These pilgrimage stories are tales of journeying to sacred and re-sacralized landscapes close to home and to myth-filled lands of megalithic stone circles, Celtic sites, Christian holy wells, and sanctified ritual landscapes abroad. They are stories about being in relationship to the wildness within us and in communication with the wild of Nature, the wild of Spirit all around us, and the wild of our own Souls. They include such archetypal themes as liminality, synchronicity, transformation, and healing through loving contact with ancestors of place and of blood, the divine feminine, plant-animal allies and our heart-breakingly beautiful natural world. We hope that these pilgrimage stories will invoke a sense of the Oneness of nature, spirit, and us humans. It is our intention to provide inspiration for the passionate efforts that are gathering on all fronts to join together to re-honor and protect the lands and waters of Mother Gaia. Hope is building that we may listen and hear the indigenous ancestors of past and present peoples speak their wisdom to us through their sacred lands, through our sacred Earth.
When my husband and I set out on a pilgrimage, I write my hopes and intentions for the trip, but the actual theme of the pilgrimage often emerges during the journey. My hopes for this second visit [see first visit … Continued
Here are some reflections on our 2017 pilgrimage to Ireland in which we realize that it is the intersection of community, art and landscape that creates such unparalled beauty. Our first morning home from Ireland I awoke with this dream: … Continued
My husband and I have known for some time, ever since we received notice from the BIA and a genealogy chart, that he is descended from Ojibwe people on his father’s side, but we didn’t realize he had any close … Continued
A Dances of Universal Peace dance, the Choctaw and Irish people, a sculptural monument, and a humble ceremony. How do these all come together? Here’s the story: Two of our beloved DUP leaders, Larry Taylor and Lynda Aiman-Smith, created the … Continued
In September 2016, on the last day of our five-week pilgrimage to sacred earth-spirit sites in Ireland, we wanted to make a gratitude ceremony. On a beach that has very colorful stones, near holy Mt. Brandon on the Dingle Peninsula, … Continued
One of the primary intentions of our recent six-week pilgrimage, first to Scotland and then to Ireland, was to visit EarthSpirit sanctuaries in these ensouled landscapes. We hoped to find portals to the Otherworld in order to contact renewing, healing, … Continued
Confession: I’ve never been into New Year’s as a spiritually potent time, not like I’m into the solstices, equinoxes, and cross-quarters, because it always seems like an arbitrary date, unconnected to the power of season. Yet it is a social … Continued
In southwest Ireland there are many beautiful islands in Roaringwater Bay, the homeland of my O’Driscoll ancestors. We took the small red and white ferry to Sherkin Island to make a little pilgrimage to Cow Strand. I had fallen in … Continued