What is life really about?

I used to go on journeys to find out

Pilgrimages to places free from artificial constraints

Free from self-imposed limitations.

We go on pilgrimages to the edges of our lives

to see what life is like on the other side.

I use to go on pilgrimages to live with Indians in the bush

They accepted me, but reluctantly

I was not of their world.

The circles of my journeys are smaller now

I paddle the sacred river

To submerge myself in that watery world

To make it more real in my life

To touch what is sacred inside

And then return transformed,

With birdsong in my heart.

~Rod MacIver

when did you become your own hero? when did you learn to ease up on the world? when did you finally decide that life was not always hard?

inquiry for today~  any tough assumptions that can be dropped away this fine May day?

where have you been?

The key to pilgrimage is to embark on the trip with a heightened intention. We are not just tourists. We’re going to honor someone or something. By honoring what is sacred to us, we make it more real in our lives. Inevitably, we return from pilgrimage, and this is an essential part of the meaning as well. We’re supposed t return to our normal lives, except that we return transformed, carrying the experience with us forever, having touched the reality of what we love.

~Deng Ming-Dao