Pilgrimage
My friend is going on a pilgrimage this weekend. Like me, his marriage is in tatters. Ok, ok, OVER.
And, to mark the end of that part of his life, and the beginning, albeit tentative, of the next, he felt a strong desire to visit Uluru. It’s strange, I also feel the attraction of the place, the power, and I feel it to be the bindu, centre of Australia.
Uluru, Australia by henriette_von_ratzeberg
I haven’t been yet, but it’s on my List for next year. I am somewhat enamoured of the idea of pilgrimage. My trips to India have felt like trips of devotion, but I have never walked the road to Santiago, or gone to Mecca, or Jerusalem, Mount Kailash, or, for that matter, Uluru.
Have you ever made a deliberate pilgrimage? Did it change your life?
Did you do it at a time when you were in transformation? I suspect that pilgrimages always bring about great change, even if your life appeared stable before you went.
My friend is spending the week prior to his trip in purification: no alcohol, no meat, yoga practice. It’s beautiful and inspiring. He’s also re-arranged his house, although I suspect that has more to do with personality than cleansing.
Tell me your stories of devotional trips! Trips you have made, or ones you are planning, I am so curious to know!
yes, I was thinking that the Kumbh Mela next year will be my pilgrimage.
I can not explain it, but for the past two years it has been a calling to me, a feeling that “I HAVE TO BE THERE BY WHATEVER MEANS NECESSARY.” Call it a deep knowing. So when my friend (who has been to India 8X already; her first trip was living in the ashram where Eat Pray Love was staged) offered to go with me — I had planned to go by myself — I said, yeah, let’s go.
Two spiritual adepts and my astrologer have told me that my life up to this point has all been leading up to the Mela at this particular time. Years ago a vedic astrologer told me that at some point during the years 2008-2010 I will experience “divine grace” (I took that with a huge grain of salt.) I’ve been told that a holy man (who will turn out not to be my guru) will say something to me that will change my life. I’ve been told that I will “die” in India and be reborn in Africa.
who knows? I neither automatically believe nor disavow anything.
About four years ago, before the Mela was even a thought in my mind, an akashic record reader told me that one of my trips to India will be so potent and profound (she said like a kundalini experience) that she “saw” that I will have to go to “someplace green, with palm trees” in order to recoup.
Zanzibar is green, with palm trees, and I am spending 5 days there after the Mela.
All things happen for a reason.
That’s a pretty dang impressive pilgrimage, I would say!