Our Longings as Echoes of Eden
There are some things you know you were born for. When you experience them, you feel sheltered like coming home...
A Listening Pilgrimage
This concept of a Listening Pilgrimage has become one of my core spiritual practices. This poem tries to capture the essence and spirit of the practice. I’m walking, yes, but not thinking about exercise or calories; not listening to a podcast; not praying or talking to anyone, including God. I really mean it when I say, “My feet hear the beat”. I try to walk slow enough that my feet and body get in rhythm with the earth. I try to “shed my script” and let my mind go into objectless awareness. My awareness is really in my feet and their connection with the ground of Love’s Presence available in every step.
My first experience with this spiritual practice was on the Isle of Iona after I finished the pilgrimage with John Philip Newell. I had one whole delicious day to myself and the sun finally shone. I decided to ‘risk’ going out on my own pilgrimage with no agenda and no map. Just a Listening Pilgrimage during which I allowed my feet to speak to my heart and take me where they wanted to go. I ended up at St. Columba’s Bay and walked the labyrinth, not allowing my eyes/mind to jump ahead to the middle; just staying present wherever my feet were and listening for the heartbeat of God echoing in my soul. When I was done walking the labyrinth I saw a clear path leading away along the coast and I aimed in that direction. But my feet felt magnetically drawn to a small hillside away from the water, with no way up or around. My mind tried to talk me out of going in that direction because it looked like a waste of time. But I had determined to be on a Listening Pilgrimage and “to hear is to obey”, so I followed the pull of my feet and my heart. Incredibly, as I approached the hill, a small, hidden pathway revealed itself, inviting me along to a higher road with wonderful views of the ocean. The more I Listened and allowed my feet free reign, the more delights I experienced that day. All kinds of meaningful symbols appeared for me to treasure. Iona is not a big island but going on my own, in a foreign land, without a map added to the adventure and trust involved in a true Listening Pilgrimage.
Now, at home, of course I do know my way around, but I still go out with the sole intention of letting my feet listen for the heartbeat of God reverberating through the earth. I obey my feet. I turn here and there wandering through grasses and shrubs, discovering aloes and flowers and butterflies all with great symbolic meaning for me at the moment. I call it a pilgrimage because during that walk I don’t feel like I’m just ‘talking a walk’. I put myself into the hands of Love’s Presence and ask to be guided to what I need to see, hear, taste or touch. I trust that my feet will hear the beat before I do. As a pilgrim, I have no destination in mind, nothing I’m trying to accomplish. I just want to practice listening to the heartbeat of Love in all things. Sometimes I hold a river stone, or put my bare feet in the current, knowing that I am sharing my own love with God just for the delight of it.
Of course, as in my practice of Centering Prayer, my mind can slip into analytical thinking, but unlike Centering Prayer, the act of putting one foot in front of the other brings me back to Listening instead of thinking. Sometimes I have to stop or slow way down to remember that I’m on a pilgrimage, not a walk.
What I love about this practice is that it involves all my senses, including my vestibular system (where I am in space). The wind in my hair, the sound of birdsong, the infinite colors of green and bright orange of the aloe flower, the taste of dust as the cows walk by, the prick of a thorn piercing my skin….. my body becomes a portal for all the ways God choses to interact with me on any particular day; IF I LISTEN and surrender like a true pilgrim.
Some of my most joyous moments of synchronicity happen on these pilgrimages. Maybe a reading of early morning is accented by a special find while out on my listening pilgrimage. Or a dream is animated by the shapes of clouds or a bird passing by. The key is to “lose my map on purpose” and Listen for the echo of Love that leads me on.
