Lost and Found: The Healing Practice of Taking a Pilgrimage
Get on your hiking boots and join the one hundred million people each year who take a pilgrimage to find spiritual answers — or themselves.
By the time she was twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed had lost everything. Her mother had recently died of cancer, and her marriage had ended in divorce. A few years later, with nothing to lose, she made a crazy decision. She would hike over a thousand miles from the Mojave Desert to Washington State along the Pacific Crest Trail.
She had no experience hiking, and she was afraid. But she overcame her fear and inexperience, and over three months hiking alone, she finally made it to the end of the trail. Along the way, she also found healing from her losses. “Perhaps being amidst the undesecrated beauty of the wilderness meant I too could be undesecrated, regardless of what I’d lost, of what had been taken from me,” she writes in her book Wild, which became a bestseller and was made into a movie starring Reese Witherspoon.
Says Strayed, “It had nothing to do with gear or footwear or the backpacking fads or philosophies of any particular era or even with getting from point A to point B. It had to do with how it felt to be in the wild. With what it was like to walk for miles with no reason other than to witness the accumulation of trees and meadows, mountains and deserts, streams and rocks, rivers and grasses, sunrises and sunsets. The experience was powerful and fundamental.”
Strayed is not the first person to take off walking in order to find healing, insight, or spiritual growth. People have been going on pilgrimages for centuries, and these days it’s estimated that one hundred million people all over the world will take a pilgrimage each year, according to the Alliance of Religion and Conservation.
Most pilgrims are searching for moral or spiritual growth or insight, and so they travel to destinations that have spiritual significance: a shrine, church, or a place where a saint was born or died. Buddhists go to Lumbini (Buddha’s birthplace), Muslims travel to Mecca (Muhammad’s birthplace), Jews journey to the Wailing Wall, and Christians walk the Camino de Santiago trail or travel to the Holy Land. But really any journey, when the traveler has a purpose and is seeking deeper spiritual or emotional meaning, can be a life-changing experience.
An Ancient Practice
The practice of taking a pilgrimage dates way back to the fourth century, when church fathers encouraged Christians to physically travel toward a spiritual goal. Theologians Wallace Clift and his wife, Jean Dalby Clift, experts in Jungian psychology, suggest pilgrimage is an elemental, common part of the human experience. One of Jung’s twelve archetypes of the human psyche is “the explorer” which is also known as “the pilgrim.” This archetype’s core desire is to “have the freedom to find out who you are through exploring the world.”
While the idea of a pilgrimage can be found in many religions, by the fourth century AD, it had become recognized as an expression of Christian piety. Lisa Deam, who has a PhD in medieval art from the University of Chicago and is the author of A World Transformed: Exploring the Spirituality of Medieval Maps, says that in the Middle Ages, most people would make a journey to a place like Jerusalem, and in many maps of the time period, Jerusalem is at the center.
“They would want to walk there so they could follow in the footsteps of Jesus, like Christians want to do today,” says Deam. “Or they may want to journey to a church that has the relics of a particular saint that was important to them. The Cathedral of St. James in Santiago de Compostela (the culmination of the Camino de Santiago, the popular pilgrimage route), is the alleged burial site of the Apostle James.”
Pilgrims took these journeys for different reasons. They might have traveled to a church to pray, to renew their faith, or to seek healing from an illness or a disease. Pilgrims in the Middle Ages would also often take months or years to reach their destination. “Pilgrimages today are nothing like a pilgrimage in the Middle Ages,” says Deam. “There were no safety nets, no cell phones, no way to duck out into a hotel or anything like that.”
A pilgrimage would often take so long, with the outcome so uncertain, that before setting off, a pilgrim would write a will with a stipulation for their spouse to please wait five or seven years before remarrying.
To travel to Jerusalem, someone from Northern Europe would have to travel through Europe, cross the Alps on foot (timing it right so they didn’t have to cross in the winter), then sail from Venice (where they might have to wait for months for a ship). Then they would sail across the Mediterranean Sea in a pilgrim’s galley to the port of Jaffa in the Holy Land, and then undertake another journey by foot or donkey to Jerusalem.
As Deam says, the journey itself was difficult, especially by foot, and was a practice in and of itself — a form of penance. “When you think about Lent, it’s a bit like that . . . taking the difficult road so you can discover truths about your greater spiritual journey, so you that you can imitate, a little bit, the sufferings of Christ.”
