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Walking the Ways of the Summer Light
A seasonal or soul-need ritual to flow with essential energies of the
summer sun: growth, movement, sensuality, creativity, delight.
Introduction The sun rules the summer season and, like the plants, we humans respond to its exuberant invitations: reach for the light; grow to new heights; express ourselves and our delight; sing, dance, travel, paint (or whatever form your creativity takes); let our bodies love another or the earth upon which we walk. The explosive sun also invites us to release our anger, rise up against injustice, shake off our constraints. If we take up the summer sun’s invitations, we can move beyond our current boundaries of body, mind, and spirit. While winter is the season for change through inner work, the summer gets us out and walking the ways for growth. In the calendar of Celtic earth spirituality, summer begins with the festival of Beltane at the start of May in the Northern Hemisphere and November in the Southern. Celtic teacher Caitlín Matthews introduces us to the season in her Celtic Book of Days:
Beltane celebrates the bright half of the year and was warmly welcomed for it was the official beginning of summer when the over-wintered animals could be driven out into wider pasturing, and when scattered households would meet together and travel forth. … The festival, whose name means the ‘the fires of Bel’ is named after the Beli or Belenus, the shinning one, an archaic god for whom no legend remains. Several inscriptions remain to the Romano-Celtic Apollo Belenus, testifying to the solar and healing qualities of the original god.
Everything is in movement. You, too, are invited to move as we flow from spring into summer. Walking the Ways of the Summer Light, aligns with this energy, and invites you to make a sacred journey through the season. Sacred Travel Sacred travel takes varied forms in the traditions that have developed it as spiritual practice. One of the five pillars of Islam is to make a pilgrimage to Mecca where pilgrims dress in the same simple clothes to show that all are equal before Allah. North American native peoples make medicine walks to seek healing in the natural world. Tibetan Buddhists circumambulate a holy mountain as a devotional practice. For centuries, people have walked El Camino in Northern Spain toward the tomb of St. James to demonstrate their faith or seek forgiveness of their sins. Today, along with the
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Christian faithful, the secular and uncertain also walk The Way as seekers and adventures. While Westerners have ascribed various purposes to the Aboriginal Walkabout, following the landscape guided by song and energetic connection are at the heart of this travel. Early Celtic Christians – who retained connections to the earth spirituality of their ancestors – often set off to wander for God, leaving without a destination and, in one account, even without oars to row their boat. They trusted God to bring them to the right place. Steve Rabey describes the purpose of such wandering in In The House of Memory:
Christian Celts [sought] something they called ‘the place of one’s resurrection.’ A uniquely Celtic concept that combines a Christian theology of the afterlife with the Celts legendary love of the land, this belief that God called everyone to a specific geographic location where he or she could experience a deeper sense of spiritual presence.
In these stories of intentional journeys and wisdom wandering, we can see that sacred travel aids us to:
• heal;
• tend our souls;
• connect with the Divine;
• find our way to be of service;
• align with a greater purpose;
• open us to a process or period of initiation;
• strengthen our love of, and devotion to, the land;
• shake up our usual patterns and remove us from our known roles;
• walk in the footsteps of our ancestors and fellow followers of a faith; or
• anchor us in our unique strengths by challenging us in unusual ways. What calls you to undertake a sacred journey? Perhaps it is one of these reasons or a sensed but unarticulated longing. The invitation is to follow this energy into the possibility and mystery of the next unfolding of your life. The Flow of the Season The hinge of Walking the Ways is the Summer Solstice, the time of longest light and height of the sun’s shinning. In the four weeks before the Solstice, we will wander toward this time of greatest light, taking weekly walks guided by elemental themes of earth, air, water, and, fire. These Wisdom Wanders loosen the hold of our usual roles over us. As we travel in a relaxed
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manner, we are invited to listen, see, and feel in news ways. To flow with this idea of loosening, we seek not answers but questions that can ignite desire, serve growth, inspire transformation. We will also be invited to create mementos that serve as a visual reminder of the work or as an expression of gratitude for what was received. The mementos might take the form of art, doodles, earth altars, poems, stories, photos that you will have for further contemplation after the walk. The days around the Solstice are for celebration, play, and maybe some fireworks to bring light even into the night. We will review all the questions that have surfaced during the Wisdom Wanders to find the one that most speaks to our deep soul needs or fires our imagination in special ways. We move out from the Solstice with this illuminating question at the center of our travel to and from a sacred place. We will undertake a pilgrimage. If you have weeks of time to go to a celebrated pilgrimage place, wonderful! But the power of intention can support you to create a pilgrimage experience in any amount of time that you have. Our Ritual Tools and Supports Our own bodies will be our greatest ritual tools as we move through the summer landscape. No other tool is needed to make the elemental connections of Walking the Ways. But we can be aided by our favorite Tarot decks and oracles. The Gaian, Minoan, and Shining Tribe Tarots along with the Oracle of Initiation have been my main inspirations for developing the rituals and activities. To create your mementos your favorite creativity tools (pens, paints, cameras, etc.) can be part of your traveling ritual tool kit.
