Introduction to pilgrimage and transformation

This introduction gives you some pointers and thoughts on pilgrimage and transformation.
Do people change while walking a camino?
Yes, people always change while performing.
OK, but tell me more...
Just read on and pick what you like...

Spirituality

First on spirituality, giving a clue where a transformation could occur. Not trying to define the concept ;-)

Recently I read an article from Fisher on four domains of spiritual wellbeing, a nice overview:

"spiritual health is a dynamic state of being, shown by the extent to which people live in harmony within relationships in the following domains of spiritual wellbeing:

1. Personal domain (wherein one intra-relates with oneself with regards to meaning, purpose and values in life. The human spirit creates selfawareness, relating to self-esteem and identity).
2. Communal domain (as expressed in the quality and depth of interpersonal relationships, between self and others, relating to morality and culture. This includes love, justice, hope, and faith in humanity).
3. Environmental domain (past care and nurture for the physical and biological, to a sense of awe and wonder; for some, the notion of unity or connectedness with the environment).
4. Transcendental domain (Relationship of self with some-thing or some-One beyond the human level, a Transcendent Other (i.e., ultimate concern, cosmic force, transcendent reality, or God). This involves faith toward, adoration and worship of, the source of Mystery of the universe."

(Assessing Spiritual Health via Four Domains of Spiritual Wellbeing: The SH4DI

John W. Fisher, Leslie J. Francis, Peter Johnson

Pastoral Psychology, Vol. 49, No. 2, 2000)

Caminoist on spirituality

A nice overview article on pilgrimage, the camino and spirituality provides Sandy Brown in this Caminoist blog article.

Seven secular pilgrimages (and one added;-)

CNN just published an update on seven secular pilgrimages that could change your life.

Perhaps you can guess the three on the picture?

The others are: Kumano Kodo (Japan), Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, Mount Kailash Pilgrimage (Tibet), Pilgrims' Way to Canterbury (England) and Char Dham (India).

I think CNN left out a rising star: Olavs route in Norway!
So look here for this one (Olavs Route).

And perhaps walking to Canterbury gives you appetite to follow on the Via Francigena through France, Switzerland and Italy to Rome.

Have a look here for the CNN article on the seven pilgrimages.

Sacred Travel: The Pilgrimage Experience

What can the ritual of Pilgrimage tell us about deepening the sacred dimension of life?

What spiritual state or benefit are pilgrims ultimately looking for?

How do they know and express it, if and when they find it?

See introduction and other parts of discussion with Phil Cousineau, Pico Iyer and Zoila Mendoza below.

Global Spirit: Sacred Travel The Pilgrimage Experience - Introduction

(3:11)

Further parts and discussion are available by following this link.

See also the conversation guide on the website of Global Spirit.

Conversation guide booklet in pdf format here.


The Power of St. James' Way

My fellow weblog The Pilgrim's Gaze just published a spot for a documentary The Power of St James' Way.

"The Power of Saint James’ Way is a documentary that contains true stories of pilgrims whose pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela radically changed their lives. Amazing witnesses that testify this phenomenon plus explanations from experts in different disciplines that try to identify why these changes may occur." See it here.

And finally some articles and books, a few among the many.

• Transformative Pilgrimage, William S. Schmidt, Journal of Spirituality in Mental Health, 2009 (article)
• We Make the Way by Walking: Spiritual Pilgrimage and Transformative Learning While Walking the Camino De Santiago,  Elizabeth J. Tisdell (article)
• Spiritual Tourism, Travel and Religious practice in Western Society, Alex Norman (book)
• Pilgrimage and Healing, Jill Dubisch and Michael Winkelman (book)
• Transformational tourism, tourist perspectives, Yvette Reisinger (ed) (book)

The Way II

Filmposter The Way, 2010

Just a short message.

These days (October 15-18, 2015) la Cidade da Cultura (City of Culture) holds Fairway, a forum on the camino and pilgrimage. A forum with many exhibitors, speakers and touroperators.
What already was a rumour, gets more substantial.

One of the speakers on the conference is Carmen Estevez, writer, sister of Martin Sheen and aunt of Emilio Estevez.

She announced The Way II !

Not very much more at the moment...

See ful article in La Voz de Galicia, oct 16.

Promoting sister blog

On september 16 2015

the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela

holds a special pilgrim's mass, in honor of Denise Thiem.

A pilgrim who's life was taken walking the Camino de Santiago.

The Pilgrim´s Gaze published a photomovie that perhaps helps to have your own thoughts.

All photo's are made on the Camino Frances, all before Astorga.

Photography & Presentation: me

Music: Mattia Cupelli

Click here to follow this link

http://pilgrimsgaze.blogspot.nl/2015/09/just-me-honoring-denise-camino-frances.html

Inspiration on Pilgrimage and Place

Today the blog is an inspiring one. Thinking of place and pilgrimage...

I like you to meet four pieces:

Rufin, O Donohue, Milosz

and a little movie by me.

F i r s t

"Immortelle randonnée : Compostelle malgré moi"

A text from the book Immortelle randonnée by Jean-Christophe Rufin on a new walking species.

The text on the picture is Rufin's (in Dutch), the picture is mine. Taken on the route Rufin took: The Camino Primitivo.

