Member-only story
What is Pilgrimage?
My contribution to the The Essay Library’s 2025 Video Jam
Do you ever think about Pilgrimage? I find the idea of leaving my home for spiritual enrichment to be… offensive to my aesthetic sensibilities.
Christian Pilgrims are called palmers because they bring back palm leaves as “symbols” of their journey to the holy land. And by symbol, I mean souvenir. Yeah, it’s tacky, but so is a field trip to the holy land.
It seems to me that the divine does not exist in a place, but in ourselves. Everything you are is generated by the big bang, and therefore truth and god are imbedded into yourself. If you pull on the thread of your own personhood, you will inevitably tug on millenia of context: who you are today is a direct result of migrations, geological episodes, wars, politics, supernovas. If you infinitely unspool yourself, you are literally left with the entire universe. Isn’t that where you find god?
Therefore, should it not be the inner movement through flesh, not the outer movement through space, that brings on the feeling of the numinous? …That sounds like I’m suggesting enlightenment comes from fingering yourself, and I’m not not saying that–
What is the purpose of this apparently universal need to journey to a sacred place?
