What's the difference....

between a pilgrimage and a vacation?

In The Art of Pilgrimage/The Seeker's Guide to Making Travel Sacred, Phil Cousineau describes the "art" of pilgrimage as opposed to the kind of traveling we do when we just want to relax and play:

A pilgrimage may be an arduous journey to a place we consider life-changing or sacred.  It may occur when we are at a crossroads and need to refresh our vision.  It can involve moving in the footsteps of a teacher, a saint, or someone who has accomplished something we'd like to accomplish.

As I see it, a vacation is about getting away from whatever is weighing on me.  A vacation is a break in the pattern of my life, a time away in which I can entertain myself in whatever way I choose.

Cousineau suggests that we take a vacation to "lose" ourselves; we take a pilgrimage to "find"ourselves--or (I would add:) to find some part of ourselves that we've been ignoring for too long, or that we've not been listening to.

To call this trip a pilgrimage may seem a lofty claim.  But the more I read, the more I realize that any trip--a day trip or a long one--can be a pilgrimage if it contains any of the qualities Cousineau calls defining characteristics of pilgrimage: fulfilling a promise we made to ourselves or someone else; paying homage; doing penance; feeling the release of catharsis; or rejuvenating ourselves spiritually.

I didn't exactly make a promise to myself--but I do remember vowing to "go back again" to the places I once went (with someone else driving) and to stay long enough to have a sense of that place, unhurried.  Moving along the road, any road, and stopping whenever I want to look up close at something: that's what stirs my creative juices more than anything.  The car trip is a metaphor for the way I move about in the world: forward, backward, U-turning, all at my own pace.   As the Zen saying has it: "The way you do anything is the way you do everything."

When I forget to pay attention to the present moment, when I start committing to dates and places, I lose the flow of the now.  I guess I am paying homage to luminous moments.

When I drive into a city like Sausalito, for example, and am reminded of the beauty of Italy along the Ligurian coast, and when I get to see all those houses pressed tightly into the hills and reflecting in the water, maybe that feeling of a long exhale of pleasure is "the release of catharsis"?

For sure, this kind of travel is a rejuvenation: of creative energy, of focus, and of awe.  Even when my body is feeling achey, my mind feels playful and curious, and I feel excited that I get to experience whatever is in front of me.

A "scopophile" is a lover of looking. That's what I am.  This is a pilgrimage of looking.

Cousineau writes: "Pilgrims are persons in motion--passing through territories not their own--seeking something we might call completion, or perhaps the word clarity will do as well, a goal to which only the spirit's compass points the way."

A direct route from this window overlooking the twinkling lights of the bay to my house on Ogden Lane is--according to Google 1720 miles.  If I needed to return home quickly, I could do it in 24 hours.

But what about the extra 700 miles on my speedometer?  Those are the miles that recall back roads and detours and out-of-the-way poking around.  Those 700 miles are the ones that I didn't have to negotiate and didn't know were there to plan for.  They were surprises discovered by getting off the main road and just moving along in territories "not my own."

People I meet say, "I love San Antonio!"
I always say, "Me too!"

But isn't it strange how we don't "see" our own city like we see the faraway ones we visit when we travel, with eyes wide open to every nuance?

"Completion," Cousineau says.

Without meaning to sound morbid, I think that at a certain age we are aware of things we meant to do and never did.  When the string ahead is shorter than the one behind, one day we just know: this is it, this is my one and only life, my "precious" life--as Mary Oliver calls it--and the question is: what will we do with it while we still have it to do?

We talk about "how fast time is passing" or what we do to "kill time," but when we're doing  what we love, we're so engrossed in it, so excited by it, that every minute seems full and overflowing.  I hope that I will remember to see every minute this way back in ordinary time.