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Wisdom Wander General Flow
The freedom in walking lies not in being anyone; for the walking body has no history; it is just an eddy in the stream of immemorial time.
Frederic Gros There are no rules for a Wisdom Wander. This flow is offered as a jumping off point for your own designs. But remember to follow your feet, your heart, and where ever your senses lead you.
Selecting Your Place: You don’t have to go anywhere special for a Wisdom Wander. Your backyard or view from your window might provide all the wonder you need. But to vary your views, you might seek out places that put you in touch the weekly elemental focus. A place where you can touch bare ground or stone for Earth. A hill or mountain top to feel the Air and be close to birds, and a windy urban avenue could do the same. If you can, traveling to a large body of water or the ocean in the Water week would be appropriate, or just wander on a rainy day. The Fire week comes during the period of longest days so anywhere on a sunny day will do, or build a bonfire to contemplate its flame.
Separating From the Everyday: You may want to enact a small ritual of leaving behind all your responsibilities, worries, and cares. You could visualize putting them into a box. If any critical voices start to speak, just assure them you’ll be back; you are only going for a walk. Can you leave your cell behind? Or at least put it into airplane mode.
Travel Light But Bring What You Need: Remember to take care of your body: water? sun screen? good shoes?. Remember any ritual or creativity needs: tiny notebook and pen? drawing materials? camera? Cards from your Tarot or oracle deck. Bring it all on one Wander. Bring nothing on another.
Set an Intention: An overall intention of these Wisdom Wanders is to seek out and be open to the questions that speak to our souls, that will focus the coming pilgrimage time. You may want to set individual intentions for the season or for each outing that you take.
Invite / Select / Welcome your Way Showers / Inquisitors / Guides for the Day’s
Wandering: Because the language of nature and the elements is not immediately apparent to us humans, we can ask for help from the Tarot or oracles. You may have a relationship with a wisdom figure(s) represented on a card and want to select it. You may let who ever needs to come emerge from a face-down draw. Spend some time meeting the one(s) who emerge to travel with you. I often work with multiple guides / cards in a wander.
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Wander:
• Be open to whatever draws your attention and spend time there. Pause. Look. Listen.
• If you would like to engage with an area or a plant, greet it, ask its permission to approach and receive its response. If allowed to approach, do so respectfully; engage your sense to receive the messages and questions offered.
• You might select one of your guides – by chance or choice - to come and be with you in the places of pause and contemplation. Consider how the place and the guide fit together.
• When you have finished, don’t forget to offer gratitude before you move on. You might leave a strand of your hair as a gift. Or perhaps you have planned ahead and brought a small natural object to leave as a sign of gratitude.
Be Open to Creative Urges: The earth is busy creating in cooperation with the summer sun. How might you mimic this creativity to learn its magic? Bring out your notebook or artists tools. Gather loose elements of the earth (rocks, fallen petals, twigs, feathers) and arrange them into an earth altar. Your guides might like to be placed within your creation. You might want to document with a photo that becomes your memento… and then let all the elements return to lie on the earth as they were.
