I remember being seventeen at Narita Airport in Tokyo waiting for my flight home after three months of working away. I was in a bookshop and drawn to a book on the shelf (you know how books just call out to you?). This book was called The Tibetan Book of Dying. I remember the deep understanding that I had something very special in my hands so I bought it. This was my first dip into spiritual literature and I treasured it. It wasn’t an easy read for me and I had to read a few pages at a time to really digest and understand what the words were saying to me.
As a young traveller I always had a burning desire in whichever place I was in, to visit churches, cathedrals, temples and cemeteries. I find them so incredibly peaceful and powerful. They are places I can lose myself in for hours, getting lost in their smells and imagining their histories. Blowing my mind with their stunning architecture and knowing that the builders knew that at a certain point in a celestial year, light would pour forth onto a statue if they placed it here and built a window ‘just there’. It’s
genius.
I started to pray in high school (after being inspired by the book Are You There God It’s Me Margaret by Judy Blume) but it’s only in the last two years that I have really started speaking to my ‘God’ - the word God is very loaded isn’t it, Divine Beloved, The Big Cheese in the sky – by whatever name he/she/it goes by so you feel comfortable - please use that one.
On my bucket list is to experience a pilgrimage, I’m not sure where but for a couple of decades now I have been drawn to the Camino de Santiago. It’s a month long walk and takes you through Spain and France across the Pyrenees - it was Medieval Europe’s answer to the Appalachian Trail. The thing is now there are about 350,000 pilgrims each year and I’m not sure how these crowds would affect my experience of it.
I would LOVE to hear any stories of spiritual adventure you may have had….this is how we inspire each other xxx
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