Spiritual Pilgrimages
The process of learning to embody spiritual teachings, often experienced as a practice of living daily life outside the box of understanding, can be enhanced by the circumstances and opportunities spiritual pilgrimages can provide. Learning how to walk a prayer is a practice. By placing oneself in situations to which the ego is not accustomed, the mind has to adapt—as do one’s belief systems. Then you can begin to walk your prayer.
The practice is to walk your prayer without judgment or assumption. The practice is to develop the “watcher”. The practice is to promote active listening, let go of “the plan”, and flow with the unknowable. Once or twice a year, we offer pilgrimages to places such as Brazil, Costa Rica, India & Europe, facilitated by CSS Spiritual Director, Jyoti (Jeneane Prevatt, Ph.D.
Pilgrimages create opportunities for individuals from different cultures to meet and share their ways of life, heal relations, create collaborative relationships, and combine resources in order to manifest solutions to the challenges that currently threaten the global village.
Here's what a pilgrimage to the Amazon looks like: We travel for 4 days, first by air, followed by a quite adventurous 4-5 hour taxi ride over roads that change with the weather. From there, we take a dugout canoe, and travel into the deep interior of the virgin forest of the Amazon, where we participate in ceremonies and healing practices that are designed to help people “meet” themselves. You should plan for approximately 3 weeks for this journey, including traveling time.
Contact CSS at pilgrimages@sacredstudies.org for more information.
You can also participate in spiritual pilgrimages offered as the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers travels the globe, holding prayers for world peace. For more information, please see the EVENTS section of the Grandmother’s website, www.grandmotherscouncil.com.