Pilgrimage and Play

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If you begin to think of each step you take, each errand, each journey, as a pilgrimage, an opportunity to reflect, feel, breathe, and arrive, there is a sacred energy that may permeate your day. Start with an intentional outing for creating reflective space in your body and mind. We show up first for our body with breath and movement. Then, our mind has time to run it’s course and quiet down and relax. Consider the conditions perfect for exploration and sensation.

Our ability to make play with others and our environment opens the door for profound experience, emotion, and learning. When we play, there is an opportunity for deep integration of personal, communal, and universal understanding. Games are a classic way to teach children important lessons about their own bodies and emotions, how to relate to others, and build skills in creativity. Play, however, shouldn’t be reserved just for classrooms and recess activities. Adults need to harness this diverting-of-the-self quality of being and get lost in a sense of curiosity and possibility.

Without a sense of humor and a facet of revelry, we are subject to losing a piece of our spirit. The spirit is a delightful creature of impulse. If you don’t practice intuitive or spontaneous behavior, chances are you feel a little dead inside. But, do not fret! For if we lift our heads up, raise each foot after the other, and lean into the space in front of us, the spirit gets very enthusiastic and can be the best of all partners for an adventure! Once your spirit is provoked in this way, you’ll probably find that other people and their spirits become magnetized to you. The more the merrier! Go forth, together, on multitudinous mini-pilgrimages to the street corner, to the park, to the river-side, the grocery store, to a whole new place, to your favorite tree or patch of clover, to a night of music and dance, or just around the block, go.