A Primer for Pilgrims: Soul*Sparks

By Steven McFadden

Journey along the Beauty Way

Pilgrims have long sought out holy places: forest groves, healing springs, pyramids, mountains, churches, temples, mosques, labyrinths, and more. Millions have traveled for a host of soul-related reasons.

Whether we go willingly or unwillingly, whether we regard ourselves as tourists, business agents, or sacred travelers, in the end we are all pilgrims.

A pilgrimage is a journey, not only outward to a faraway place, but also, inevitably, inward toward growth and understanding. In our transitional era of the 21st Century pilgrimage is also an essential spiritual deed. In a right and respectful manner, pilgrimage can help maintain the balance of our planet, our lands, our waters, our lives.

A Primer for Pilgrims is a benevolent guide to personal spiritual growth, as well as to earth healing. It's also a collection of true stories about critical geospiritual actions in places near and far.

A Primer for Pilgrims offers insight, excitement, adventure, inspiration, and further...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Light and Sound Press, LLC
• Release date: Jul 6, 2023
• ISBN: 9781311608222

Steven McFadden

Independent journalist Steven McFadden has been writing about CSA farms since their inception in America in 1986. With Trauger Groh he is co-author of the first two books on CSA: Farms of Tomorrow: Community Supported Farms, Farm Supported Communities (1990) and Farms of Tomorrow Revisited (1998). He’s also the author of The Call of the Land: An Agrarian Primer for the 21st Century. His other non-fiction books include: Profiles in Wisdom; Teach Us To Number Our Days; Legend of the Rainbow Warriors; A Primer for Pilgrims; and Classical Considerations. He’s also author of a contemporary, epic, nonfiction saga of North America that is freely available online: Odyssey of the 8th Fire.

Book preview

A Primer for Pilgrims

By Steven McFadden

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Soul*Sparks Books

An imprint of Light and Sound Press, LLC

updated – March, 2023

ISBN: 978-1-7923-0925-0

Copyright - 2014

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Acknowledgements

This e-book is created and licensed for your reading enjoyment. I offer it as the result of my travels, my experience, my encounters, and my labor.

Many people have earned my respect and appreciation for their influence and for their help. I thank especially my muse and partner in life, Elizabeth Wolf. Thanks also to the pilgrims and elders, whose enduring messages are woven into this e-book. My appreciation and thanksgiving to all. ~ S.M.

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For pilgrim soul

Marie Dolores Fitzsimmons McFadden

(1921-2014)

And for Everyone

On the Road

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Table of Contents

Passage 1 –  Compass

Passage 2 –  Threshold

Passage 3 –  Sacred Places

Passage 4 –  Broken Places

Passage 5 –  Placemaking

Passage 6 –  Spinning the Medicine Wheel

Passage 7 –  Odyssey – 8th Fire

Passage 8 –  Longriver

Passage 9 –  Overcome Evil with Good

Passage 10 – Walks Far Woman

Passage 11 – On the Road

Passage 12 – Consider Odysseus

Passage 13 – Pilgrimage to the Heart of Avanyu

Passage 14 – Redeeming an Unholy Fire

Passage 15 – Precepts for Pilgrims

Passage 16 – Rite of Return

About the Author

Reviews

Soul*Sparks Books

Passage 1 - Compass

The journey is the thing. ~ Homer, Odyssey

In a wealth of ways across a wide span of traditions and hundreds of generations, pilgrims have sought out holy places: forest groves, healing wells or springs, pyramids, mountains, churches, temples, stone circles or labyrinths. Millions of people have traveled for a host of reasons.

In the end, whether we go willingly or unwillingly, whether we regard ourselves as tourists, business agents, or sacred travelers, we are all pilgrims. A pilgrimage is a journey, not only outward to a faraway place, but also, inevitably, inward toward spiritual understanding and growth. In our era pilgrimage can be as well a critical geospiritual deed to help maintain the balance of our land, our planet, our lives.

When I was a child of seven years I journeyed with my parents to the western end of New York, the Empire State, to the Canadian border. There—as millions of others have done—I beheld the mighty rushing waters of Niagara Falls. I was suffused with awe. Such power, such magnificence. As it is every day on the rim above the falls, the air was alive with chi or ki or prana, different ways of naming the naturally invigorating cascade of energy which distinguishes this Wonder of the World, and many other holy places as well. The rush of energy fills the body through the lungs and permeates the soul. The utter holiness of the falls made an indelible impression.

In the decades that have followed that first pilgrimage I’ve been to dozens of sensitive places: the sacred mounds of the Midwest, the temples and pyramids of Mexico and Central America, the roiling ocean shore at both the Eastern Door and the Western Gate, and many a mountain summit.

I’ve been privileged to participate in journeys to the Grand Canyon, Chillicothe, the National Cathedral in Washington, to Agua Azul Falls in the Yucatan and Chickamauga Mound at Moccasin Bend in Tennessee. I also experienced an epic prayer walk of eight months across the back of Turtle Island (North America). From all of this, insights have arisen. This book shares some of those insights, and serves as a primer for other souls summoned by life and by the extreme circumstances of our era to set foot upon pilgrim pathways.

Niagara Falls

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Predominantly, the tale and the passages in this book are focused here in North America, and draw heavily from the root traditions of Turtle Island (North America) — the teachings of the land and of the human beings who have served for thousands of years as keepers of the land.

But the book also acknowledges, honors, draws from the many cultures and traditions which have streamed onto Turtle Island over the last 500+ years. We have long needed, and finally have begun to find ways to graft those far-flung traditions from Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Australia, Asia, and beyond — onto the indigenous rootstock that is so deeply embedded here. So many teachings make beautiful sense, in both the short and the long term, in ways both common and rare.

Readers will discover as the book progresses that three of the Passages, or chapters, relate facets of an epic walk from the Atlantic to the Pacific that took place in 1995-96, a pilgrimage that was guided by Native elders. I was privileged to be part of that expedition, and from it gained many lessons. Two other chapters concern a walk of historical importance. Pilgrims came to America from Japan bearing with them a lantern lit with a flame that had been ignited on August 6, 1945 when the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. The pilgrims came in prayer to extinguish the flame.

Both of these long walks offer a wealth of insight about the challenges that arise in pilgrimage and the profound good that such a spiritual exercise may bring – not just for the individual pilgrims, but for the world at large.

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Pilgrims may set out to do penance for past evils, to find answers to questions, to invoke blessings, to pursue spiritual ecstasy, or to seek a miracle for a friend or family member. Increasingly in our era, pilgrims also set out to help heal the earth.

In most mystical traditions it is said that the human soul itself, every human soul, is on a pilgrimage, consciously or unconsciously. He or she is bound for a holy place and therefore life is not just for enjoyment, but the soul also has dharma, a purpose or objective that must ever be kept in focus.

Now as you set out on the literary pilgrimage of reading this book, my hope as the author is that it will offer up some useful compass points to help you maintain your bearings.

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Temple of KuKulkan - or El Castillo in Chichen Itza, located on the

Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico - a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

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Journeys to luminous locations are often undertaken by people with scant understanding of what pilgrimage is and the principles that have been found to enhance it. Thus, they may see only what they have come to see, whereas intentional pilgrims may more readily open doors of perception, encounter revelation, and gain constructive power.

A spiritual pilgrimage by its very nature provides a fresh vantage, and awakens our capacity to see and understand things with greater