Awakening to Awakening: An Intimate Exploration of Pilgrimage

Awakening to Awakening:

An Intimate Exploration of Pilgrimage

by

Angela R. Mullins



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Abstract


Awakening to Awakening: An Intimate Exploration of Pilgrimage is more than just a history of pilgrimage. It is more than a psychological study. It is more than a memoir, filled with stories of adventure. This thesis is a multifaceted exploration of travel as a form of sacred practice, and transcends the boundaries of any religion, culture, or era. Essentially, pilgrimage is an expression of the human spirit, of the longing to feel connected to something transcendent. It is an act of faith, and it is a creative process of personal renewal that leaves no pilgrim unchanged. It is moving meditation and inspires people to look beyond their ordinary lives into the great mysteries of the universe, of Spirit, of God.
The first part of this work is a process paper, Pilgrimage Is... Within this study, two distinct sections emerge. First, Pilgrimage Then and Now. This is essentially a historical study of pilgrimage, and examines religious and cultural pilgrimages as they have appeared throughout history. This section also investigates pilgrimages made by individuals, religious and nonreligious, and essentially explores the definitions of pilgrimage and pilgrim in an expansive way, in hope of acknowledging the common desire to journey in search of the sacred that has been shared by countless people for thousands of years. The second section, A Closer Look: The Inner Labyrinth of Pilgrimage, investigates a variety of individual accounts of pilgrimage, as well as perspectives from psychology, religious studies, spirituality, and anthropology, and assembles these perspectives in order to create a general framework of the inner experiences and process of transformation that often occurs during the pilgrimage journey.
The second part of this work is a memoir of my own experiences of pilgrimage, based in four journeys that I made between 2004 and 2006. Awakening to Awakening: Journeys Along the Pilgrimage Road is a collection of journal entries, narrative sketches, reflections, and photographs that shares the story of my own process of transformation that was the inspiration for this thesis. Unlike so many accounts of pilgrimage written with the reserve of the devoutly religious, I have included the intimate details of my experiences, from my best moments to my worst, moments of tears and moments of elation, and contemplations ranging from the mundane to the sublime. At heart, this memoir shares the truth that I have learned through pilgrimage, one step at a time: the Divine is everywhere, but only appears in quiet, still moments when I remember to notice.

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This work is dedicated to

My Camino Family

and

The Community of Pisco, Peru


Ultreya

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Gratitude

to

My Oella Community:
Lynn, Ros, James, Ali, Peyton, and Leslie

My Dear Friends:
Michael, Lysiane, Ingrid, Star, Charles, Stephanie, Gina,
Cathy, Sue, and Laura

The Main Street Community
Ellicott City, Maryland

Mariella and Fernando
La Paz, Bolivia

Ariel and Vincent
Paris, France

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I am a pilgrim. I am a seeker of understanding. I thrive on deep questions. I have been looking within myself for as long as I can remember, attempting to shine light into my darkest places. I am not a monk. I am not an ascetic. I am not even religious. I am merely an idealistic, spiritual woman of the twenty-first century who has found herself on a path of wandering in search of wisdom and understanding.
Imagine for a moment that we are gathered around the fireplace. I have just returned from some faraway land, with photographs, objects that I’ve purchased or received as gifts, and stories of people, places, and experiences. As we settle by the fire, I begin to share my story. But this story is much bigger than I am. I am not alone, for there are many others who have come before me. We are searching for answers to an array of questions, questions that are rarely easy to articulate, but all-consuming in their presence as they are born in our hearts and minds. This is a story of the alchemy of places, people, cultures, and the moment-to-moment result of that exchange. It is a story of life intensified along the pilgrimage road.



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Pilgrimage Is...

A Process Paper


Introduction

Pilgrimage is much more than travel infused with prescribed activities and rituals. It is more than cultural tradition and religious belief. Pilgrimage is an intentional journey in which the pilgrim communes with the divine, contemplates his/her life path, and renews his/her connection to the sacred. The pilgrim leaves home to more fully understand home, and journeys to faraway lands in order to journey deeper within him/herself. While many pilgrims continue to follow cultural and religious traditions that have been established for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, a number of spiritual seekers today approach their journeys outside of cultural and religious traditions. It seems that in spite of these apparent differences, many of the personal experiences of revelation and transformation are much the same for both religious pilgrims journeying within their own cultures and traditions and individual pilgrims forging their own paths of discovery.
This work does not intend to be a treatise on historical and traditional pilgrimages, though in the process of expanding traditional ideas about pilgrimage it is necessary to explore some of the more significant pilgrimage traditions that have evolved over the centuries. In Part I, I will explore many facets of what Pilgrimage Is, beginning with the image of the medieval pilgrim, and I will continue to explore the extremes of this image, from hero to impostor, and then delve into a variety of ideas that will help to cultivate expansive definitions of pilgrim and pilgrimage. Following that, I will explore the varieties of Institutional pilgrimage that have formed the basis of accepted knowledge regarding pilgrimage, as well as Individualized pilgrimage, through which I will explore a variety of manifestations of the more expansive definitions from Part I. I will continue by investigating some of the ways that pilgrimage has developed in America, and will conclude with a deeper look into contemporary pilgrimage, which will shed some light into the ways that pilgrimage has changed in the post-industrial world. I will approach this from four angles: first, a look into the issues many people are experiencing in the world today; second, the changes that are taking place within society and cultures; third, the ways that modernization has affected pilgrimage itself; and finally, the recent resurgence of pilgrimage as people yearn to recover their spirituality.
Victor Turner, whose ideas appear throughout this work, is one of few anthropologists to venture into the realm of pilgrimage as a serious field of study. In the introduction to his book Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture, he acknowledges that his work is the beginning of an essentially new field of study. “The deeper anthropology of this kind of quest has not yet been done, and I am greatly looking forward to the attempt” (Turner & Turner xxi). His study involves “Institutional questions” which include “the structure of the values, norms, symbols, customs, roles, relationships” (Turner & Turner xxiv-xxv). “We chose to follow this procedure ... and institutional questions elicit the objective coordinates of cultural fields better than individual ones” (Turner & Turner xxiv-xxv). This has been the perspective taken by the vast majority of those who have previously chosen to approach pilgrimage as a field of study. Turner feels that investigating

