Climate Pilgrimage

Walking is a powerful practice. Not only is it good exercise and great for well-being; writers, poets, philosophers and mystics have all engaged in walking through their work and ideas.

All religious faiths have some form of holy walking, or pilgrimage. A pilgrim is someone whose walking is not just about the destination but about the entire journey. Hiking has become a recreational pastime that is often about the destination. What makes a walk a pilgrimage is that there is proportional attention to the outer and the inner landscapes one traverses. Henry David Thoreau mused that the origin of the word saunter came from the phrase a la sainte terre- to the Holy Land. To saunter is to walk as though one were on pilgrimage!

In the era of ecological spirituality, all land is holy. Yet, we are also living through a time of ecological catastrophe, anxiety and grief. Pilgrimage is a versatile spiritual practice for bringing our awareness to the intersection of inner and outer landscapes whether we want to reflect on our role in the current crisis, grieve for the destruction of recent wildfires, connect with the land, or express gratitude to the natural world.

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