On Being a Pilgrim

10/4/2019

Last year, my partner and I became “dual pilgrims” after walking the Camino de Santiago in Spain and the Kumano Kodo in Japan. Right as we took our first steps on the Camino, we said to each other, “We have been preparing for months for these first steps in the Pyrenees.”  We felt hopeful, anxious, excited: Did we prepare enough? Are we ready for the challenges? Are we really pilgrims? A dear friend shared some sage advice that we turned to daily – “You will encounter a physical, emotional, or spiritual issue everyday.”  And indeed we did.

Lacy Clark Ellman teaches that people walk the Camino, or take any pilgrimage, for a variety of reasons, including for healing (emotional, physical, spiritual, mental or any other type of healing), the pursuit of self-knowledge and self-discovery, creating community, and renewal.  We learned that a person’s reasons for walking (or cycling, bussing, training) were varied, yet similar, and always personal.  Some days I had no answer for why I was walking the ancient pilgrimages, while other days, I knew I was doing it because it was what I needed to do.  

On day 23, we passed words painted on a large rock that read Santiago is not there. Is in you. That phrase has been my meditation for months now and has been a meaningful perspective as I navigate my emotions, thoughts, ideas, identity, and habits.  The journey is both an outer exploration of the world with all its surprises, as well as an inner exploration of my values, attitudes, and perspectives.  The destination is already inside of me, and I access it when I trust my inner teacher to guide my actions.

Isn’t this what we do as spiritual companions? We provide a safe and loving space for our companions to find their way to their inner Santiago.

At the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Toronto last year, I went to a workshop on Pilgrimage by Robert Nash, Soumaya Khalifa, and Noam Marans.  In the workshop Soumaya outlined three levels or types of pilgrimage: out of the country; in the city; 1 on 1.  At the heart of what we do as spiritual companions is journey as pilgrims together, either 1 on 1 or in a group.  

Please consider joining us in this interspiritual experience as we, like Robert Nash expressed, “make the familiar unfamiliar, and the unfamiliar familiar.”

~Jeanette Banashak, PhD, EdD