It Begins with Intention and Preparation

Photo Credit: Ryan Roth-Klinck

By Andrea Lingle

“Enter the room of self-knowledge first, instead of floating off to the other places. This is the path...Let's make the best possible use of our feet first and learn to know ourselves.”
-St. Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle, p. 46

In 2020 and 2021 we engaged in two “socially distant” pilgrimages. While it is my great joy to be returning to Iona, Scotland, UK, this year with a new group of pilgrims, I am pretty enamored with our Wisdom for the Way pilgrimages. 

During Lent, we spent some time with St. Teresa of Avila, whom I had not formally met yet. I think I fell a little in love. She is quirky and writes enmeshed in her Inquisition-torn time, but her bravery and lightness of spirit in the face of overwhelming illness and cultural evil charmed me. Even though I have turned the last page in the Interior Castle, I just can’t be quite done with her, so I asked her to come along on a Writing Pilgrimage. 

Pilgrimage begins with intention and preparation.

Pilgrimage is a commitment to a temporally bound period of spiritual practice. A pilgrimage begins and ends. It is supposed to. Pilgrimage cannot last forever because pilgrimage is intense and consuming. It requires a bit of planning and trust. It takes more than a little bit of credulity to believe in a process. How can you be sure that the ineffable will be bothered to notice your scribbling pen or persistent footsteps? 

We can’t. But we can hope. We can trust. We can prepare as if…

So, how do you prepare? For this pilgrimage you will have to decide two things: to participate and how. I will be providing the tools for writing as a spiritual practice, but there are a million ways to participate. Reading, walking, yoga, drawing, gazing, gardening, braiding sweetgrass, breath prayers while walking up stairs. These are all practices that will provide the motion of pilgrimage for you. If you would like to participate, this is your week of preparation. There will be no writing practice prompts or expectation to practice. Just gather your materials. A pen and a notebook are all you will need for writing practice. If another practice is beckoning, then figure out what you will need to have to make it easy to engage in a daily practice. Remember, doing something daily is hard, so make it easy to do it. 

Pilgrimage begins with intention and preparation. 

Where does the intention come from? Is it curiosity or longing to discover something true or a desire to be transformed or boredom or desperation or sorrow? Is it the gentle whisper of the Wild or the resonant hum of the crystal soul which thrums at the center of us all? 

It isn’t your business to know. It is your business to walk—or write or sit or hum or garden. Whatever the vehicle for your pilgrimage, make a commitment to it. Prepare to pick up your pen every day (or walk in your garden or back and forth in your bedroom or hum in your shower or trace cracks in the sidewalk). If you can’t commit right now, bookmark this and come back when you can. This is your pilgrimage—your time of meeting the high holy days of Easter with expectation.