Pilgrimage Routes

Pilgrimage Routes

"Though the long tracks know no glad step,
And the circle goes unblessed.
From their long homes may the old ones
Welcome travellers upon their quest."
    ___Caitlin Matthews, "Pilgrims' Blessing"


   Pilgrimage is a step beyond tourism, which merely comes to look at place and enjoy them; pilgrimage involves a deeper engagement with the land, with the sacred nature of the experience that is had not only at the destination but along the route as well. Those who travel with spiritual purpose find pleasure and enjoyment no less than the tourist, but their experience is colored by the reality of their contact with the unseen world - not only with the apparent landscape about them, but with its inhabitants and guardians.
   When we re-engage with the sacred places of our spiritual heritage, the ability to be a pilgrim affects our experience of the places we visit: the ability to see beyond desacralization, the skill to travel the road with expectant and prayful hearts, the greeting we send out - before  we even begin to travel - to the ancestral guardians and spiritual presences who have awaited our coming this long time.
   In pilgrimage, it is the ability to give blessing upon the places we visit, rather than seek blessing for ourselves in our travel, that is most appreciated. In offering our blessing, we are able to resacralize both the way and the site: for if we become alive to the generous and sacred nature of each place, so may many others; and we will have become guardians and pilgrims of a new generation for all the generations to come.

"Make your own pilgrimage to a special or sacred place during the wintertime, drawing upon some of the ideas above."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Avalon: An Otherworldly Paradise

    The Isle of Avalon is an Otherworldly Paradise, a golden Isle of Blessed Souls where the goddess reigns forever. It is a magical land lying far to the west across the waters, veiled in mystery. Avalon means the place of apples and in many apple orchards of this beautiful land the red and gold fruits of the goddess's immortality grow in abundance. In some tales Avalon is one of the Fortunate Isles, a fabled Island of Women, where women and our mysteries reign and people lives a hundred years and more. Birds of omen, large and small, flock to the sacred land, singing with great sweetness of her beautyways. Here too there are animals, black or white with red ears, all beloved of her. In particular Avalon is a land of transformation, sometimes known as the Western Isle of the Dead, a place of dying, healing and rebirth.
[From: "In the Nature of Avalon: Goddess Pilgrimages in Glastonbury's Sacred Landscape"
by Kathy Jones]