“A True-Devoted Pilgrim Is Not Weary”

“A true-devoted pilgrim is not weary

 To measure kingdoms with his feeble steps;

 Much less shall she that hath Love’s wings to fly,

 And when the flight is made to one so dear,

 Of such divine perfection, as Sir Proteus.” Act II, Scene 7

Julia in William Shakespeare’s The Two Gentlemen of Verona

“A true-devoted pilgrim is not weary…” Roger and I recently went on an exhilarating pilgrimage to Greece, led by Phil Cousineau. Phil is a renowned writer and filmmaker who studied myth with Joseph Campbell during the latter’s last 10 years of life. He often leads pilgrimages in, as he says, “a worldwide search for what the ancients called the ‘soul of the world.’”

We met Cousineau last August in Anniston, Alabama, for an enrichment study for the faculty of The Institute for Conscious Being. At the time,

Phil asked us why we might want to go on a pilgrimage to somewhere sacred, for instance to Greece. I said I wanted to follow a thread.

I had recently read The Princess and the Goblin, a fairy tale by George MacDonald, whose writings greatly influenced Lewis Carroll, G.K. Chesterton, J.R.R. Tolkien, and C.S. Lewis. I grew familiar with MacDonald in researching an earlier pilgrimage to Iona in 2022 with John Philip Newell who writes about the author in his book that we studied, Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul.

MacDonald’s tale features the image of an invisible, holy thread. Princess Irene has a great-great-grandmother—seen only by the child—who inhabits a tower and spins a filmy thread inter twisted from spiderwebs and enchanted with moonlight. Binding the thread to a ring, she bestows it upon the young Princess saying that when she is afraid or in need, she must hide the ring under her pillow and follow the delicate thread.

The tale is reminiscent of the Greek myth of Ariadne who gifts her lover Theseus with a ball of yarn. The hero unwinds the fiber as he twists through the Labyrinth to slay the Minotaur. Having done so, Theseus uses the thread to trace his way back to mouth of the Labyrinth, and with Ariadne, triumphantly escapes Crete.

For Phil Cousineau, the pilgrimage starts with a Longing. He remarks, “For a journey without challenge, has no meaning; one without purpose, has no soul. One of the ancient functions of pilgrimage is to wake us from our slumber.” So you travel on a pilgrimage with an unfulfilled need or desire, a tug, a yearning, a pining, a craving to go. A thread pulling you.

Then, you hear a call to adventure, which you hopefully follow. And, you must discern that a sacred place is pulling you, capturing your interest. It could be that you think jazz music, or football, or a particular artist, or trees are sacred. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a “religious spot.”

“For those of us fascinated with the spiritual quest,” Phil says, “the deepening of our journeys begins the moment we begin to ask what is sacred to us: architecture, history, music, books, nature, food, religious heritage, family history, the lives of saints, scholars, heroes, artists?”

Twenty-one of us friends from the Institute for Conscious Being started every morning on our pilgrimage to Greece with a Long Conversation—our favorite spot being the veranda of the Mentor Hotel in Vathy on the island of Ithaka. And we were asked to keep a journal. On the first day, in a hotel in Athens before our climb to the Parthenon, Phil asked: “What are you longing for? We are on a spiritual journey of transformation. We are looking for the sacred, the holy, the numinous. We are hoping for the God Nod, which is defined as standing in the presence or before the face of God.”

I discerned that I was longing for a deep connection to the roots of theatre and the arts and learning, here in the womb of civilization. I longed to know why I was pulled into the arts, and how to now proceed, utilizing and loving them at this point in my life. Where is that thread, and how do I catch onto it?

What matters most on such a journey is how deeply you see, how attentively you hear, how richly the encounters are felt in your heart and soul.

We were encouraged to pay attention and listen, to wonder and meander, to feel gratitude and respond with praise.

