What the soul needs to make its journey home

Love, faith, and hope are the elements the soul needs to make its journey home. Love of truth motivates the soul to want to set out on the journey; faith sustains and supports it as it proceeds; and hope gives it the optimism that things will unfold in the right way.

I don't know who I am

I don't know who I am. And I don't think people ever will know who they are. We have to be humble enough to learn to live with this mysterious question. Who am I? So, I am a mystery to myself. I am someone who is in this pilgrimage from the moment that I was born to the day to come that I'm going to die. And this is something that I can't avoid, whether I like it or not...I'm going to die. So, what I have to do is to honor this pilgrimage through life. And so I am this pilgrim — if I can somehow answer your question — who's constantly amazed by this journey. Who is learning a new thing every single day...I am this person who is proud to be a pilgrim, and who's trying to honor his journey.

A journey of risk and renewal

For millennia, a genuine cri du coeur, cry of the heart — a longing for a taste of mystery, a touch of the sacred — the yearning to embark upon a meaningful journey has been answered by pilgrimage, a transformative journey to a sacred center. It calls for a journey to a holy site associated with gods, saints, or heroes, or to a natural setting imbued with spiritual power...always, it is a journey of risk and renewal. For a journey without challenge has no meaning; one without purpose has no soul.

The real work

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.

The journey of each life

At its heart, the journey of each life is a pilgrimage through unforeseen sacred places that enlarge and enrich the soul.

January 2015 (Vol. XXVIII, No. 1)

Greetings and happy new year! While the universe may exist within timeless cycles in an eternal now, we experience our individual lives as a linear journey with a beginning and an end...or perhaps a transition to another beginning. To awaken our spirits enough to be mindful of the longing for something we cannot always name but yearn for nevertheless is to set forth on an inner journey no less complex or real than the outer one. Shall we set forth anew on this path together?

To be on journey is to love your life enough to change it, to choose struggle instead of exile, to risk everything with only the glimmering hope you are on the right path.

~ Andrew Kopkind
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Not all those who wander are lost.
~ J.R.R. Tolkien
J.R.R. Tolkien journey Buy on Amazon

Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart.

~ Abraham Joshua Heschel
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Frequently we do not leave the past behind. We clasp on to it. We dissect it, and let fears for the future, tempered by the past, unconsciously prevent us from taking up the task eternal.

~ from EXPLORING CELTIC SPIRITUALITY by Ray Simpson
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Our real journey in life is interior. It is a matter of growth, deepening, and an ever greater surrender to the creative action of love and grace in our hearts.

~ from THE ROAD TO JOY by Thomas Merton
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To journey without being changed is to be a nomad.
To change without journeying is to be a chameleon.
To journey and to be transformed by the journey
is to be a pilgrim.

~ Mark Nepo
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Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

~ David Wagoner
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Loneliness is the feeling we have when we refuse to journey... Turning to invite the quiet transforms the feeling by changing the faces and quality of our attention. We are secure enough to let go, and to embrace solitude where we hear our own voice, even in the silence. We are wholeheartedly in the company of our deepest thoughts and feelings, independent of human presence or our physical surroundings.

~ from THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE HEART by Charlene Sexton
Charlene Sexton Geography Of The Heart journey

The theory of karma suggests that life itself is in its essential nature both educational and healing, that the innate wholeness underlying the personality of each of us is being evoked, clarified, and strengthened through the challenges and experiences of our lifetime. All life paths may be a movement toward the soul.

~ Rachel Naomi Remen in KITCHEN TABLE WISDOM; STORIES THAT HEAL
Rachel Naomi Remen Kitchen Table Wisdom journey Buy on Amazon

I soon realized that no journey carries one far unless, as it extends into the world around us, it goes an equal distance into the world within.

~ Lillian Smith
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Love, faith, and hope are the elements the soul needs to make its journey home. Love of truth motivates the soul to want to set out on the journey; faith sustains and supports it as it proceeds; and hope gives it the optimism that things will unfold in the right way.

~ from Facets of Unity by A H Almaas
A. H. Almaas Facets Of Unity journey Buy on Amazon

I don't know who I am. And I don't think people ever will know who they are. We have to be humble enough to learn to live with this mysterious question. Who am I? So, I am a mystery to myself. I am someone who is in this pilgrimage from the moment that I was born to the day to come that I'm going to die. And this is something that I can't avoid, whether I like it or not...I'm going to die. So, what I have to do is to honor this pilgrimage through life. And so I am this pilgrim — if I can somehow answer your question — who's constantly amazed by this journey. Who is learning a new thing every single day...I am this person who is proud to be a pilgrim, and who's trying to honor his journey.

~ Paulo Coehlo
Paulo Coehlo journey Buy on Amazon

The spiritual journey is one of continually falling on your face, getting up, brushing yourself off, looking sheepishly at God and taking another step.

~ Aurobindo
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For millennia, a genuine cri du coeur, cry of the heart — a longing for a taste of mystery, a touch of the sacred — the yearning to embark upon a meaningful journey has been answered by pilgrimage, a transformative journey to a sacred center. It calls for a journey to a holy site associated with gods, saints, or heroes, or to a natural setting imbued with spiritual power...always, it is a journey of risk and renewal. For a journey without challenge has no meaning; one without purpose has no soul.

~ from THE ART OF THE PILGRIM by Phil Cousineau
Phil Cousineau The Art Of The Pilgrim journey Buy on Amazon

All journeys have a secret destination of which the traveler is unaware.

