Pilgrims.........

My pilgrimages are among my most treasured times,  those times and places and synchronicities and numinous "conversations" that have occurred in the liminal time and place of intentional pilgrimage.** Truth be told, we are all Pilgrims.

PILGRIM

I bow to the lark
and its tiny lifted silhouette
fluttering  before infinity.

I promise myself
to the mountain
and to the foundation
from which my future comes.
I make my vow to the stream
flowing beneath,
and to the water falling
toward all thirst, and

I pledge myself
to the sea
to which it goes
and to the mercy
of my disappearance

and though I may be
left alone or abandoned by
the unyielding present

or orphaned in some far
unspoken place, I will speak
with a voice of loyalty

and faith
to the far shore
where everything
turns to arrival

- excerpt from "Pilgrim" by David Whyte

 Sometimes a man stands up during supper
and walks outdoors,
and keeps on walking,
because of a church

that stands
somewhere in the East.
And his children say blessings on him
as if he were dead.

And another man,
who remains inside his own house,
stays there, inside the dishes and in the glasses,
so that his children
have to go far out into the world
toward that same church,
which he forgot.

― Rainer Maria Rilke

Shrine at The White Spring, Glastonbury

The Chalice Well, Glastonbury

**In his seventh volume of poetry, David Whyte looks at the great questions of human life through the eyes of the pilgrim: someone passing through relatively quickly, someone dependent on friendship, hospitality and help from friends and strangers alike, someone for whom the nature of the destination changes step by step as it approaches, and someone who is subject to the vagaries of wind and weather along the way.