A pilgrimage Home…

This December, I recently journeyed from my home in Denver to my parents’ home (and still the family “homestead,” so to speak) in Milwaukee. It’s a trip that’s slightly over 1000 miles and I’ll be honest, I pride myself in being able to make this drive in one long (let’s face it, very long) day of driving, by myself (and with Lotus, my pup, as my honorary backseat driver). I’ve made this trip (or one similar to it) over ten times now in my life and for someone who doesn’t consider herself to be Christian but definitely religious, this journey seems to have become an important aspect of my annual year-end spiritual journey. For me, this trip across Colorado and Nebraska and Iowa and northern Illinois and into the motherland of Wisconsin is my pilgrimage…home.

In the Christian liturgical year, there is “ordinary time” and well, times of specific contemplation, such as Advent and Lent. (My gaps in remembering my Catholic catechism might be apparent here.) For me, this journey across the Great Plains helps me end my Ordinary Time and enter into Family Time. If I were to hop on a plane and arrive in Milwaukee after just a few hours, how would I be able to denote the transition and prepare myself for the richness and challenge that come with joining with my siblings and parents again in our family home in Milwaukee?

And so, I take to the road. For me, a spiritual practice has always included silence and solitude, paying attention to the natural landscape, and changing my personal rhythms. A long road trip across the Great Plains does just that. (To be fair, so too do hikes in the Rocky Mountains surrounded by so much of That Which is Greater Than Myself.) Through my windshield, I take in the natural landscape: the crisp blue of the lightly frozen Nebraska lakes, the flocks of geese feeding on the fallow cornfields. I also find myself blessing the other pilgrims in their cars, on their journeys to family and friends and work, as they too, transition through the weather on the interstate.

It’s true that I’ve always wanted to join the masses and walk El Camino, the famed pilgrimage in Spain, to journey from sacred site to sacred site, but in the way of Little Bird*, is not the sacred the mundane, those things that we could see on a daily basis but have not trained our eyes or ways of being to Notice and appreciate? The things that are in our own territory and seeing them anew, by changing our pace and perspective, we transition from living to worshipping, truly acknowledging and honoring that Mystery in which we are a part? This is what the long drive between Denver and Milwaukee has come to mean to me: A time to slow down, to sit and simply absorb the passing of miles.

And yet, like other epic journeys, there’s a real tenacity and tolerance for adversity that comes up on this trip. The sheer amount of sitting involved in driving 1000 miles in one day is ironically what I’d consider a pursuit for the fittest.  I remember summit attempts that I’ve made in various mountain ranges and realize that I have the same uneasiness and excitement in my gut when I drive this route as when I begin climbing up a mountain peak. To those well-seasoned in mountain travel, it’s assumed that one will experience unexpected weather and routes. Things will not turn out as anticipated. For me, this unknown factor can at times keep me off the big peaks, as things are still beautiful and a bit less demanding one smaller peaks as the big ones. But there is something to be said about the spiritual practice of putting oneself out there, in a space where all is not controllable or predictable, where we are humbled. Within the first hour of my drive to Milwaukee this year, I was startled to find myself driving through dense fog and negotiating black ice, all in the darkness of predawn December. This was not what I had envisioned for my time on Colorado Interstate 76 and yet, I could do nothing but adjust to what was needed of me from the circumstances: to be attentive and slow down, to let my presence be known (with headlights on) and to join the mass of other pilgrims slowly making their way through the road conditions.

While this pilgrimage does not have a name to those on an international scale, on a personal scale, it is my pilgrimage Home. Here are highlights then from my log:

Mile 551: Just went past Omaha. Are we only just halfway done? Now in Iowa, in utter awe of the geometric shapes of the farm fields, and yet, it is raining. I’m not even motivated to get out and stretch. Lotus is in the backseat, stinking like wet dog even though she hasn’t been outside in the rain. Does she somehow smell like wet dogs in some sort of solidary with those who are in the rain?!

I think I might have seven hours to go. Is this when the pilgrimage becomes spiritual? I’ve been listening to podcast after podcast and chewing on my own thoughts. Are other pilgrims on this voyage having doubts about why they didn’t take that flight and be home in several hours? What was I thinking? Spiritual process, my butt! How about efficiency?!

Mile 666: I’ve been trying to compose this edition to the log for the past sixty miles but Iowa has turned to snow unexpectedly and things have become very real. I’m distracted by memories from previous Christmas jaunts across northern Illinois speeding through my mind. During those trips, I was terrified by the road conditions: the snow so significant that there was no way to even stop or pull off. I pray that that will not be the case now… and I guess that’s the whole point of a pilgrimage, that there is prayer, that one is humbled by one’s ability to truly control what is going on and to succumb to whatever weather or events might be brought into one’s life. This is acceptance as I rarely practice it in my life. The snow turns to rain turns to dark turns to traffic jam. I arrive to Des Moines and wonder what will happen next. I am thankful that I am safe, thus far.

Mile 969.1: Illinois seems to have a sense of humor. This year there is no epic snow or ice in Illinois, except that there are tornado warnings and epic winds instead. I’m less than a hundred miles from home and have turned off the podcasts and am not even tempted to sing Rent at this point (a typical set of hymns in the Denver to Milwaukee road trip). I’m pondering again why the heck I do love this long drive. Maybe it is about my ego and being able to say, proudly, that I’ve been able to drive the 1000 miles on my own. More, it’s almost as if inside me, there is a magnet, with one pole in my family all gathered together- the Brooklynites, the Milwaukeeites- and another pole in me, being pulled together to celebrate the holidays. Really, the holidays for me aren’t about some baby being born but more about the family that my parents, and my grandparents, and their brothers and sisters and ancestors have put together to support my growth, my cousins’, and future generations’. That, that is worth celebrating.

Epilogue:

You’ve guessed correctly that Lotus and I made it safely to Milwaukee and are enjoying some non-ordinary time here. As for our return travels to Denver? A twist in the plans: we’re taking on a co-pilot for me- my boyfriend. Nothing like a long road trip to get to know one another even better. Nothing like realizing that there are some journeys in life that we don’t have to travel alone; in fact, they may become all the more sacred and glorious by sharing them with another.

Thoughts for the road… for you to consider:

@ Where are those spots – both literally and figuratively- that you consider Home?

@ How do you prepare yourself for your time there? Do you have any traditions to help mark the transition from ordinary time to spiritual time?

@ Who are fellow travelers on your sacred journey? These may be religious or spiritual guides, loved ones, pets, archetypes. How might you support one another on your travels in 2016?

* Looking for a powerful picture book to rock your world and spark a pilgrimage of perspective changing without leaving your home? Check out Little Bird by Germano Zullo, Albertine (illustrations), and Claudia Zoe Bedrick (translation).