“The call of the sacred journey your heart longs for won’t come by expectation and will not arrive in a logical way.” – Phil Cousineau, The Art of Pilgrimage, page 39
For me, the call of this pilgrimage is To Walk.
My call surprised me, and, as Phil Cousineau said, it didn’t arrive in a logical way. I didn’t think it. It thought me.
My logical mind thought that this pilgrimage would be for me to “figure out” what the next phase of my life and work would look like.
Instead, it is To Walk.
To me, “To Walk” means to live in the present moment and to take each step consciously and deliberately.
To be aware.
To be mindful and attentive.
To be Here Now, fully, mind, body, spirit, emotions.
A pilgrimage demands this conscious attention of us. Without it, I may fall down or get lost. But even more important, to me, a pilgrimage is an intentional journey with purpose.
I have spent so many of my present moments in motion to the next thing, with my mind thinking about the next thing I have to do.
Often, when I am walking my dogs in the morning, my body is there, going through the motions, but my mind is busy organizing the rest of my day.
When I think about being on a pilgrimage, the whole point is to walk: to get up and walk, every day, day after day. It seems to me to be the perfect training for bringing my full attention into the present moment.
I wonder what my life will be when I come to it, fully awake and fully present.
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