I’m headed to a pilgrimage to Greece today. But what does that even mean? Lots of people travel to Greece for vacation, and I have had a desire to see what everyone talks about—the startling clear blue water of the Mediterranean Sea, the iconic whitewashed buildings with blue roofs, sailing from island to island. But that isn’t pilgrimage.
Several of my recent trips might be viewed as pilgrimages. Our family traveled to Charleston, South Carolina last spring, and that was a homecoming of sorts for me. It’s where my husband, Harvey, and I completed our residencies in family medicine. We loved it there, not only for the residency program and our professors, but the food, the history, and the beaches. So when I went back last year after many long years, it was a pilgrimage. I got to share the city with my family and tell them stories of our time living there, and I caught up with four beloved professors.
My solo trips to the southern Appalachian mountains always feel like pilgrimage. Once or twice a year I feel a nudge, a need, to hike again in these forests. It’s a holy place for me—mountains, streams, vistas, trees, waterfalls, and wildflowers. I go there to worship the wildness and the wilderness. I had the same sense of call and longing for my trip with friends last autumn to California’s redwoods and last summer’s trek in the Alps.
The Galápagos Islands and the Grand Canyon were both bucket list trips that I had a longing for. The call for the former came when my father asked me to accompany him. The latter call was a summons to,check off that item before Harvey’s Alzheimer’s disease became too severe.
So maybe the definition of pilgrimage is meaningful travel. I often get a longing for experiences that nourish my soul, experiences that bring freshness, newness, and are eye-opening and transformative. And when I get a specific call, a door opens, an invitation comes, happily, I am apt to accept. Up until now, the longing and call has meant immersion in the natural world.
I didn’t know that I had a longing for a pilgrimage to Greece, but when the offer presented itself, I jumped at the chance. Perhaps my inner knowing responded when my head and heart didn’t even know this was an option.
I haven’t been a life-long fan of Greek mythology. I barely remembered the stories, but in preparation for this pilgrimage, I have immersed myself in new retellings of these ancient myths and legends. And I am loving it, and am ready and excited. I will be paying homage to the birthplace of much of Western civilization—architecture, sculpture, medicine, democracy, literature, drama, even the Olympics.
It will be a homecoming to much of what has formed who I am culturally. Things I’ve only read about or seen pictures of will come to life. I fully expect tears. They always come when I am reunited with old friends.