when i go to the library my preferred method of choosing books is to go to the new titles and start grabbing...there really is no rhyme or reason, just take a book that catches my eye...and i have had some really great luck this way...some stinkers, too...but when you read as much as i do, even stinkers come in handy...
the book i am reading now came to me in such a manner...called the singular pilgrim by rosemary mahoney...it is an account of the author's exploration and participation in six sacred pilgrimages and the pilgrims who make them...it is very, very good...so far i have been to walsingham, england for the anglican national pilgrimage to the shrine to the virgin mary and to the holy baths and shrine in lourdes, france...
what makes the fact that this book came to me in such a way right now even more interesting is that the duke and i are currently reading chaucer's canterbury tales...a book that is as much about the journey as it is about the people making it...and like the characters in canterbury tales, mahoney encounters many a colorful character on her own journeys...
all this has got me thinking about my own pilgrimage...or rather, if i could make a pilgrimage, where would i go?...what is it that i am called to see?...
and you know what, i don't really know...sure, there are places i've always wanted see...i'd love to go to ireland...and have longed to go to alaska for as long as i can remember...to witness denali, the inside passage, and to sleep under an alaskan moon...
i've also a great interest in visiting more than a few shrines the world over dedicated to the virgin mary and to guadalupe...but even though each of these trips or places would have their own spirit and indeed touch me deeply, i think for me any one of these trips would be less because i felt the need to make a "pilgrimage" there...and more because of deep interest and the desire to see those places...
the dictionary defines pilgrimage as "the journey of a pilgrim...especially one to a shrine or sacred place" ...
well, that does put it into perspective...because even though i would LOVE to travel to a little town in italy i read about awhile ago that has a particularly interesting shrine to the virgin mary, it would be a journey made of interest...and even though the destination is one of religious nature, it still, for me, would not be a pilgrimage...no less moving, but a pilgrimage?...
i think it needs to be even more personal...to touch a place that is so far ingrained that it is of more than just interest...however deep...
because what i consider to be shrines and sacred places have everything to do with my spirit, not interest...that it's less about a *place* and more about where i am *at*...i look to the sacred being all around me...to know that i can honor the sacred and find peace and providence whenever and wherever i need to...
which does not, however, make any less important and necessary the desire to make a journey to honor, worship, meditate, be blessed, or be healed by a particular piece of sacred ground...or by what may rest atop that sacred ground...in whatever form that pilgrimage comes...actually, by that reasoning, i have made a pilgrimage many, many times...
some of my most spiritually rewarding journeys have come in the form of backpacking...especially in the sierra nevadas...oh, it has been a long time...the last time i actually went backpacking was when i was very very newly pregnant with the duke...eight years ago this month, in fact...point reyes...what a beautiful place...
but the sierras...ah, now there is majesty...there is a shrine as sacred as any...i need only to close my eyes and i can feel the slightly damp weight on my back, the distinct crunch of granite under my feet, and the sweet damp smell of a sun-dappled forest...i can transport myself there in an instant...and when i am there it is divine providence...and absolute assurance that my life here on earth means something...that i am truly blessed and truly humbled to just to be able to witness a mountain's majesty...
and i have to say it was never about the destination...while setting a pack down and setting a camp up is sweet reward, it just never matched with the actual journey there...the one foot in front of the other, lost in thought or quiet conversation, movement...
it was my first introduction to a kind of meditation...the idea that even while you are moving you can be still...that kernel of quiet spirit growing and spreading to all points in your body...i suppose it is what they mean when they say "at one with nature"...only i always look at the nature as being me...that the hills and valleys and vast plains of my soul are smoothed and made fluid...that all the parts that make me up begin to work together...there is no opposition, no question...i just am...
and i guess that's the mark of a true pilgrimage...a journey in whatever form that gives one the feeling that they just are...a journey that reveals and/or validates an internal sacred ground...
so i suppose if offered the opportunity to make a pilgrimage i would choose a backpacking trip in the sierras...a pilgrimage made many times before, and one i would be honored to make again...a pilgrimage that is just about the movement, and the possibility that movement brings...a pilgrimage that renews my spirit and nourishes my soul...
and if i can't make it back anytime soon, or ever, that's okay too...because it's just as true as it may be trite, wherever you go there you are...and i am always right where i need to be...
and interestingly yet not so surprisingly enough, the second definition of pilgrimage in the dictionary is "the course of life on earth" ...
indeed...
x.
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