“If you rise to pray the rosary tonight, a column of saints will support your prayer.”
Our Lady of Woodstock, August 22, 2011
The column of saints includes all souls and leaves no being out. Each time we pray the rosary together at the Way of the Rose we acknowledge the presence of our ancestors, all our ancestors, who are saying these prayers with us. We call upon them, as we do Our Lady, for help and guidance, love and healing.
On this page we acknowledge the particular souls who have been part of the Way of the Rose community—but are now on the other side of the veil. One day we will all be praying from the other side and listening as our descendants call upon us.
If you call upon any of these saints and experiences answers or even miracles, do be sure to let us know so that they can be added to this page.
Way of the Rose Ancestors
These friends were part of the original gatherings in Woodstock and helped explore what it meant to come together without hierarchies in in a spirit of fellowship and curiosity.
Dave Tapper
A devoted Jewish father, Dave made documentaries for the Catholic Church and was a serious Zen student before discovering Clark’s book Meditation without Gurus and telling him that he needed to start offering in-person groups to explore this work and what it meant for community.
Nancy Githens Washburn
An accomplished weaver and flutist, Nancy was spiritually omnivorous—serving as a pastor’s wife, exploring Buddhism, and wanting to find a new ways to explore her diverse religious experiences.
Marty Laforce
A Jewish elder, Marty started showing up at Clark’s gatherings to talk about the Koans of the Bible and read scripture not as answers but as questions, not as dogma but as mystery.
Larry Berk
A wild artistic spirit, this Jewish man began painting collages of the Madonna and giving them to Clark and Perdita long before they knew the Lady. His battle with ALS revealed, painfully to the fellowship, how little we really understood practically about prayer.
Mark Rogosin
This local bodhisattvah gave everything away—his career as a lawyer, his family, his Jewish heritage, even his formal affiliation to Tibetan Buddhism—to live as a wild man writing prayers on stones he gave to everyone in Woodstock. While he never stayed for a circle, he often dropped by to see how were doing and give us the thumbs up.
Way of the Rose Blossoms
Arthur Kahn (d. 2017)
This local Jewish lawyer was one of the regulars at our first Way of the Rose phone meetings. A loving father he also came to in-person circle to pray for his kids and his own health and sobriety.
Donna Lockwood (d. 2017)
One of the original members of the Way of the Rose on Facebook, Donna planted seeds of beauty and wisdom still blossoming today. She was a wise spiritual seeker and an accomplished artist. We did not know until she died that she had been contending throughout it all with ALS. Below is a painting of the Lady she did for Sophie Strand.
Clayton Masterson (d. 2022)
Clayton called himself a “spiritual misfit” but he fit right in at Way of the Rose, composing some of intimate and probing explorations of the Lady and what it meant to be devoted to her—as a lapsed Catholic, as a former devotee of Kali, as a pagan, as a former addict, as a lawyer, and finally as someone battling a terrible cancer which he had an intuition he was going to lose. He left behind his beloved wife—and many have begun praying to Clay to find the kind of great love that he knew and celebrated.
Nancy Ellen Senior (d. 2022)
This warm, earthy grandmother always zoomed in with a painting of St. John Lennon behind her. She could imagine a world woven together in magical new ways by the dead and living. “My dead,” she always said, “show up for me.” She will always show up for us.
Clarence “Chet” Chavez (d. 2022)
A dog lover and spiritual enthusiast, Chet encouraged Clark and Perdita throughout the writing of Way of the Rose and was a regular attendee at phone circles.