Return: Notice when and where you are passing from your place of wandering into the more human world. You might pause, offer some gratitude, or say a prayer at this point.
Reflect: You may want to just sit or to journal or draw. Let the experience seep into you. Let some insights emerge. Connect with your guide; have a chat about what you experienced together.
Gathering Questions: While on the Wander or just afterward, you might just blurt out or free write all the questions that surface. Spend some time with your guides imagining the questions they would ask you if they could speak aloud. Contemplate mementos made or pictures taken as if it were a Tarot card offering you questions. Sometime later in the week, you might want to hone and shift through your questions. This can be like the process of creating questions to take to a Tarot reading. Here are the prompts I send to people ahead of my Tarot consultations to get their questions percolating:
• Questions that yield the most freedom and possibility most often include HOW and WHAT. For example: How can I ….? How have I ….? In what ways ….? What do I most need to pay attention to now? What will support me to …?
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• Questions that can be fruitful in specific circumstances often include WHY,
WHERE, and WHO. For example: Where in my life have I ….? Who can best support me in doing …? Who is challenging me ….? [Be open to the answer not being a human that you know] Why am I really doing this (i.e. what is underneath the surface)?
• WHICH limits you to particular options already determined. If you are still in an early stage of decision making, it is probably too early for a WHICH question. If you have been working seeking an answer for a long time and feel clear that a decision rests between a set number of options, then WHICH may be fruitful.
• YES / NO questions are not generative. But if you are burnt out on generating ideas and are ready to trust the message that comes through the cards, this just might be the kind of question that you need.
Cultivate Patience: Each Wisdom Wander is an invitation to step out of the demands of time. The whole flow toward the Solstice extends an invitation to be free of knowing the answers but instead opening to the questions. The words of the poet Rilke encourage us in this work:
Be patient toward all that is unsolved
in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written
in a very foreign tongue.
Acknowledgements: This process is most directly influenced by my work with Joanna Powell Colbert and her Gaian Tarot and Mellissae Lucia and her Oracle of Initiation. James Wells’ wisdom on question generation inspired the question asking prompts.
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Elemental Connecting Basic Prompts
~ Earth Encounters ~
Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength
that will endure as long as life lasts.
Rachel Carson, The Sense of Wonder
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As you walk through this week focused on earth tune your attention to what seems to
you to be most elementally earth. Starhawk’s The Earth Path offers guidance on
particulars to direct your attention toward:
Ground and what you are walking on whether it be the duff of the forest floor or
the cement of a city sidewalk.
Rocks. These most solid of nature’s offerings perhaps come quickly to mind
around the element of earth. How big is the rock you are seeing: boulder, pebble,
sand? What has been happening with slow changing rocks in your area?
Soil. Our food comes from dirt. What is going on with the dirt that you discover?
Growth. What is growing and how much of it?
Decay. What is passing away? How is this decay treated or greeted?
Seeds. Do you see them or evidence of their existence?
Fungi. So much of what we call mushrooms grows below the surface in an
interconnected web. What can you glimpse of that web?
Bones. What bones are present? Can you see them? Maybe only your own will
be out and moving around.
Plants and Trees. What is growing around you? And how do they grow together
in communities of support?
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~ Air Encounters ~
We are our grandmother’s prayers. We are our grandfather’s dreamings.
We are the breath of our ancestors.
Dr. Ysaye Barnwell
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As you walk through this week focused on Air tune your attention to what seems to
you to be most elementally Air. From my Air Wisdom Wandering over the years, I
found my way toward paying particular attention to:
Directionality. The air can come from any direction, but your place on the planet
probably has a more usual direction of the winds. So, when winds shift in
unusual directions, the trees and plants, your body experience the unexpected.
Winds can also come in from different directions at the same time. Then you
become the meeting point and are ruffled by the intersection of winds.