But here's the text in English:

Silently the awareness grew that inside of me a very pleasant companion was hiding: the emptyness. My mind didn't produce images or thoughts and certainly no intentions. Everything I ever knew faded away and I felt no urge whatsoever to dig it up. 

Discovering a landscape, I didn't compare it to Corsica or whatever place I once visited.

I saw it all with a refreshing new look and received the complexity of the world in a brain that again was as simple as a reptile or a sparrow. I was a new human, liberated from it's memory, desires and ambitions. A special kind of homo erectus: the walking species.

(As the book isn't translated in English yet the translation is mine)

S e c o n d

"For a New Beginning"

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

John O’Donohue

T h i r d

"On Pilgrimage"

May the smell of thyme and lavender accompany us on our journey

To a province that does not know how lucky it is

For it was, among all the hidden corners of the earth,

The only one chosen and visited.

We tended toward the Place but no signs led there.

Till it revealed itself in a pastoral valley

Between mountains that look older than memory,

By a narrow river humming at the grotto.

May the taste of wine and roast meat stay with us

As it did when we used to feast in the clearings,

Searching, not finding, gathering rumors,

Always comforted by the brightness of the day.

May the gentle mountains and the bells of the flocks

Remind us of everything we have lost,

For we have seen on our way and fallen in love

With the world that will pass in a twinkling.

Czeslaw Milosz

F o u r t h

Impressions from a camino

Impression by Paul Kouwenberg

(1:55)

Just a bench, worth a pilgrimage

Let's talk about a bench, 

a famous bench,

a bench worth a pilgrimage for many young adults,

a bench from a movie,

so a film induced pilgrimage.

The Fault in our Stars

The 2014 movie is based on a book by John Green and directed by Josh Boone.

Reviewers indicate it's very sad but very beautiful. Part of the movie was filmed in Amsterdam. And a special scene, where main actors kiss, involves a bench they're on.

Young adults choose this scene and this spot as their pilgrim destination, rivalling the House of Anne Frank. The book and film induce the young 'to walk in the footsteps of their young heroes' as Tagholm says in his article, see below.

The trailer to the movie

(3:00)

Click here for more background information on the movie in IMDB.

The bench in Fault in our Stars

(1:24)

The bench film scene

(3:26)

Map to The Fault of our Stars, with a 75 minutes walk to discover the movies hotspots. (This map and descriptions are in Dutch Language, maps however are universal;-)

The article that started my interest in the first place is here. Very recommended.

It's written by Roger Tagholm and published by Publishers Perspective on July 21, 2015: 

In Amsterdam, A Bench Has Created a YA Pilgrimage

Pilgrimage to the dead and famous

Visited Jim Morrison's grave at Pere Lachaise in Paris, done Elvis Presley?

(Kajinek32 en Baha, Wikimedia commons)

Looking for Jim Morrison's grave at Pere Lachaise:

(MEGAMACE Fitness Productions, 2:13)

How about a pilgrimage to the birthplace of John Wayne. The 'western' actor who died in 1979. 

In april 2015 Winterset Ohio opened the John Wayne birthplace and museum.

Winterset? Yes, also the place from the novel The Bridges of Madison County.

(website museum)

See the website for the museum here.

or read the article ('Make a pilgrimage...') in the Smithsonian by Matt Blitz here.

(UkesterBrown, 1:13)

Reminds me of The World of James Herriot in Thirsk (UK). I visited the James Herriot conference many years ago. A conference about James Wight. You perhaps know this British veterinary surgeon and writer as James Herriot. Author of All creatures great and small (and many others following).

(Kreuzschnabel, Wikimedia commons)

As this blog is about place have a look at the Yorkshire Dales, the countryside of James Herriot.

(Harry Mateman 5:53)

Tried to find the grave of James Wight, but he was cremated and his ashes scattered.

A virtual pilgrimage along 94 graves:

(MsCemeteryChick 9:54)

Continue this exploration on

Dead famous: Celebrity graves that make cemeteries a decent day out

or

a phototour The 10 best ... famous graves

The future item on this blog will be a 'pilgrimage' to a bench along a canal!

An example of film induced pilgrimage.

Northern Spain camino's officially on Unesco Heritage List

Some time ago I posted an item on several northern Spain camino's finding their way to the Unesco World Heritage List.
See item here.

On July 5, 2015 this decision became final.

(Source: LaNuevaEspana.)

The text:
"Routes of Santiago de Compostela: Camino Francés and Routes of Northern Spain [an extension of the “Routes of Santiago de Compostela”]—A network of four Christian pilgrimage routes in northern Spain, the site is an extension of the Route of Santiago de Compostela, a serial site inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1993. The extension represents a network of almost 1,500 km: coastal, interior of the Basque Country–La Rioja, Liébana and primitive routes. It includes a built heritage of historical importance created to meet the needs of pilgrims, including cathedrals, churches, hospitals, hostels and even bridges. The extension encompasses some of the earliest pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela, following the discovery in the 9th century of a tomb believed to be that of St. James the Greater."
Source: Unesco (http://whc.unesco.org/en/news/1317/)

Spain is happy.

La Nueva Espana (click to go there)