Beginning

A journey can become a sacred thing

– John O’Donohue

Since the start of the pandemic, I’ve moved many times, mostly not by choice. Before and beyond the pandemic, and geography, there's been a journey of deep loss - hopes, plans, time, people I love. Places I’ve called home, or hoped to make home. And along the way, times of living with and learning about how many brilliant people create home, stack the dishwasher, make their coffee, and think about community. I’ve shared meals and found spaces and received welcomes I couldn’t have predicted. And gained a pup.

So, holding this grief, these gifts, these losses, this love; the both/and of it all, and the question: where now?, we’re making a pilgrimage. A journey by choice. Exploring wilderness and prayer, beauty and listening, silence and stories, steps into the unknown and finding home in the unexpected. 

I’ve converted a tiny camper van for part of the journey. Because of time, and sustainability, and cost, and especially because this is just for the present moment, it’s a temporary conversion - but I’ve tried to make it beautiful, and welcoming, with space to make people a cuppa. (And it’s a chance to make mistakes and learn things for a van I would one day love to convert properly!)

I’m hoping to seek out existing spaces of contemplation and creativity, to find ancient pilgrimage paths and more of God everywhere, to explore the possibilities of what extended community means, to embrace simplicity and the peace of wild things. To make sawdust and a sliding bed and new connections and cups of tea, and to do lots of walking.

And I want to be honest about the journey. A journey of faith, of decades in the closet, of making theatre, of all the things. So I’ll share the story, and as I walk, hope to hold space for other’s stories too. I’ll be writing about it here, if you want to follow (poems and puppy pictures usually included), and welcoming fellow pilgrims where I can, if you want to join.

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There is nothing
for it
but to go,
and by our going
take the vows
the pilgrim takes:

to be faithful to
the next step;
to rely on more
than the map;
to heed the signposts
of intuition and dream;
to follow the star
that only you
will recognize;

to keep an open eye
for the wonders that
attend the path;
to press on
beyond distractions,
beyond fatigue,
beyond what would
tempt you
from the way.

…

each choice creates
the road
that will take you
to the place
where at last
you will kneel

to offer the gift
most needed—
the gift that only you
can give—
before turning to go
home by
another way.

Jan Richardson