Flow. What facilitates the flow of air and what inhibits it? I live in the shadow
and protection of Mt. Tom, a small but old mountain that often takes the brunt of
storms. Climate chaos events have spared my home town, and a few years ago a
micro burst traveled the ridge of the mountain taking down a swath of trees, but
the wind dissipated before entering too much of our populated areas. In The
Earth Path, Starhawk suggests city dwellers go to their financial district to be
amidst tall buildings and feel the wind channeled with intensity through narrow
spaces. Then contrast this flow with more open parts of the city - a park perhaps
- to experience the difference. A slight breeze and the edge of the storm are
obviously different. As the intensity of the wind changes, what happens to the
relationship between the physical world/your body and the air?
Creatures of the Air. Birds and flying insects have an intimate relationship with
Air. They fly in and with the wind, must adjust and work with the changing
nature of this element. In the still dark morning, the birds begin their calling in
my back yard. They fill the sky with sound and the light returns. Bird song later
in the day is more subdued. Birds’ relationship to daybreak is special and invites
you to attend this time of transition as well.
The Invisible and Hidden. We are such visual creatures, but we cannot see the
air. We do see birds, but more often they are hidden behind branches or leaves.
Morning song seems to come from an invisible source. As I started an Air
Wisdom Wander, this phrase rang in my mind: the hidden all around me. I carried
it with me into the wind.
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~ Water Encounters ~
The dark inner seas seek us out like the song of ocean in a shell, and we
turn back toward them, to our origins, our waters of birth.
Linda Hogan, from Dwellings
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As you walk through this week focused on Water tune your attention to what seems to
you to be most elementally Water. You might try out being with water as …
Source of life. Creation stories from many cultures begin with water. Our food
comes to us because of water. We humans are mostly water. Once I stood at the edge
of a slow-moving stream and was moved to whisper to the water: “Thank you for my
life.”
A conduit of connection and wholeness. In The Earth Path, Starhawk says that in
meditation, she heard water say, “All water is one – one whole, one awareness. All water
is continuously aware of all the other waters in the world.” So when you stand at the edge
of the ocean, a river, or puddle you might feel the connection to all the other waters
in the world. When you take a sip from the tap, you might imagine that you are
drinking in the flow of all the oceans on the earth.
Trickster of cycles. The sun and moon have regular cycles, but water shows us an
irregular flow from deluge to drought, or sometimes just enough. In New England
we often have an overabundance or water while California experiences drought.
This cyclical imbalance, too, reminds us of how we are connected by water. While I
may not be in California, the food produced there feeds the whole country. This
trickster side of water is offering us a lesson in connection and a prompt to think
about solutions like localized food production.
Mirror. Serenity, turbulence, peace. The movement of water can help to let our
feelings flow. Cascades of water can loosen our tears. A calm stretch of water can
give us rest. We can mirror the water and find a new rhythm. This experience goes
beyond words. Just be with water and see.
Voice. The sound of water is hypnotic, can shift your state. Let the water relax you
into an altered state and then listen for its messages.
Mystery and play. Below the surface, water can be dark and murky, impenetrable.
We know we can’t see everything. Once on a Wisdom Wander, I visited a large
vernal pool that a few weeks ago had been filled with frog life, but now was dark
with decay of leaves and fallen branches. How did this darkness descend so quickly? The
question followed me for a while, but as I continued to wander I came upon a water
park where children squealed in delight as cold water hit their shoulders. And many
of us take summer trips specifically to play in the water, swim in its pools, dance in
its spray. So water shows that seriousness of mystery and delight of play exist
together. Like Yin and Yang, they contain each other.
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~ Fire Encounters ~
Isn’t it time to turn your heart into a temple of fire?
Rumi
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As you walk through this week focused on Fire tune your attention to what seems to
you to be most elementally Fire, and the unique ways that it shows itself, including
within …
The Sun: Life on the planet is made possible because of the star, our Sun, that the
Earth circles. Plants and trees use the sun to make their food and we creatures eat
them to gain the energy we need to live. The sun’s continual abundance is the
cosmos’ great gift to sustain our lives.
The Moon: The changing light of the moon is an indirect form of the sun’s light.
Sometimes the moon offers a full reflection of sun and the night landscape is
almost as clear as in the day. But at other times, the night is dark and the moon in
shadow. This reminds us we cannot always live in the sun’s full energy and
clarity. There is darkness for rest and as a place where things are hidden.
