We gather at our September Water Ceremony, taking place outdoors on Chapel grounds, weather permitting.

For this year’s ceremony, please bring your small amount of water to symbolize a body of water that is important to you, either from home or somewhere else.

As you pour your water into the shared vessel, you will be invited to place an empty cup (distributed) next to the vessel, mindful of all peoples who experience the absence of clean, potable water due to armed conflicts on Earth.

Cape Cod has always been in the path of deadly hurricanes and ferocious storms. Unwelcome summer visitors include the “Long Island Express” Hurricane of 1938, the Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1944, the twin Hurricanes Carol and Edna in 1954 and Hurricane Bob in 1991. These storms destroyed countless homes and left coastal communities under several feet of water. Surging tides carried away houses with residents inside who didn’t survive, and high seas sank the Coast Guard lightship Vineyard in Buzzards Bay, killing all twelve crew members. Fall and winter brought the benchmark Blizzard of 1978, the nor’easter of January 1987 and the infamous “Perfect Storm” of October 1991, which delivered some of the highest tides ever seen on the Outer Cape. In his latest book, “Historic Storms of Cape Cod”, local author Don Wilding revisits the Cape’s most severe weather events and their devastating impact.

Don Wilding has worked as a Cape tour guide and is a regular speaker on Cape Cod lore in Massachusetts and across New England. He was an award-winning newspaper editor, writer, and designer in Massachusetts for 36 years, including a recent stint as a contributing history columnist and photographer for Cape newspapers. Don has also led history walks for the Harwich Conservation Trust since 2018 and was recognized as one of their “Conservationists of the Year” in 2023. Don has also been an instructor of Cape Cod history courses for the Open University of Wellfleet and Nauset Community Education. 

Join us for a musical performance by Ken Silvia. Ken is a velvet-voiced singer and songsmith with a versatile repertoire ranging from The Beatles to Gershwin, along with original compositions. Ken’s music is often centered around words of loves lost, won or rediscovered, and his voice will touch your heart and soul. All are welcome.

A longtime Cape Cod resident, Ken Silvia has enjoyed a musical career as a solo artist and a studio session vocalist with R&B, soul and jazz combos throughout the East Coast. He continues to perform and record both his own compositions and covers.

Join us as Marca Daley discusses Eastham’s Life-Saving Services on the oceanside: from the earliest Half-Way Houses of the Massachusetts Humane Society, to the first Three Sisters lighthouses, the creation of the US Life-Saving Service, the arrival of the French Cable Station, and the transitions to the new Nauset Light and Coast Guard Station. All are welcome.

Marca Daley was born & raised in Eastham. After university, she traveled abroad and settled in Greece where she worked at the American Community Schools of Athens for the next 40 years. In 2013 she returned to Eastham, and today is Archivist and Museum Curator for the Eastham Historical Society.

Have you ever wondered what lives down below the water? Agnes Mittermayr will talk about the unexpected biodiversity of invertebrates around the Lower Cape, show pictures of microscopic animals that we share our beaches with, and explain how the physical world influences biological patterns. All are welcome.

Agnes Mittermayr is a marine ecologist at the Center for Coastal Studies, specializing in coastal ecosystems. She holds a PhD in Biological Oceanography and is particularly interested in how ecosystems react to and recover from human caused disturbances. 

Learn about Edward Hopper’s sketches and paintings of Eastham in another in a series of talks by Nauset Fellowship member Bob Seay. All are welcome.

Bob Seay, an Eastham resident, is recently retired as the transportation reporter for GBH News. He formerly hosted Morning Edition for GBH News, and worked as a broadcast journalist for more than three decades. Before joining GBH, Bob was Morning Edition host at Rhode Island Public Radio and the director of community radio station WOMR in Provincetown. For more than 15 years, he was the news and public affairs director at WQRC in Hyannis covering Cape Cod and the islands. Bob has also worked as a host on WBUR.

Join us as Laura Kelley tells us how to create a sustainable outdoor environment.

Laura Kelley is the owner of Littlefield Landscapes. She is “a land designer using organic principles to build up soil biology for your land to be able to sustain itself, from concept to completion.” Laura is the co-founder of Protect Our Cape Cod Aquifer.

There have been seven lighthouses on Nauset Beach in Eastham, and three of them got around a bit! Susan Abbott will tell us about the history of our lighthouses (including some early political drama) and what’s next for Nauset Light.

Susan Abbott is an Eastham resident and president of the Nauset Light Preservation Society. Her interest in lighthouses began when her father-in-law, George Abbott, was instrumental in the founding of the NLPS and the move of Nauset Light in 1996. She gives tours of Nauset Light and the Three Sisters and is also a volunteer at the Captain Edward Penniman house in Eastham.

Photo: Carolle Photography

Join us as Alexandra Marshall discusses the tension between fiction and memoir, with reference to her short story “Child Widow” (published in Ploughshgares, 2003) and her memoir The Silence of Your Name: The Afterlife of a Suicide, published in 2021.