Sea, Song & Sanctuary
A women’s eco-spiritual journey on the north Cornish coast
9 to 16 September 2028
Cornwall is a sacred land, where the veil is thin and the earth seems to pulse with old stories. This is a women's pilgrimage along its wild coast, gathered around three threads: the stone that is Cornwall's bones, the cold Atlantic sea, and the song that runs through both, from the mermaid's voice to the shanty. We travel out from a single house each day, west to the mermaid's country and north to Arthur's. In between there is wild swimming, the coast path, a kitchen garden, and the slow work of letting a place and its legends do their quiet work on you.
The door is always open and the fire always lit.
A local chef cooks from the sea and the soil, foraged, landed and gathered close by, so the table is as much a part of the pilgrimage as the path.
At its heart this is a heroine's journey, told the eco-spiritual and rewilding way. It is a week to rewild the soul as much as the body, where your own story is threaded through the Cornish landscape, the sea and the old tales, and the pilgrimage outward becomes a quiet journey inward.
Mary's work with Waymarkers holds this thread, gently, from the first circle to the last.
A glimpse of three days…
Day 1
The Mermaid of Zennor
To St Senara's church and the bench-end carving from the 1400s, the mermaid's chair, and the tale of the singer she drew down at Zennor.
The coast path down toward Pendour Cove, the mermaid's own, and a wild Atlantic swim with a qualified guide, tide willing.
Supper at the old village inn before the road home.
Day 2
Tintagel & the Waterfall in the Woods
North to the castle on its headland, with Merlin's cave beneath it, timed to low tide, and the honest, layered story of Arthur sorted from the romance.
Then the walk up to St Nectan's Glen, where a sixty-foot fall drops through the holed rock, and a quiet threshold moment before home.
Who Holds the Week
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Mary DeJong, of Waymarkers
A teacher and guide in nature-based spirituality and sacred storytelling, Mary is the founder of Waymarkers and leads pilgrimages from the Pacific Northwest to Iona. Trained in ecotheology and the Celtic tradition, she facilitates this retreat: the opening circles, the morning blessings, and the quiet, reflective work of letting a place do its work on you.
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The Barrel Seagals
An all-female sea-shanty crew from Bude, on the wild north Cornish coast, reclaiming a tradition long sung by men. They teach you to find your voice and sing back to the sea, and lead the fireside evening of shanties and song.
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Nicole Revy, Prints by the Bay
A linocut artist whose coastal, nature-inspired prints carry the feminine and the wild in equal measure. Nicole leads our printmaking afternoon, showing you how to cut and press the Cornish coast into a linocut of your own to carry home.
Where you’ll stay
Seven nights at Atlanta, Trevone Bay, taken exclusively. A pair of substantial Victorian houses standing above the beach, built when Trevone was first discovered by people who came for the sea air and stayed, and generous in the way houses of that period are: high ceilings, deep bay windows, and rooms that look straight out to Trevose Head and the lifeboat station. They have been brought up to a properly luxurious standard without losing any of that, and taking both means the whole place is ours.
Steps lead directly down to the sand. The beach is on the doorstep for morning swims and the fire nights, and the famous Round Hole blowhole is out on the headland, which is a story in itself.
We travel out from that single base each day and come home to it each evening. It sits west of the sacred sites, around thirty to forty minutes by private coach from Tintagel, Boscastle and Port Isaac, which is the trade we make for somewhere calm and beautiful with its own beach. No packing and unpacking, and no night in a different bed