Spark, Flame, Blaze, Ember, and Burnt Remains: Actual fire is a direct and
obvious way to explore the element. Along with observing fire’s actions,
checking in on what happens after the flame is extinguished can take you into
the depths of fire. Fire in the natural world is both destructive and regenerative.
Wild fire destroys whatever lies in its path, but afterwards soil has new nutrients
and the clearing away of obstacles to sun reaching the forest floor to spark new
growth. Fire moves quickly but has a long-term impact.
Embodied and Subtle Energy: Fire is the energy that exists within the forms of
cells that act together to become plants, trees, animals, and our own bodies. The
convergence of cells to form a whole is a mirror to how individual beings coming
together contribute to a larger habitat or energy system. Finding the right balance
of predator and prey, complementary plants and insects as well as inputs of fire,
water, earth, and air (in this case literally rather than elementally) are what make
a healthy landscape. In such a landscape we sense good energy or spirit of place.
In a landscape that has been depleted, the spirit can be low or heavy, and is
experienced as negative. This sense beyond the physical is the subtle energy that
exists apart from science’s measurement but that spiritual practitioners have
named and communed with as ch’i, prana, or auras.
Exchange: Energy is constantly in movement and being exchanged: when we flip
a light switch (energy comes from plant to lamp), as we eat (energy of the plant
or creature being eaten is transferred to the one doing the eating), and during sex
(it’s a high energy act for everyone from insects to humans and the exchange of
cells starts the race toward a new being of embodied energy).
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Pilgrimage Planning and Broad Flow
Where to Go
Pilgrimage is an imaginary road with real stones in it.
Phil Cousineau
What place calls to your imagination? What stones have people of your tradition, your tribe, your profession/vocation walked before you? Where does the longing of your soul lead you? These are questions to consider as you seek your place for a solitary journey of weeks, a sacred pause into a family vacation, or an afternoon set aside during a business trip. With clear intention any place can be a place of pilgrimage, but the pilgrimage tradition invites you to go somewhere that others have also approached with reverence and have sought solace, counsel, and wisdom. I offer these examples to spark your imagination (not to limit your thinking):
• A site of longstanding and traditional pilgrimage: Santiago de Campostela in Spain, Angkor Wat in Cambodia, the pyramids in Egypt, Newgrange in Ireland, the Serpent Mounds of Ohio. Members of the Tarot Tribe might visit northern Italy, the birth place of the cards. To do some dreaming and research about such places can be an adventure in and of itself. You might also think of places closer to you that are echoes of these sites: a local basilica, retreat center, or site sacred to local native peoples. If selecting a site outside of your tradition, be sure to check if guests are welcomed.
• A site where the wild is preserved. In North America, our national and provincial parks contain the natural cathedrals and shrines that have drawn people out of their everyday lives and into the wilderness. To hike to the end of the Skyline Trail in Cape Breton, find the Hidden Lake in Glacier National Park, or glimpse the Grand Prismatic in Yellowstone inspire awe and invite devotion. (Yes, there are all trips that I have taken and later realized I’d been on pilgrimage.) There might be a state park or local land trust that offers a similar experience.
• A site where an ancestor from your profession or vocation lived. Writers and artist take journeys to soak in the landscape and objects of their heroes. Travel to Emily Dickenson’s house in Amherst, Massachusetts or hike in the desert of Abique, New Mexico to see what Georgia O’Keeffe saw.
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• A place significant to your family or their country of origin. Descendants of 19th century immigrants to the United States visit Ellis Island to see where their ancestors first arrived in the United States. A journey of discovery back to their country of origin leads you even further back into your ancestral roots.
When to Go
When your ship, long moored in harbor, gives you the illusion of being a house ... put out to sea! Save your boat's journeying soul, and your own pilgrim soul,
cost what it may. Brazilian Archbishop Helder Camara
Your pilgrimage can happen at any time. You may want to pick a time of personal significance or may choose to align with a natural occurrence. Coordinating your pilgrimage with the moon phase, for example, might heighten your experience. To support a journey of release, healing, or initiation, for example, find time around the new moon. For journeys of devotion, celebration, or strengthening you might travel around the time of the full moon.