Individual questions ... would have become heavily involved with medical and psychological anthropology, with the structures of guilt, anxiety, and stress which impelled pilgrims to undertake penitential pilgrimages, and with examining the evidence of reputedly miraculous cures at major pilgrim centers. Or we might have tried to isolate social psychological factors to account for changes in the popularity of a given pilgrimage under varying historical circumstances. (Turner & Turner xxiv-xxv)

It is not my intention to delve into medical and psychological anthropology, and my own level of expertise is rather limited in approaching such matters. I am not a psychologist or an anthropologist, but nonetheless, I have been strongly led to explore individual experiences of pilgrimage, having been powerfully transformed by my own series of pilgrimages, all of which took place outside of religious and cultural tradition. In the literature of pilgrimage, a tremendous amount of historical and anthropological information exists within various pilgrimage traditions. Indeed, the vast majority of research toward pilgrimage has neglected the rich experiences of individuals in favor of amassing broad institutional knowledge. This has been vital, indeed, in creating a greater understanding of the culture of pilgrimage. It is my opinion, though, that much is lost in this process. Observations of the culture of pilgrimage, no matter how extensive, don’t even begin to capture the powerful experiences of transformation that millions of pilgrims have felt, myself included. I have not found any sources that approach pilgrimage in a way that integrates research into a variety of religious and cultural traditions combined with any depth of exploration into the powerful inner experiences that often accompany the journey. Fortunately, as people are drawn to make sacred journeys and experience dramatic transformation in their lives as a result, they often feel compelled to share their experiences with others, beautifully capturing the depths of their personal experiences in autobiographical memoirs. This literature has been most helpful in approaching Part II.
Part II, A Closer Look: The Inner Labyrinth of Pilgrimage, approaches these individual experiences, beginning with a series of ideas about the spiritual search itself, of which pilgrimage is an enactment for many people. Following this, I will look at the structure of the journey itself, from both external and internal perspectives. These two perspectives are inextricably intertwined, and the structure of the rest of Part II follows the structure of the journey in a series of stages and inner phases. I begin the investigation in the formative pre-pilgrimage stages of the journey: The spark and undeniable knowing. Then the pilgrimage begins with the stage leaving home behind. Four inner phases accompany the stages of the journey as it unfolds, beginning with the awakening of the mind in Phase One. The journey continues into the next stage, on the road, and Phase One gradually transitions into Phase Two as inner exploration accompanies the exploration of the path itself. In the next stage of the journey the experience intensifies, leading to Phase Three, as the pilgrim reaches the point of no return, a stage often, but not always, synonymous with the actual arrival at the sacred destination. Finally, the pilgrim must return home, which is aligned with Phase Four, going on with life and integrating the experiences from the pilgrimage.
Throughout Part II, I will explore the ideas and thoughts of an array of pilgrims, noted spiritual teachers, psychology experts, as well as anthropologists and experts in the field of religion. I must emphasize that Part II is by no means comprehensive, and tends to be an extension of individualized pilgrimage from Part I. I would also like to acknowledge that this kind of exploration could continue indefinitely, and that no final conclusions may ever be reached. In addition, to those individuals whose perspectives are deeply rooted in particular religious traditions, approaching pilgrimage with such a degree of expansiveness might seem inappropriate. In Part II, my primary purpose is to begin what will hopefully grow into a much larger conversation about not only the changing traditions of pilgrimage in the post-industrial, secularized western world, but also the process of deeply meaningful transformation that many people are choosing to enact in their lives by engaging in sacred journeys.

