Our personal pilgrimage journey is global in both scope and impact, and we are invited to transformative micro-practices that overhaul how we view our homescapes. Our return requires us to leave the door open to the world just beyond its threshold, maintaining a posture of looking out for opportunities to give of our gained wisdom and our boon of blessings.
Read MoreThrough the archetypal movements of pilgrimage, one finds deep meaning and spiritual connection through both the exilic wandering and the renunciations associated with the journey; moreover, as a result, one finds themselves deeply connected within the community of creation, and profoundly rooted and at home in their pilgrimage place.
Read MoreI absolutely believe that one might need to journey to a holy place on the other side of the planet to recover this renewal. And, sacred sites are also all around us, quietly remaining in the more wild edges of our frenetic lives, awaiting being noticed, remembered, attended. The pilgrimage process is one that can be engaged just as much at home as abroad and with just as much potential for transformation. It is the profound act of listening, which transforms the average elements of a place or even just your normal mid-week day, into a pilgrim's portal: a way of sensing and seeing that transmits the sacred to and through the greater community of things that surround us!
Read MoreIona is sacred land and people make pilgrimage here to soak of these stories, hoping that something of this sacred soil will stick and have a profound impact on their personal lives. And my hunch is that there are many more sacred sites all around us, even in our own urban neighborhoods, if only we would pay attention.
Read MoreWhat might have started as a soft whispered call has now become a heart-throbbing desire to go and find the animus mundi--the Soul of the world! Pursue the wild place that makes your heart skip both with doubt and desire for here is where you will find your Answer covered in salty barnacles and cracked-leathered edges and God within the windswept moors and tangled trees.
Read MoreThere is an urgent restlessness and a deep seeded remembrance to come home to our true selves, a deep longing for an integration that braids the soul, the soil, and the sacred. This longing, this soul-solicitation-asking initiates the seeking process, as it is inherently true that you cannot cultivate an integrated home-space for your soul unless you first have intentionally gone out and away from all that you know and are comfortable within. Will you go?
Read MoreI feel like I've been walking towards today for years. It was four years ago that my work with Waymarkers was put in the vault as I left to pursue my Masters in Theology & Culture with a focus in eco-theology from The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology.
This journey took me through some of the most wildest of woods where I was taught again and again of the revelatory quality of the natural world, and that the woods are indeed the wisest of teachers. I reflect on themes experienced in these last years during the commencement speech I was asked to give during my graduation ceremony. You can listen to that here.
Read MoreThe journey itself to Iona makes this place unique; it is long, quite complicated and even relatively uncomfortable for the urbanite who is accustomed to quick and easy travel. This distance provides the perfect pilgrimage process, for it truly requires a removal of oneself from all that is familiar and supplies a lengthy trek-full of obstacles, no doubt! Once there, one finds a sparsely populated island, with almost no cars and a large abbey, whose structure appears to have dropped from the heavens onto this topographically small and relatively insignificant place. Sheep outnumber the residents and the sunlight plays on the hillsides in the most magical ways. One senses almost immediately Iona is indeed a "thin space" – that brushing up against the Divine is inevitable.
Read MoreThe pilgrimage around Iona visits places of sacred significance and historical importance on the island. There are 18 sites in all and can take nearly all day to get to each one. Our group broke the pilgrimage up in a few days-hitting the Abbey's specific spots while we did our tour and hiking up Dun I on a quiet afternoon-so that we could enjoy the heft of the hiking down to the south end of the island to really spend some meaningful time at St. Columba's Bay and enjoy the reflections at holy sites along the way.
Read MoreHere on Iona, where it is often stated in promotional material that sheep outnumber people and cars, everyone walks. There is but a single road and upon that one walks to get to the ferry, get to the Abbey, get a cup a tea. It is both a means to a destination and a value in and of itself. The road becomes a liturgy and walking the prayers.
Read MoreThe warm invitation that this island, and its people, extend to new comers is quite profound. There is a very real sense that there are no strangers in our midst. In the context of the single road, the hostel or the beaches, there are ready smiles to lift yours, gregarious laughter rushing out to include you, and generous invitations to share tea, a meal or a bit of chocolate. There is a sense of general community and conviviality that spans generations and gender.
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