Pilgrimages were so popular in the Middle Ages that the practice even influenced the art and architecture of the time period. The pilgrim’s journey was at the heart of major works of literature, such as Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, which features a diverse band of pilgrims telling lively popular stories, and Dante’s Divine Comedy, which retells the author’s journey through hell, purgatory, and heaven.
A Spiritual Scavenger Hunt
But these days, not all pilgrimages are to holy sites, or taken by foot. Writer Catherine Carlson McNiel traveled from her home in the suburbs of Chicago to Berkeley, California, to talk with Huston Smith, who was a religious studies professor and author of the book The World’s Religions, which has sold over three million copies.
“I was in a soul-seeking place at the time,” says McNiel. “In one of his books, [Smith] described how as a young person, he would reach out to all kinds of famous people in a spiritual/religious/mystical realm, and take them to dinner. And how much of an impact those meetings had on him. I thought, ‘I have to do this. I have to contact him.’”
At the time, Smith was ninety-one years old, and lived in Berkeley. McNiel found his street address, and sent him a letter, asking if she could meet him. She was surprised when he called her back and said he would be willing to meet with her. So McNiel bought a plane ticket, arranged for someone to watch her kids, and flew to California.
“I walked up to his house and rang the doorbell. I didn’t even have any certainty that he would even be there, that it would work out. But he was there, and I met with him for an hour or two in his living room. And I had very specific questions that I wanted to ask him.”
McNiel says most people couldn’t understand why she was doing it, or why she would take the time and money to fly to California to spend an hour with a ninety-one-year-old theologian and author. “There were just a few specific questions related to my spirit that he uniquely could answer, and he was on the planet currently and probably wouldn’t be for long. Out of respect for him, I didn’t take a lot of notes. But when I left, I literally sat down on the curb and wrote down everything I could remember from our conversation. And I do feel like it was a miraculous intervention in my spiritual life, and my trajectory at the time.”
Before she left Smith’s house, he told her to keep contacting other people to talk to, and he recommended another person for her to seek out. “It was like a spiritual scavenger hunt,” she says. She eventually did meet with this other person. “The things that we talked about in that hour were exactly and precisely the things that God wanted to get through to me in that season. I realize it’s a bizarre story . . . But I feel like God met me in a really profound way in both of those meetings.”
Coming Face-to-Face with Ourselves
Like Strayed’s journey along the Pacific Crest Trail, sometimes taking a pilgrimage means not just seeking spiritual answers, but finding ourselves. There’s something about going on a journey focused on a destination, putting one foot in front of the other, enduring harsh conditions or challenging terrain, pushing yourself physically and emotionally, and experiencing new landscapes and cultures, that forces us to contemplate our lives, experience the beauty of nature, and come face to face with our own limitations and strengths.
Strayed writes, “Uncertain as I was as I pushed forward, I felt right in my pushing, as if the effort itself meant something. That perhaps being amidst the undesecrated beauty of the wilderness meant I too could be undesecrated, regardless of the regrettable things I’d done to others or myself or the regrettable things that had been done to me. Of all the things I’d been skeptical about, I didn’t feel skeptical about this: the wilderness had a clarity that included me.”
Vinita Hampton Wright, a writer and book editor, experienced this first hand when she embarked on a walking tour by herself in the Cotswolds in England. Wright’s journey wasn’t nearly as long as Strayed’s. She spent six days walking seven to ten miles a day, and didn’t push herself when she got too tired to walk.
But nevertheless, the experience taught her about herself. “I think one of the advantages to that pilgrimage was the time with myself. It forces you to see your limits a little faster, when you don’t have other people to depend on. You also see your abilities a little better. And you have to get along with yourself, because that’s all you’ve got.”
Wright says another reason she wanted to walk in the Cotswolds was to spend time alone, and get away from the noise of living in the city. “I love living in Chicago . . . but I craved time to absorb beauty. I tell other writers all the time, ‘You have to keep filling up your well so you have stuff to draw from . . . do something that fills you with wonder.’ And I wanted to be filled with wonder.”
Wright says she learned that craving alone time doesn’t mean you won’t get lonely. “There’s always an edge of loneliness when you’re alone,” she says. “There were a couple of days I had to deal with that. I thought, ‘It’s stupid for me to feel lonely . . . this is why I’m here! But there’s a double edge to solitude. I was a little surprised that I had to deal with a little sadness.”
