a pilgrim

About Me:

About my icon: The Flammarion engraving is a wood engraving by an unknown artist, so named because its first documented appearance is in Camille Flammarion's 1888 book L'atmosphère: météorologie populaire ("The Atmosphere: Popular Meteorology"). The engraving has often, but erroneously, been referred to as a woodcut. It has been used to represent a supposedly medieval cosmology, including a flat earth bounded by a solid and opaque sky, or firmament, and also as a metaphorical illustration of either the scientific or the mystical quests for knowledge. Source: Wikipedia

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The term pilgrim is not a term that I had ever identified myself with. Until, that is, one of my “keyboard pals” (when I was a kid we referred to such relationships as being “pen pals”), after we had been having a robust exchange of perspectives, indicated to me that I was a pilgrim. And, with his indication, he also sent me the link to Enna singing the song, Pilgrim. After listening to the song, reading the lyrics and looking up the definition of the word pilgrim, my friend’s indication hit home. Yeah, I’m a pilgrim! Whadda ya know!

When I looked up pilgrim in Wikipedia the first sentence was all I needed. Here’s that sentence: “A pilgrim (from the Latin peregrinus) is a traveller (literally one who has come from afar) who is on a journey to a holy place.” This sentence is both a concise and accurate description of what I am being, doing and having. But, I want to point out, it is not a description of who or what I am. That’s another story.

Recently I came across a quote by Osho that added a bit more insight to my being a pilgrim.

“If you think that you are rooted and you are at home in this world, you must be living below humanity, because anyone who is 'really' human immediately becomes aware that this cannot be the life.

“It may be a passage, a journey, but this cannot be the goal. And once you feel homeless in this world, then the search starts.” ~Osho

What can I say…when I arrived in this world, while feeling very loved, cared for and protected by my family, ‘I’ still felt homeless. Thus the search continued (but continued through a new identity). Remember, “a pilgrim is literally one who has come from afar.” And “afar” is a relative term.

I have never been one who has felt at home navigating out in the mainstream. Instead, I have always been attracted to those creeks less traveled and not nearly so well mapped out or littered with an abundance of arbitrary “I‘m supposed tos.“ That said, my coming here to blog on TCW is something like going to a grape festival and setting up an orange stand. Nevertheless, TCW is our “community online” and for better or worse, I am an active part of said community. So, here I am and while I will, more often than not, bring an unfamiliar (perhaps sometimes abrasive) perspective to the table, I’m of the mind that diversity of perspectives is more healthy than not.

I must confess that my deciding to blog on TCW was not a self generated decision. Instead, it was a seed planted by another and with some consistent and gentle nudging that seed was caused to germinate at which point I embraced it as my own. At first, I just couldn’t see the point now, though, I clearly see the point.

One more thing…

I’ve been traveling the creeks less traveled for sixty years now and there isn’t one of those creeks that’s exactly like another. They each have their peculiarities. And while some are a bit on the “airy fairy” side, others can get pretty dark and scary. In any case, traveling some of these creeks makes for some good stories. Maybe I’ll share a few via my blogs.

Peace out,
A pilgrim