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This work is intrinsically limited. Travel is a luxury not available to everyone on earth, and the opportunity to approach travel with a pilgrim's heart is largely bound up in that luxury. Simply put, pilgrimage takes time and money as well as the desire to experience the divine. I am fortunate to have been born into the relatively wealthy west to have the opportunity to undertake these journeys.
People are fortunate in the postmodern west, since they are no longer bound by cultural and religious constraints in defining their sacred paths. People are searching for truth more than ever before as a result of that. In addition, all over the world, religious traditions are colliding with each other, fighting over whose path is the “right” one, and whose God is the “right” one, and misunderstanding and intolerance have resulted in great violence. I believe that it is far more important that all of humanity expand its personal understanding, knowledge, and acceptance of what is sacred in order for there to be any sincere hope to achieve peaceful coexistence.
While in this work I intend to offer perspectives from a variety of cultures and historic periods, pilgrimage is highly personal, and the circumstances surrounding each pilgrim’s journey are infinitely varied. My own experience of pilgrimage is that of a woman alive in the postmodern west, and my personal biases undoubtedly color this work. I speak as a young woman raised in the Bible Belt who cast off her cultural-Christian upbringing as a teenager and has been exploring alternative routes to the sacred ever since. I am an uprooted seeker of truth. My experience is that of a woman whose culture has no clear tradition of pilgrimage, and who has found no religion in which she feels at home. My journey has been, in many ways, an attempt to create my own pathway to the sacred. While I openly acknowledge the fact that many traditions of pilgrimage around the world are deeply rooted in cultural and religious practices, my own experience of pilgrimage has been that of an outsider in other religions, other traditions, other cultures. It is certain that if I were a religious pilgrim following an ancient tradition, my experiences would have been different. While I could easily get caught up in the process of arguing ideas about this fundamental difference of perspective, or defining pilgrimage according to various sets of concrete ideas, I have chosen not to argue the validity of any particular religious, spiritual, or secular pilgrimage. My desire is, fundamentally, to expand ideas about sacred experience. As I see it, pilgrimage is far too subjective and personal for any argument of that nature to be necessary or valid.

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My investigation into the history and culture of pilgrimage, the structures of pilgrimage journeys in a variety of cultures and traditions, and the psychology and inner experience of pilgrimage have been rooted in a variety of written and media sources, as well as in my own intensely personal, experiential fieldwork.
My sources include the written and documented accounts of traditional and non-traditional religious pilgrims (past and present), anthropologists, historians, adventurers, travellers, travel writers, and everyday people, as well as studies conducted by anthropologists and historians who are not personally involved in those pilgrimages. I have also consulted the work of experts in the fields of psychology, philosophy, and consciousness, as well as spiritual teachers involved in leading others to greater understanding and awareness. An interesting observation: quite a few of the personal accounts of pilgrimage that I have used as sources in my work have been written by people who are both pilgrims themselves, as well as highly educated experts in a variety of fields of study that are both directly and indirectly related to pilgrimage. My sources have spanned studies of mind, body, and spirit, the relationships between inner and outer experiences, and includes perspectives from experts in a variety of disciplines as well as ordinary laypersons, and even spiritual masters and teachers.
My research has assembled ideas that attempt to define pilgrimage; this information comes from other pilgrims (both those journeying within their own cultures and religions, as well as fellow outsiders like myself, and pilgrims who are deeply religious, spiritual, skeptical, and secular), the history of a variety of pilgrimages and the various rituals, beliefs, and traditions surrounding them, as well as a variety of perspectives from the fields of psychology and philosophy. The research that I gathered from these sources became the essence of Part I: Pilgrimage Is...
There was an abundance of information available in researching pilgrimage as it has manifested in the world. What has been more difficult to research is the less apparent interior experience of pilgrimage. When considering individual pilgrims’ journeys, most of the studies that are available primarily discuss pilgrimage either from a highly biased insider’s religious point of view or an anthropologist’s highly analytical point of view. I have found virtually nothing that addresses the inner experience of pilgrimage in a theoretical way. In fact, few of the sources that are intensely personal in nature even venture into this difficult-to-articulate exploration. Within the scope of my investigation, I have yet to find anything that exists in pilgrimage literature that significantly explores the psychological aspects of pilgrimage. For Part II of this study, I have drawn from theories of psychology, philosophy, and writings on religious, spiritual, ecstatic, and transcendent experience in order to thoroughly inform my ideas based in my own experiences.
My desire is to draw from all of these sources in order to find the commonalities of experience, and to demonstrate in a much broader way that while cultural and religious traditions are certainly important to many people’s ways of life, pilgrimage is not reliant upon those traditions, that there is a thread of inner experience that flows through them all.
My methodology also includes extensive personal fieldwork. In addition to a critical and theoretical process paper, the creative component of my thesis work will be a collection of personal narratives, journal excerpts, reflective pieces, and photography that offer the story of my own pilgrimages. My personal experience (fieldwork) includes four pilgrimages:

1) El Camino de Santiago de Compostela, Spain
2) The coastal desert and Andes mountains of Peru and Bolivia,
from Lima to LaPaz
3) A circumambulation of China, including Tibet
4) Two weeks in Paris

It is my desire that this work could be of interest to a variety of people including travellers and people interested in history, religion, or world cultures. It could also be of interest to fellow spiritual seekers, those interested in spiritual memoir, and even to armchair travellers who have never left their native countries. Essentially, it is my hope that this work could be of value to anyone who is interested in becoming more fully a citizen of the entire world, and more fully rooted in oneself.

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