Chapter 04: What is a Pilgrimage?
“Pilgrimage is a sacred journey of discovery…A journey to a sacred place in search of enlightenment? Sure. An act of remembrance? Why not? A journey in search of meaning in the face of obstacles and hardship? Indeed. After all, no one said a week’s walking in Northumberland would be a stroll in the park.”
Sacred journeys transcend Christianity as every major faith tradition (Islam, Buddhism, Sikhism, Hinduism, Judaism) have some form of pilgrimage as part of their practices. Phil Cousineau, writer, researcher, wanderer and photographer suggests that “pilgrimage was a way to prove one’s faith and find answers to one’s deepest questions.” (1) As spiritual seekers and religious practitioners, don’t we all long for connection and confirmation that we are embodying our faith in meaningful ways?
Pilgrimage, as a process involving journeys, sacred centres and symbolic articulations of deep religious messages, along with manifestations of localised meaning, is found - and replicated - across cultures and religious traditions, old and new. Pilgrimage is a spiritual exercise, an act of devotion to find a source of healing, or even perform a penance. Always, it is a journey of risk and renewal. For a journey without purpose has no soul. (2)(3)
So throughout history and across cultures, specific places, designated artifacts and symbols have taken on spiritual significance for devout, religious adherents. And when one travels as a seeker to these sacred locations, something significant shifts for the pilgrim. It is often the journey itself, not just the arrival, that imparts deep reconnection and affirmation to one’s spiritual and religious roots, often resulting in a renewed commitment to practicing one’s faith, whatever that may look like going forward.
What is a pilgrim you ask?
Medieval historian Lisa Deam, in her book, 3,000 Miles to Jesus, uses the phrase “faith travellers who wandered the physical and spiritual landscapes of the Middle Ages.” (4).
The English term pilgrim originally comes from the Latin word peregrinus (per, through + ager, field, country, land), which means a foreigner, a stranger, someone on a journey, or a temporary resident. It can describe a traveller making a brief journey to a particular place or someone settling for a short or long period in a foreign land. Peregrinatio was the state of being or living abroad. (5)
Born in 1908, “Peace Pilgrim”, an American woman who upon leaving an unhappy marriage in the 1950s, hiked alone the 2050-mile Appalachian Trail in one season and, during this deeply transformative journey, subsequently heeded the call to devote the rest of her life to walking for peace. (6) For Peace Pilgrim, relinquishment was the posture and pathway of the pilgrim.
Her pilgrimage for peace began on the morning of January 1, 1953. She vowed “to remain a wanderer until mankind has learned the way of peace.” Peace Pilgrim walked alone and penniless and with no organizational backing. She walked “as a prayer” and as a chance to inspire others to pray and work for peace. She wore navy blue shirt and slacks, and a short tunic with pockets all around the bottom in which she carried her only worldly possessions: a comb, a folding toothbrush, a ballpoint pen, copies of her message and her current correspondence. (7)
Trappist monk, scholar and mystic writer, Thomas Merton, wrote that we are all called to a life of contemplation, regardless of what religious tradition we practice, and that universally we all “were made for God and cannot rest until we rest in God.” (8).
And so for many pilgrims, the journey outward is one of the missing pieces in their tapestry of encountering the Divine and authentically walking out their faith in a very real, tangible way.
But pilgrimages don’t necessarily have an overtly religious purpose. New Age pilgrims and secular pilgrimages take place around the world for all kinds of reasons. Places and spaces determined to be spiritually significant, like Sedona, Arizona, USA (https://www.sedonamonthly.com/2020/spiritual-sedona/) or Stonehenge, UK (https://sacredsites.com/europe/england/stonehenge.html) are not specifically tied to any one religion but attract spiritually inclined travellers to experiment and experience the power of these places for themselves on their own terms.
Travellers also make intentional journeys to places that hold uniquely personal significance for them. Hundreds of thousands of Elvis fans annually make the pilgrimage to Graceland in Tennessee, USA to pay tribute to their icon (https://variety.com/2017/music/news/elvis-presley-graceland-pilgrimage-1202529316/) while others make their way to the Café du Dôme in Paris where Ernest Hemingway would sit, smoke and write (https://www.hemingwaysparis.net/tag/the-dome-cafe/).
Connection to that which we hold dear is exponentially more powerful when we are physically present in those spaces and places where our dreams, our heroes and our hopes of something altogether extraordinary become tangible, become real.
And that is also why pilgrimage is as much a sacred journey inward as it is an outward activity of phsycial movement and relocation. It begins, unfolds and ends with the desire for something to shift, a question to be answered, an expereince to propel momentum, a dream to fulfil.
And sometimes the inward longing cannot be aptly named.The pilgrim just knows it needs something to be change even though they cannot with any certianty know exactly what that change might be.
But it is a journey nonetheless.
It is movement towards the intangible and mysterious, a mind that is restless longing for peace or connection, a body that gets weary and worn desiring rest and a soul searching for transformation and freedom.
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore, I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.(9)