From the giddy experience of the Acropolis and the Theatre of Dionysus, we traveled the next day to Eleusis, the site of the ancient mysteries. We had missed Easter services and celebrations order to catch our plane for Greece. But learning about the ceremony of life coming back in spring—after winter’s deep, dark death—satisfied my need for such an observance.

On the way to Eleusis by coach, our guide Annita reminded us of one the many traditions and rites a pilgrim to this site had to undertake: at one of the bridges, priests tied a thread to the right hand and left foot of each candidate. And she handed out dainty bracelets to some of us made of thin yellow sewing thread. I carefully kept mine on all day and then placed it in a bag for safekeeping. Alas, I did not reach home with it, which saddened me greatly.

Was this a metaphor—that I was following that thread, but had lost it? And yet, at Eleusis, I felt palpably close to Andreas Nomikos, the Greek man who exuded the idea of hospitality and kindness, bringing to life the xenia of his country’s olden times. Dr. Nomikos was the set designer and scenery professor when I was in graduate school at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He had swum in these waters I could view right here from a high spot—and I felt a strand connecting me from the present to that past college theatre experience and on back to the ancient plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.

When I was in Ithaka, the thread seemed to connect me from the present ruins of what could have been the palace of Odysseus and Penelope to the days I studied Homer’s story. It was with John Finlay, my sophomore English professor, during autumn afternoons where his fervor for teaching brought the tale to life right there on the gracious porch of a college building. And then drew me farther on back to the king of Ithaca, who wandered for 10 years trying to get home after the Trojan War. And who wouldn’t fight demons of his own and real monsters to arrive back here, a place of verdant hills, azure water, and cobalt skies?

“The point of the pilgrimage,” a Buddhist priest told the traveling author Oliver Statler on his journey around the Japanese island of Shikoku, “is to improve yourself by enduring and overcoming difficulties.” That is to say, if the journey you have chosen is indeed a pilgrimage, a soulful journey, it will be rigorous.

We found that to be true. We changed hotels six times! We rode on planes, taxis, coaches, and ferries. One friend lost a cell phone. Some of our showers were interesting, to say the least. Roger had a run in with our first hotel’s front desk staff member. Another morning, he poured boiling water from a tea pot on his hand, and was sick at his stomach one night. Our group was asked to leave a museum early due to a run on the Greek banks. Demetrius, our bus driver had to back way up several times in “dueling coaches” competitions on tight little roads. And we were delayed one day for a one-person motorcycle accident in which the driver admitted he was terribly drunk!

For this blog, I will refrain from recalling every wondrous detail, holy site, and beautiful place we visited. But here is some advice if you ever want to make your trip a pilgrimage. Phill told us to think about the journey and then write down something you want your grandchildren to remember you by. Leave behind an offering: he encouraged us to bring small gifts for the people we met and many of us did. “Relish the idea that for now you are no longer a stranger in this world. Wonder about the saving grace that came your way. Remember that sacred places are those that eternity shines through, like sunlight through a rose window.”

Having experienced all of the intentional rites and actions we had been led to perform, we decided that when we got home, we would have a "Welcome Home Odysseus” ritual. It involved a number of acts such as burning incense, unpacking with joy, sacramentally washing our travel clothing, and grounding in Birmingham by visiting overlooks of the city, since we had been peeking over precipices in Greece. Performing this ceremony, we found “a true-devoted pilgrim is not weary” to be true.

And, guess what?! A few days after we had returned, I discovered on my bathroom floor a short piece of yellow thread just like what Annita had given me. Exactly like it—except it wasn’t tied into a bracelet. It was a mystical and magical experience. As Phil might have said, “Ancient wisdom suggests if you aren't trembling as you approach the sacred, it isn't the real thing. The sacred, in its various guises as holy ground, art, or knowledge, evokes emotion and commotion.”

When I found that thread, I was full of emotion and commotion! “Where is that thread, and how do I catch onto it?” I had asked. It is now glued into my journal permanently (I hope). And I can catch onto it any time! No telling where it will take me next.