And even though it rained part of the time, she learned to embrace the weather. She would find shelter from the rain in little churches, or just put on her rain poncho and keep walking. “I realized I didn’t need to escape anything. I think that walking trips help you realize how often you’re trying to escape something as simple as the weather. When really we’re just meant to ‘be’ in the weather.”
In the end, she did find the beauty and wonder she was craving, and she learned more about herself. She ended up getting lost about once a day, but that taught her to trust herself. “When I got lost, I’d be like, ‘Okay, what do I do now?’ I’d be talking aloud to myself out in the middle of the field So it was a really good experience of being my own company and learning to trust myself better. To not get upset with myself.”
Wright’s trip exceeded her expectations, and the experience of being alone in nature was profound. “The silence of walking by yourself out in the country, enjoying the sounds of animals and birds . . . At one point, when I was lost, I was walking up a hill for the second time, trying to figure out which way I was going to go, and I heard something. A pheasant, which had been startled by my walking, flew up right beside me. Boom! There it was! In that same space of time, I felt like someone was watching me, and I turn around and there was a red fox.”
She also felt more connected to the land — her ancestral home, the place where her great, great grandfather had been born. “When your feet touch the ground someplace, you feel more connected to it,” she says. “Pilgrimage is a physical thing. While you might learn things, add to your understanding of something, there’s really a necessity to connect physically. I was really experiencing with my body a place where many of my ancestors came from.”
Just Do It
McNiel’s husband has a saying: “Faith favors the bold.” She says if someone is thinking of taking a pilgrimage of some sort, they should just do it. “I’m more of a calculating, low-risk person,” says McNiel, “but I do think there’s something to be said for just going for something that you want. Saying, ‘I’m going to go on a hundred-mile walk,’ or ‘I’m going to take a trip to a spiritual site, or a spiritual person, or a conference,’ or whatever that might look like. I think there is something to be said for being on a quest.’”
These days, it’s easy to find a pilgrimage that fits your ability level, your purpose, and your budget (see below for resources). Wright says you need to be honest about what you want, and what you can do. “You don’t want to get into a situation where you’re just trying to survive the trip. I just don’t think that’s a pilgrimage. And don’t be embarrassed to go with a small group . . . Be honest about what you can and can’t do. And decide if there’s a focus that you have about what you want to do.
“Then when you land there and things start happening, just open your hands . . . and pay attention to what you’re drawn to.”
But whether you go on an actual pilgrimage or not, Deam thinks that pilgrimage can also be a state of mind, a way to live your life. Although she hasn’t taken an actual pilgrimage (she has young children), she dreams of hiking the Camino de Santiago, and wants to do it once her children are a bit older. But for now she finds beauty and inspiration in the medieval maps she studies, many of which have Jerusalem at the center.
“The Bible talks about how we’re all on a pilgrimage to a spiritual Jerusalem,” Deam says. “So for me, that’s a beautiful way to think about life. Then every little trip you take, even if you’re just out walking in nature, maybe that kind of imitates the idea that you’re always moving forward — toward a wonderful end.”
Resources
From England to the West Coast of the US to Spain, here are a few places to start for the would-be pilgrim.
Cotswolds (South Central England)
Backroads England Walking and Hiking Tour
Backroads offers a six-day guided tour of Great Britain’s bucolic countryside for small or large groups. The walking tour starts in Stratford-upon-Avon and ends in Bath.
Country Walkers
Country Walkers offers a seven-day, easy-to-moderate (5–6 miles a day) self-guided tour of the Cotswolds. Includes maps, 24/7 support, luggage transfers, and breakfast.
Cotswold Walks
This is a local company that provides guided or self-guided tours and offers luggage service, maps, guides (if desired), and hand-picked accommodations. They will help you find the right walk for your skill level and interests.
Pacific Crest Trail (Western US)
Pacific Crest Trail Association
The Pacific Crest Trail Association doesn’t offer guided tours, but their website offers tips on hiking the trail.
International Alpine Guides
International Alpine Guides offers a guided hike of a 65-mile portion of the Pacific Crest Trail. The hike takes nine days and goes from the Sonora Pass to Tuolumne Meadows in the Yosemite High Country.
Camino de Santiago (Spain)
Marly Camino
This company offers guided and self-guided tours along the Camino de Santiago. You can even set up your own custom tour.
Walk the Camino
Walk the Camino also offers several options for hiking the Camino, including the French Way, which is the last 100 kilometers of the path.
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