In 2012, I founded The Wayfarer in an effort to bring together a community of like-minded thinkers and see what the dialogue yielded.  I gathered my friends and the most insightful colleagues I knew and began. I didn’t know how the publication would sustain itself or how anyone would even find our work—I couldn’t answer all the questions of viability from a business standpoint —but I nonetheless felt the need for the magazine’s voice and that was enough. In the beginning, I didn’t have any sense of how big The Wayfarer would grow or how widely it would be shared. I simply carved out a space in which others could speak and share those deep thoughts they’d pondered, not because I saw the monetary profits in such an endeavor, but because I could see the benefit to the mind and soul.

I have always been an ardent believer in creative minds requiring a circle of fellows to push them. We’ve seen the prolific flow of ideas that occurs when the right community is gathered together to foster one another, whether it is in the Concord Transcendentalists, the Bloomsbury Group, or the Beat poets out in San Francisco. The discussion, the inspiration, the contemplation and the community encourages the kind of boundary-pushing, ego destruction, and refinement of beliefs that bring about movements of change in the larger world. The circle I gathered back in 2012 has become bigger than I expected. It is composed of both reader and writer alike.

I think we all find our way through this life with the aid the communities we gather closest to us.  In these dark times, when we all feel strained and lost, I urge you to gather your circle and keep them close. No one person knows the path forward. We chart the way together. I am grateful to you—our readers and contributors—for making the journey with us for the last five years. I hope you’ll continue with us for the next five to come. There is a great deal more to explore and discuss.

With Gratitude

Leslie M. Browning

Founder & Editor-in-Chief, The Wayfarer