~ from TALES OF THE HASIDIM by Martin Buber
Martin Buber Tales Of The Hasidim journey Buy on Amazon
It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.
~ Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry journey Buy on Amazon

I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out until sundown, for going out, I found was really going in.

~ John Muir
John Muir journey Buy on Amazon

At its heart, the journey of each life is a pilgrimage through unforeseen sacred places that enlarge and enrich the soul.

~ John O'Donohue
John O'Donohue journey Buy on Amazon

July/August 2011 (Vol. XXIV, No. 7)

Summer Blessings, dear friends!  Vacation season is here and many of us are traveling in the literal sense during these months.  Opportunities for rest, relaxation, and fun are real gifts, and we enjoy visiting  new places and exploring unfamiliar surroundings.  As we travel in the world, our spiritual journey is ongoing as well, down at the heart of everything.  It's wonderful to have opportunities to  enjoy all we see and hear and taste and feel outwardly, but let us also be attentive to what is happening on the inner path.  Inner and outer often overlap, and we may become aware of marvelous cues and synchronicities in the outer world that offer opportunities for much growth and progress on our inner journey.

Much of life…is about awakening to the interior experience.In our day-to-day living, we come to see how all of our physical journeying is not simply a temporal exercise, a transitory, earthly trek, but increasingly points to a shared and liberating inner passage . . .As Christianity and all the great religious traditions of the world testify, our surface-level living is the symbolic acting out of a deep inward pilgrimage leading to -- and beyond -- the gates of the heart.
 

~ from THE ISLE OF MONTE CHRISTO by S. T. Georgiou
S. T. Georgiou The Isle Of Monte Christo journey

There comes a time in the spiritual journey when you start making choices from a very different place . . .And if a choice lines up so that it supports truth, health, happiness, wisdom, and love, it’s the right choice.
 

~ Angeles Arrien
Angeles Arrien journey

The real journey in life is interior.
It is a matter of growth, deepening,
and of an ever greater surrender to the
creative love and grace in our hearts.
 

~ Thomas Merton
Thomas Merton journey

Everything we need for growing into a full, rich relationship with God is already available in our lives.We need to pray, stay open, and not become discouraged.A spiritual journey is not a competitive event; we can all be on a spiritual quest.God comes to each of us in the native language of our soul.Gradually the language grows and expands, but no one grows in just the same way as someone else.We need to accept ourselves as we are and keep ourselves open to being changed and shaped by a life lived in growing intimacy with God.
 

~ from JEWISH SPIRITUAL GUIDANCE by Carol Ochs and Kerry M. Olitzky
Kerry M. Olitzky, Carol Ochs Jewish Spiritual Guidance journey

The outer path we take is public knowledge, but the path with heart is an inner one. The two come together when who we are that is seen in the world coincides with who we deeply are. As we grow wiser, we become aware that the important forks in the road are usually not about choices that will show up on any public record; they are decisions and struggles to do with choosing love or fear; anger or forgiveness; pride or humility. They are soul-shaping choices.
 

~ from CRONES DON’T WHINE by Jean Shinoda Bolen, thanks to Liz Stewart
Jean Shinoda Bolen Crones Don't Whine journey Buy on Amazon

With each discovery of truth about ourselves, we come to a crossroad on our journey toward God.One path leads to denial and despair . .. the other to holiness.
 

~ Robert Wicks
Robert Wicks journey

From the forest branches fading
    birdsong offered
Self-sacrifice to a huge silence.
Dark formlessness settled over all
    diversity
Of land and water.As shadows, as particles,
    my body
Fused with endless night.I came to rest
At the altar of the stars.Alone, amazed,
    I stared
Upwards with hands clasped and said,
    "Sun, you have removed
Your rays: show now your loveliest,
    kindlier form
That I may see the Person who dwells in
    me as in you."
 

~ The Borderlands - 9 - Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore The Borderlands - 9 journey

There is a time in every life
when the very act
of looking back and taking stock
becomes essential
to going forward.

Without the light
that shines out of the darkness
of the past,
we cannot chart
a new path
to the future.
 

~ from MONASTERIES OF THE HEART by Joan Chittister
Joan Chittister Monasteries Of The Heart journey

We may enjoy an experience of God that is so delightful that we may think all our troubles are over and we have at last completed the journey.Then after a few hours or a few days we find ourselves on the spiral staircase again and cannot even remember the pleasures of that transient experience of divine union.The whole purpose of this alternation is to bring the soul to the total transformation of love.
 

~ from FRUITS AND GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT by Thomas Keating
Thomas Keating Fruits And Gifts Of The Spirit journey

A God seeker is a person on a journey.When the thirst has been awakened, we are no longer persons wandering aimlessly about, but persons who have begun to discern the bare outlines of a path.We become more than wanderers.It is a journey based upon the assumption that there is more to life than meets the eye.
 

~ from MORE THAN WANDERERS by James Fenhagen
James Fenhagen More Than Wanderers journey

There is no there anywhere, no destination, only ways through,
passages, resting spots, doors that swing open to where
a vision is hammered out, painted, written, sung or prayed
behind the facade of the common.
 

~ from ALL THE DAYS OF MY LIFE by Marv and Nancy Hiles
Marv and Nancy Hiles All The Days Of My Life journey Buy on Amazon

To journey hopefully is better than to arrive.
 

~ Chinese Proverb
Chinese Proverb journey

There is no glimpse of the light without walking the path.You can’t get it from anyone else, nor can you give it to anyone.You take whatever steps seem easiest for you, and as you take a few steps it will be easier to take a few more.
 

~ Peace Pilgrim
Peace Pilgrim journey

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