A Keening for Myself

Slowly I find myself leaving. I take last walks to say goodbye to certain places which is a ritual I carried out all my life. I am woven together with threads of this place, my body holds her water and blood and my bones are made from her bedrock. Then slowly, without any movement, I shift between places. One foot is here while the other has crossed the ocean onto another continent. I am back to encompassing both worlds. Leaving is painful. It’s not muted by knowing I can return at any time. It’s an awareness which brings into focus the pain of those who left and knew they’d never return. Violently uprooted and ripped from the land. To be born of generations upon generations who lived and died on this soil to then be cleared away, eradicated as if they were vermin, swept aside to make way for the more profitable sheep.  

Oxford Dictionaries defines "Pilgrimage" as a pilgrim's journey, or a religious journey or religious expedition. I have gone of several pilgrimages myself, self-described, most likely, but pilgrimages nonetheless. I ventured to Brittany in France and visited Carnac, with its row and rows of standing stones. I visited a number of off-the-beaten tracks places like "Merlin's Grave" (I am pretty sure he wasn't buried there), the Val-sans-retour, the Fountain of Barenton, the Forest of Broceliande, the odd Celto-Christian Church at Trehuerentec. All of these places were known to others, all of them had some history, a few of them had some authenticity.

Last year, at the OBOD Summer Gathering, I made the trip up Glastonbury Tor, indeed an effort and a pilgrimage all in one. To do ritual in a holy places makes the religious journey or religious expedition even more powerful, all the more memorable. The journeys are all the more memorable because they require a journey of distance, of effort, and of time.

My bag is packed--minus the Tevas that need a good scrubbing first--and I am mostly ready for pilgrimage. It surprises me when I think back on the times I've been in Britain during the month of April--when folks long to go on pilgrimages, according to Chaucer.

It's field research really, though most of my traveling these days is one form of quest or another. There is a deep longing in me for new lands and vistas, new smells and tastes. But my travel always brings me to Britain and Ireland, when I leave these lands of home. I think of them collectively as the ancient motherlands. My DNA test showed that to be true--so much whiteness here, so many blood-links to those places that know my soul.

My friends have been on pilgrimage. They’ve walked the Camino and hiked the Himalayas and climbed Glastonbury Tor. They've made it to Dharamsala and Rishikesh. I haven’t done any of that. But I have been to the ocean in Maine. And I have walked back and forth between two points twenty feet apart for long periods. Those are my pilgrimages.

For many people, walking is a seasonal activity – specifically it’s something to do in the summer when the weather is good, it’s dry underfoot and warm. My preferred time of year for walking is spring and autumn, when the cooler days can make the whole experience more comfortable, especially when climbing a hill!

That this is an unobvious time of year to talk about walking tempts me to do so – part of the point of this wheel of the year exploration is to be slightly perverse and flag up as many alternatives as I can think of.

An art contest opens to celebrate Midwinter. We're reminded of all we have to be thankful for. And we take a look at Paganism in South Africa. It's Watery Wednesday, our weekly segment on news about the Pagan community from around the world. All this and more for the Pagan News Beagle!

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.” Jack Kerouac, On the Road

The New Moon this month occurs in the sign of Sagittarius (0°) on Saturday November 22nd, at 4:32 am (PST).  Sagittarius is a Mutable Fire sign, meaning that it is a threshold sign, bridging one season into the next, and resonating with the visionary element of Fire.  Sagittarius is the hero/ine searching for the Quest that will bring not only individuation, but ultimate meaning.  Sag embodies enthusiastic, looking-to-the-future, outward moving energy after the inward directed flow of Scorpio.  The mood is now noticeably lighter, and we are compelled to make sense of the truths that were unearthed while the Sun transited Scorpio.