Why Make Pilgrimage?
The Good Old Future
Walking is our species’ evolutionary advantage, the travel we are designed to do best. Without cars, trains or planes, human movement is slow and intense. Discarding expectations of instant arrival, the whim of journey becomes sacred. No lines, straight or dead, restrain our movement. Feet follow eyes follow mind follows heart. Freedom like this is no abstract noun, but a natural skill and active blessing, forcing responsibility, discovery and delight.
Making pilgrimage is an act of getting lost from ‘normal’ life, and rediscovering a world as strong and vibrant as it always will be. It is pure travel, self-powered, natural and ancestral.
Long after the last metal box has stuttered to a stop, humanity will stroll onward, meeting the trees, animals and elements. And it will be glorious, and simple, and it is already afoot.
Waycation
Pilgrimage is the ultimate ‘staycation’. It is a path to meet this land and yourself as part of it. Living on the path, we can re-establish our animal independence and reclaim the fullness of our time, land and bodies.
By reclaiming our holidays (holy days) as slow journeys via footpath, we can rediscover our inheritance of nomadic freedom. It is what we have been seeking all along.
Saving the World
While making pilgrimage, you encounter the natural world through direct experience. Local distinctiveness becomes apparent with every corner turned. Plants and trees and animals become allies to share and support our journeys.
Pilgrimage is the opposite of book-learning: it is the real thing, direct experience. As you encounter many layers of nature and history, so will grow your awareness of how our land and species has reached where it is today.
How can we love nature from a screen? And if we do not love nature, how can we summon the energy necessary to protect her? The natural environment of this land needs us to fall in love with her again. Pilgrimage is how we can do this.
It is hard in modern life to make sound ecological decisions. Everything comes with a plastic wrapper, and every tiny choice bears a heavy footprint. But pilgrimage offers a sincerely healthy choice for our planet. Without heating, lights, cars or trains, electricity, fridges or screens, our pilgrimage’s impact will be as low as it possibly can. Pilgrimage helps us find our proper place within the eco-system we share. And that is a really good feeling, to no longer be a blight on our planet, but rather just another living animal, making our gentle way forward.
Annoying the King
Pilgrimage may not be not for everyone; but neither is struggling to be the monkey with the most nuts.
Those who decide the rules in our society enjoy imposing their will upon us, because there is advantage to be gained in doing so, and because they can. As humans comply with ever-tightening restrictions, and surrender ancient liberties, we msut know in our hearts that they shall not be easily returned.
Pilgrimage offers a shortcut to evade the mindgames of control, by restoring our ancient state of simple animal liberty. Taking to the path, we are wholly in charge of our time and passage through life, if only for a short-ish while. Inhabiting such natural and righteous self-reliance lets us remember the truth that despite all our social persuasions, we are ultimately always free and self-responsible.
As the scholar J J Jusserand states, pilgrimage has always had the power to “annoy the King”. And in the modern age, with government and corporate kings aplenty, the value of pilgrimage, and the freedom it enshrines, burns brighter than ever.
You-Time
On the path, the everyday influences of colleagues, boss, family and friends no longer dominate our lives. What we do - how we speak and think - the good we make real - becomes who we are.
Pilgrimage gives us a simple space to be our best selves, in a world replete with mechanisms to make such a goal nearly impossible. This is an opportunity to be ‘just’ you, to remember that this is enough - more than enough. You are not the house you own/rent, or the car you drive, or the job you do. You are not the ones and zeroes in your bank account. As a pilgrim, the stripped back truth of who you are has room to breathe and express itself, through the ancient art of journey.
Of course, this means you will also encounter your worst habits and thought-forms, your laziness, selfishness, anger and willingness to blame others. But without the comforting distractions of television, phone and work, you will have to face these unhelpful neuronic shortcuts, and deal with them. This is what makes pilgrimage such a transformative experience. It removes the impediments to your meeting - and being - yourself.
In the modern world, who really owns their time? Not even the ultra-rich can afford such wealth.
But between the roads, the pilgrim inherits the earth.
Community
Britain is not a land of debt, crime and devastation, but an archipelago of vibrant communities, living histories, strong human kindness and intense natural beauty.
This land is peopled by a welcoming and cheerful people, who are willing to share food and shelter, who are excited about the challenges of the future, and who are very capable of thinking and acting powerfully for themselves.
People are doing great things all over the land, inspiring projects and incredible works. Community is no lost dream but a constant and diverse jewel that sometimes hides itself from the brash outsider, but always reasserts itself in the most subtle and joyous of living ways.
We are all strangers wandering a strange land, ultimately unsure of ourselves or our path. This is what binds us together. A wandering journey is the common metaphor for all humanity on earth. If we can recognize this, and understand the transitional nature of our existence, then perhaps forgiveness and healing become easier to find. We need only to support each others' quests, and trust that despite seeming disharmonies, they all fit together in some (as yet) invisible way that is vast and perfect.
The Wayfarer is an earthworm for static communities, turning and aerating the grassroots of society. Deep cultural memories of nomadism are within all of us, despite today our living mostly static lives, moving quickly back and forth in the same small patterns, from house to car to office to shop and back.
Pilgrimage cuts through these cycles, offering a way to re-ascend our ruts. A Wayfarer moves beyond categories of dwelling-place and income-bracket, and erodes such petty ossifying definitions. A Wayfarer might walk beside a Duchess in the morning and a Tramp in the afternoon, and learn and share with each of them.
Pilgrimage makes the world safer for everyone. When people travel only by car, community landscapes become hollow, and people within them are isolated and vulnerable. But if more people journey on foot, by street and footpath, the opportunity for harmful activities is greatly reduced. We can protect each other, in the way our species always has done, by actually being there when needed.
Mental Health
Taking control of your body, meeting small everyday challenges and mastering them, is deeply good for our minds. Life as a pilgrim is simple, but its sense of reward and achievement is large and strong.
Pilgrimage blows away the cobwebs of our corridored minds, to offer continuous fresh perspectives. It is harder to dwell in sorrow when you are moving through beauty all the time. The scent of a bluebell wood is potent ancient therapy. Problems that pilgrims daily face - what to eat, where to sleep, how to stay warm and dry - are so large and vital that our smaller and more complex issues become eclipsed. Nature, with her beautiful basic requirements for life, can help to heal us, by making us pay more attention to what most truly matters.
Blood and Muscle
Walking is proven to reduce stress, and lessen the risk of all sorts of nasty illnesses, and a longer journey on foot intensifies these benefits. You will burn off fat and gain muscle. Your blood will flow more vigorously, and you will feel more alive. Pilgrimage is intensively moderate exercise. Your breath, blood and skin know the truth of this. While making pilgrimage, you feel more in contact with your body, and you can remember how to trust it more. Pilgrimage is what you are made to do, and makes deep physical sense.
