Rational cynic gets spiritual - shock horror!

It started in Germany and it will end in Germany. Maybe.

Together with my wife, I am going to walk from my birthplace, in the East End of London, to her birthplace in the north west of Bavaria. It will be my pilgrimage.

Now I know that this may not sound like a very religious pilgrimage but I am a secular kind of guy and it will be a spiritual journey for reasons I hope to explain. But first, let me tell you how it came about.

Earlier this year, my wife, who will henceforth be referred to as Doris, was listening to the radio while doing creative things in her studio. As I wandered through, I was stopped in my tracks by a mellifluous voice. It turned out to be Satish Kumar (http://www.resurgence.org/satish/index.htm).

Something about what he said made me realise that spirituality need not be equated with religion, or new age fads, as I had always done. And it made me realise that I had never given any real attention to the spiritual aspect of my life. This was quite a revelation to a secular person like me, raised at the altar of science and fact. One who always skipped the spirituality section of those life planning sessions that one is forced to endure on “executive” training programmes.

Although I only caught the end of the interview with Satish, there was enough to make me to want know more. So I bought his autobiography, No Destination, which I am in the process of reading. It is a beautiful book by a remarkable man. It is the sort of book that I enjoy reading now and again to get an injection of, dare I say, spiritual beauty.

Last week, visiting Doris’s family in Germany, I was reading the book. Satish explained that in Indian culture, it was a tradition to complete a pilgrimage before the end, I think, of one’s fiftieth year. He went on to describe his own pilgrimage, at that age, from Devon to Iona, visiting the holy places of Britain - an Indian former Jain monk on a spiritual journey around other people’s religious sites!

What really struck me about Satish’s description of that journey was that the much spirituality came not from the religious sites, often no more than museums, but from the people he met and the nature around him. (At this point, I have to hurriedly add that this is my own interpretation of what he wrote, filtered through my own lense. If I have misrepresented him, I offer him my profound apologies.)

Reading this, with my fiftieth birthday approaching next March, my subconscious began to contemplate the idea of a pilgrimage. By the time that I told Doris about it, I knew that it was something I wanted to do. Doris being Doris, the most open-minded free spirit I have ever met, was completely supportive. The only question was where to? And indeed, where from?

To cut a long story short, as my mum would say, but never does, we decided to walk from where I was born to where Doris was born – some six hundred miles. No cars, no buses, no planes – just a boat across the channel.

So yes, it may be a relatively secular pilgrimage but I know it will be good for my spirit. And it is after all, a journey to the birthplace of my Goddess.