If sightseeing tours rushing from place to place leave you drained or frustrated , it might be time to consider an ancient style of tourism and become a pilgrim.
Unlike tours which focus on seeing and doing, a pilgrimage leaves space for the personal, spiritual experience of travel.
“A pilgrimage is an opportunity to make a deeper, more contemplative connection with the sacred in a place,” explains Associate Professor Michael Griffith from Australian Catholic University.
Associate Professor Griffith will lead a pilgrimage through England in July, following in the footsteps of great English thinkers and poets including the mystic Julian of Norwich, the author of the Canterbury Tales Geoffrey Chaucer and the 19th Century Romantic William Wordsworth.
“The experience is designed to give a prayerful and meditative space in which to encounter the various sites, to be prepared for and to share our understanding of poetry, the natural environment, the art and the architecture,” said Associate Professor Griffith.
Modern pilgrimage does not require religious conviction or alignment: the English pilgrimage has attracted Buddhists, Christians interested in meditative practice, and secular people who are interested in contemplative poetry.
Each day will begin with an hour for reflection, during which the group will read key poems connected to the places they will visit that day. Each evening will include time for reflective sharing of participants’ experiences from being in transformative spaces.
Pilgrims will visit key sites around England which were meaningful for writers over the past 1,000 years.
The trip will begin in London on the site of the Tabard Inn, from where Chaucer’s pilgrims set out in The Canterbury Tales, and will follow a meandering path towards Canterbury, and then back to London.
Participants will follow the footsteps of George Herbert in Bemerton, Wordsworth at Tintern Abbey, Shakespeare at Stratford Upon Avon, T.S Eliot at Little Gidding, and Julian of Norwich, at Norwich.
In some cases, the pilgrimage will uncover lesser known spiritual aspects of well-known writers. The pilgrimage will include a Royal Shakespeare performance of The Winter’s Tale, which Associate Professor Griffith describes as the Bard’s most mystical play. “It’s often not known that Shakespeare was profoundly religious,” he said.
The pilgrimage will also visit the great cathedrals of England including Salisbury, Ely, Norwich and Canterbury and explore the power of architecture to move people spiritually.
An Australian connection is the travels of Francis Webb, perhaps Australia’s greatest religious poet, who spent some years in Norfolk and is the subject of Associate Professor Griffith’s book God’s Fool: The Life and Poetry of Francis Webb.
Associate Professor Griffith said a pilgrimage was suitable for anybody who wanted to travel in a more reflective way and to encounter texts, history and places on a spiritual level.
“My wish for us on this journey is to deepen our collective understanding of the many creative expressions of the sacred- in poetry, prose, art and architecture.
“TS Eliot wrote about finding the still point in a turning world. That’s what we will be trying to do as we reflect on the natural landscape and the spiritual history of the places we visit, so that they can produce in us a deeper connection with the sites and an enriched stillness within ourselves.”
1000 years of Poetry and the Contemplative Tradition in England
with ACU Associate Professor Michael Griffith
30 June to 12 July 20220
$7695 per person, twin share.
$9990 per person, single accommodation
Inquiries: studytours@reho.com
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