On Pilgrimage
On walking with intention, storytelling and knowing places more deeply
Recently I have become interested in the idea of pilgrimage. Seeing the shells of the Camino de Santiago around Europe (and even locally to me in Yorkshire), reading books about walking, seeking out places full of history and stories. I am not sure what it is that draws me in so much, perhaps the structure that it gives, the connection to history, folklore or ancient places, the idea of all the lives that have taken the same route. Religion has nothing to do with my interest, though I do love a lot of the stories connected to many spiritual places. I found a page on the British Pilgrimage Trust on how to turn your daily walk into a pilgrimage and I love the intention it has given even a short walk that I take. Setting intention, paying attention, creating space for my mind to wander. I try to use all my senses, getting to know the land around me in more depth.
This is, of course, a form of ‘mindful walking’. I have a lot of issues with ideas of ‘mindfulness’ it feels buzzwordy and has been heavily commodified. It is used as a way of ignoring the deeper problems at hand. Feeling overwhelmed at the state of the world? Do a mindfulness puzzle! Buy a subscription to this app! Pay money or you won’t feel better! Don’t for a minute think that perhaps this consumerism is part of the problem. It is an immense privilege to be able to take time out and immerse yourself in a daily walk. I can never fully take my thoughts away from the genocide in Gaza, the climate emergency and all the other horrors in the worlds and I shouldn’t despite the fact that often, in the words of a bumper sticker I saw on Instagram, ‘I’d rather be slowly consumed by moss’ and run away from it all. I use this intention-charged way of walking to re-engage with my immediate surroundings, to connect with this planet that I love so deeply and to re-energise myself. Again, an immense privilege that I do not take for granted (to reflect more on this I really recommend Palestinian Walks by Raja Shehadeh).
I use sites such as the Ancient Tree Inventory or The Megalithic Portal to plan my walks or pilgrimages. I try to find a destination embedded with stories, and I think of others who build their walks with these sorts of goals in mind. Thoreau walked ten miles through snow in the winter to be in the presence of a favourite beech, Kenneth Steven in his book Atoms of Delight searches for St Columba’s oaks to gather acorns. Nick Hunt, in his book ‘Where the Wild Winds Are’ follows four winds across Europe in a sort of pilgrimage that follows a more transient goal. At St Columba’s Bay in Iona, there is a whole ritual around the pebbles, small translucent stones known as St. Columba’s Tears, that can be found on the beach. Iona’s website tells me that people choose two pebbles here, one that represents something you want to leave behind which is thrown into the sea and another which is taken home as a reminder of a new beginning or commitment. My favourite thing about looking for interesting sites or following old paths is the history rooted in them. As Jack Cornish puts it, ‘history can be told along our paths’. These are often overlooked histories, that of ordinary people. I do romanticise this sort of thing but I still love seeing an old Roman road marked on a map, the wear on stone steps or finding a piece of clay pipe and wondering about the person who dropped it.
I have also rediscovered the importance of touch whilst walking. Feeling a cool rock in the shade on a hot day or running my hand gently over moss. It encourages me to stop for a moment and just be in my surroundings. I take out my hand lens and crouch down to immerse myself in another world, a miniature forest in a pavement crack, the deep gorges running through tree bark or the lunar surface of a pebble. Nan Shepherd champions the idea of knowing a place deeply, it is not about reaching a summit or conquering anything. This was something I did through the lockdowns, having just moved to the edge of a town where we knew no one. I would walk every path I could find from our house, becoming more deeply embedded in my surroundings, forming local landmarks, renaming places to fit my experiences, creating new stories.
With all this in mind, on a midweek day in early July, I get the train to Poppleton and walk over to All Saints church to begin one of the day pilgrimages to York Minster (from the BPT website). Before I set off I drew a card from my plant tarot deck and got plantain. I initially felt a little disappointed, such an unassuming plant, but it turned out to be the perfect card to set my intention today. Plantain was one of the nine sacred herbs and called ‘Way Bread’. Revered by travellers, who would put it in their shoes to heal blisters and relieve aching feet. I put the card in my pocket to remind me to not overlook things, especially unassuming plants and creatures. As I walk from All Saints, I see plantain all along the pavements and pathways that I follow, guiding me on my walk. Even as I follow the York ring road to cross railway tracks, there are unruly patches of abundance, buzzing with insects. It is also from this point, as cars whip past me, that I see the spires of the minster in the distance, poking out from behind the trees. I drop down to the banks of the Ouse and follow the ridgeline into York. Sand Martins dart around me, birds sing, the Edinburgh train hurtles past across the river. Edgelands turn to city and I move under graffitied bridges, keeping the river to my right still until I climb the steps at Lendal Bridge and walk the final few metres to the minster. I join the entrance queue as the bells ring out for twelve o’clock. It feels right to wait to enter after walking there, my feet throbbing, I take a moment to think about my walk. Once inside I find the carvings of the Green Man and stone oak leaves, then go down to the basement to see the remains of the Roman Fort. Stone streets walked long before me. The minster is just another layer of history.
Footnotes
A great resource for pilgrimages of all kinds: https://www.britishpilgrimage.org/
Iona’s website page for St. Columba’s Bay: http://www.welcometoiona.com/places-of-interest/st-columbas-bay/
Books mentioned:
Palestinian Walks: Notes on a Vanishing Landscape by Raja Shehadeh – Another way to look at land and landmarks full of history or the idea of freedom to roam. An incredibly important book. I also loved learning about the concept of sarha – meaning to go where the spirit takes you.
Where the Wild Winds Are by Nick Hunt
The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd
Atoms of Delight: Ten Pilgrimages in Nature by Kenneth Steven
The Lost Paths by Jack Cornish
Other recommendations:
A Flat Place by Noreen Masud – A really brilliant book about pilgrimage of a kind, trauma and landscape.
Wayfarer: Love, Loss and Life on Britain’s Ancient Paths by Phoebe Smith – I had a few problems with the book itself but a great introduction for starting to think about different ways to approach pilgrimage and walking.
An excellent article from the LRB by Kathleen Jamie on Robert McFarlane’s book ‘The Wild Places’ - https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v30/n05/kathleen-jamie/a-lone-enraptured-male
The Slow Ways website: https://beta.slowways.org/
Read this on a particularly windy day in our valley after noticing your linocuts and drawings. Funny to discover Nick Hunt's book mentioned when I was wondering if there was a good book about wind only a hour or so ago.
Lovely post. Restacked.