About Us
Western Mass. Wilderness Rites is a nonprofit organization created and run by women. We offer nature-based programs and rites of passage ceremonies in Western Massachusetts.
We began with a vision of a girls’ rite of passage that arrived during a four day solo fast. Seeing and feeling a need within our own community we began the work of bringing this into being. Together we hold many years of experience counseling, guiding, teaching, mentoring, mothering, making, learning, and wandering; and from all of this Western Mass Wilderness Rites has emerged.
Our goal is to provide ceremony and programs to help repair our culture and strengthen our communities by supporting and guiding individuals toward more profound relationships with place, people, and self over multiple years.
Guides and Elders
Eliza Hollister
Eliza began her connection to the natural world as a child, upending rocks and logs in search of salamanders and going for endless explorations of the woods of Colrain, MA with her brothers. For the past many years, Eliza has been working with youth in the outdoors in various settings, currently with Wolf Tree Programs. Eliza is enlivened by making music and crafts, and deepening her connection with the natural world and the people in it. Eliza is First Aid and CPR Certified.
Erica Martenson
Erica grew up as a participant in nature connection programs, practicing ancestral skills in community since the age of 8. It was a natural transition to leading nature programs, which she started at the age of 12 and hasn’t stopped since!
She has traveled all over the world, staffing programs such as the Art of Mentoring, running various Wolf Tree programs, and leading her own nature connection group in Santa Cruz, CA for a year. Her homeschooled upbringing allowed her to follow her passions, which include singing (she is part of a singing group which has been gathering for 1000+ consecutive days), basket weaving, animal raising, sewing, crafting of all kinds, and dancing. She lives on Brooks Bend Farm, where she raises cows, sheep, chickens, pigs, and bees. Erica is First Aid and CPR Certified.
Grace Martenson
Grace grew up walking through the woods every Wednesday to attend Wolf Tree programs. She has been attending the Art of Mentoring since she was 5, and participated in two solos when she was a young teenager. 2 years ago Grace participated in a 4 day wilderness vigil fast, and has since become passionate about working to create Rite of Passages for the young women of the community. Grace is First Aid and CPR Certified.
Jacquelynn Ward
Jacquelynn grew up running around the woods, eating herbs straight from the garden, and sleeping outside whenever possible. Since then, she has been exploring the ways in which language, land, work, ceremony, and imagination help us to be fully alive on Earth. She is currently an educator, storyteller, shiatsu practitioner, gardener, and aspiring herbalist. For the past decade, she has worked for numerous wilderness schools in the Northeast, and pursued academic learning in the realms of history and mythology. Additionally, she has studied and worked with storytellers, mystics, heathens, poets, naturalists, and homesteaders. Jacquelynn is also a Wilderness First Responder.
Judy Hall
Judy (she/her) is at home on an off-grid homestead built at the edge of the Wendell State Forest on land impacted by a tornado in 2006. She is committed to restoration, renovation, and cooperation with the natural forces and more-than-human beings who are her neighbors.
Judy is a 2008 graduate of the Animas Valley Institute’s five-year Soulcraft Apprenticeship and Initiation Program. Her recent ancestors are Scott-Irish fishing and dairy farm folk. She is a lover of wild places and has guided curious wanderers in the mountains of Idaho, the deserts of Utah, and the river valleys of New England. She could be called dream tracker, underworld guide, practicing naturalist, permie-gardener, poet, a pupil of the crescent moon, she-who-walks-with-crippled feet, and Grammie.
Tamara McKerchie
Tamara is the mother of two school aged children, an artist, and a homesteader on land nestled between Mt Toby and Mt Sugarloaf in the Connecticut River Valley. She co-owns a restaurant where she brings hearth to her community through food and the warmth of familiar faces in a central gathering place. Tamara is certified in CPR and First Aid. She has Food Safety and Allergen Awareness training. Tamara also has baseline knowledge in wilderness skills.