The Power of Ritual

Sixteenth-century motets like “Ego flos campi” by Jacob Clemens non Papa and contemporary compositions like Arvo Pärt’s haunting “Spiegel im Spiegel” brought me into a prayerful time

You can make a pilgrimage anytime, anywhere, along a Great Route or from your back door out into the world. Maybe your place of pilgrimage is your grandparents’ backyard, the ocean, an orchard, or a little park in the midst of the city.

paying attention to beauty in the world cultivates the sacred within us.

our striving, burnout culture.

when we become aware of the home we have in nature, we sense home in whatever place we’re in.

This is
how we can bring landscapes back to life, by walking through them and hearing their stories.

Even the most unremarkable suburb is drenched in story. Discovering factual history, family stories, fairytales, or local legends—this is part of pilgrimage, retelling and perhaps reinventing stories that connect our souls to the soil.

Pilgrimage might also be right for you if you find yourself without words to describe what you’re going through. We can walk, rather than talk, through our grief.

A pilgrimage isn’t defined by distance, but by transformation.

We are not separate from nature, we are nature itself, and we are very much in this together.