following the Way of Water" series of journeys up into the high country of our local world, and our "Opening to Nature" series of explorations into the diversity of lowland environs which surrounds us right here at home.

We begin the season with our Receiving Water/HIlls and Streams Hike on Saturday, March 25th, timed to coincide closely with the Spring Equinox. Each year we receive a vial of Salish Sea water, and carry it with us throughout our hikes, exchanging it with fresh mountain water at the highest points we can reach of the three branches of the Nooksack River, and returning that mountain water to the Salish Sea at season's end.

This poignant ceremony on the beach can be attended separately, or together with, the hike led by Hegaku Talus Latona, which immediately follows. On that "HIlls and Streams" hike we will recite the entirety of the Genjo Koan by Eihei Dogen. Please consider joining this shoreside ritual, and the hike if you choose, and put your energy and well-wishes into the vial of water we will be walking with throughout the season.

We will follow this with our next hike, the popular Circumambulation of Mt. Eire on April 9th, which coincides closely with Buddha's birthday. Led by Jodan Bob Rose, the hike ritually circles the small seaside mountain, protected years ago partly through the efforts of Jodan Bob himself. Our first ceremony on the hike visits the "Poet's Tree", and each participant is asked to bring a short piece of writing to welcome the spring.

You can see the full list of this season's programs here. Be sure to take note of a new program, the Cedarwood Pilgrimage on August 17th, which weaves our new building into the ritual matrix of walks we annually perform, and gives an opportunity for community members to send off our team of hikers to the high country for our Mountains and Rivers Backpack.

Yours in nature,

Reizan Bob Penny and the Wilderness Dharma Program team