Ancestral Pilgrimage
In her article ‘How travel might become more like spiritual pilgrimage: an autoethnographic study’ Laura Beres identifies the stages that constitute undertaking a travel pilgrimage. When we embark on a journey back to the ‘homelands’ we too are undertaking a pilgrimage, albeit an ancestral pilgrimage. For many of us our ancestors migrated across the seas, mine ancestors boarded the ships in the British Isles (Scotland and Ireland) during the 1800’s and immigrated to Australia. They disembarked on the ports of Melbourne, Hobart and New South Wales.
Even though they never returned to their homelands, I feel the tug at my heart to travel to Scotland and Ireland. Whether it is pulsing through my DNA or simply an inherited heart yearning, I seek to walk the land they lived on. This I seek for many reasons – a greater understanding, cultural awareness, historical significance, deepening self-awareness and to ‘close the circle’.
I was privileged to travel in the March 2019 to Scotland. For four glorious weeks I walked the city streets of Edinburgh, took the rail to Inverness, stood in awe at Skye and wondered along the banks of the River Tay. At that point though I had only just started my ancestral search. I had only uncovered a small number of ancestors who had migrated from Scotland. Now, two years on I have discovered so many more ancestors who originated from Ireland and Scotland.
When those international borders come down, I will when possible make an ancestral pilgrimage to these lands.
According to Beres one of the major benefits of undertaking a pilgrimage is that ‘on returning home, it is impossible to think that your way of life is the only way of life’. [1] We become more open to difference. It is the journey, not the destination, that differentiates a tourist from a pilgrim.
Here are the stages constituting a pilgrimage:
- Preparation, which involves the planning of the trip and gathering the resources necessary before departing
- the Journey itself
- the Arrival at your destination
- Return, back to whence you came
- Reintegration, it is here where we reflect, and integrate any new insights from our journey and perhaps make changes in our life.
Perhaps consider deeply your next journey, undertake it consciously and become curious about what could be revealed.
[1] Laura Beres, ‘How travel might become more like spiritual pilgrimage: An autoethnographic study‘, Journal for the Study of Spirituality, vol. 8, no. 2, 2018, pp. 160-172.