Basic Flow
The beauty of the Way is that there is no ‘way”
Loy Ching-Yuen, The Book of the Heart
I worked with a wonderful group facilitator, Guadalupe Guajardo, who had a planning philosophy I took to heart: Maximum structure with maximum flexibility. A pilgrimage is a journey that is undertaken with planning, purpose, focus, and a specific destination. The structure supports the depth of work we seek to undertake. But once we begin the journey, we must be open to what is presented to us, not what we planned to see, hear, or feel. Our travels may be more or less than we imagined. Our destination may not be the culmination. The unanticipated might have us altering our plans. But we can flow with this uncertainty knowing we’ve done the best we can to prepare and trusting that what we most need know will flow to us. With this preface as caution, the pilgrimage journey could be said to have this flow: Preparation: Our Wisdom Walks provide four weeks of preparation and practice for stepping out of our everyday life, awakening the senses, and finding the focus of a central question. If you are traveling, you’ll, of course, have to make logistical arrangements and might want to tend to these tasks with a soulful approach and make them a part of – rather than apart from – the pilgrimage process.
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At the Threshold: The time for departure arrives. To mark this moment as sacred and set the desired tone for the journey, you might:
• Make sure that you have all you need to take care of your body: the right shoes, medicines, appropriate clothes. Thank your body for making this journey and pledge to listen to the messages it gives you. It may be doing a lot of hard work!
• Say good-bye in a ritual way to the place and/or people you are leaving behind.
• Write your central question out on a slip of paper, put it in a pocket close to your heart, and then forget about it.
• Open yourself to returning changed. Perhaps this comes through a simple statement of intention or a prayer.
• Ask a guide(s) to travel with you and support you. This could be your Tarot or oracle deck, a Deity with you have or want to cultivate a relationship with, and/or wisdom source such a book of poetry, nature guide, or scripture.
Journey: You move toward a destination, but journey is the pilgrimage’s heart. Let your Wisdom Wander practice of moving slowly, attending to what calls your attention, creating as you go, and tuning into your sense in new ways help you embrace the journey.
At the Center: This is the place where we encounter with the Awesome, the Divine, Mystery. It can’t really be anticipated. We just travel open to Its appearance. We plan for it to happen at the destination of our journey, but we can’t know where and when the Center will open for us. Return: We do go home. The outer pilgrimage is bounded by time and place. But when we return home, we return changed. The inner pilgrimage continues as we walk once again into our roles and responsibilities, and bring to them the lessons, gifts, and heighted senses from the pilgrimage time. Pilgrim Phil Cousinea describes the return: The challenge is to learn how to carry over the quality of the journey into our everyday life. The art of pilgrimage is the craft of taking time seriously, elegantly. What every traveler confronts sooner or later is that the way we spend each day of our travel is the way we spend our lives. Note on Inspirations: These are the 2 books that I have been carrying around as I wandered to prepare this booklet and that you see most quoted above: Phil Cousineau’s The Art of Pilgrimage (Conari Press; 1989) and Frederic Gros’s A Philosophy of Walking (Verso; 2014).
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Final Words of Gratitude
I am grateful to Rachel Pollack, Ellen Lorenzi-Prince, Joanna Powell Colbert, and Mellissae Lucia not only for their beautiful and inspiring images, but also for the wisdom they bring into the world through their teaching, art work, and writing. My work is deeply influenced by theirs.
I am also grateful to those who offered support and feedback as well as engaged with the ideas and activities of this ritual through their participation in my 2014-2015 circle offerings: Jennifer Badot, Mimi Clemente, Michelle Crawford-Bewley, Linda Farmer, Jean Frances, Bernadette Giblin, Jezanna Gruber, Deborah Guy, the late Bev Haskins, Karen Karlovich, Irini Killian, Ellen LaFleche, Arwen Lynch, Judy Nathan, Mary Clare Powell, Wanda Rice, Michele Rapp, Mark Roessler, Julie Rosier, Shari Smith, Julie Theroux, and Hayley Wood.