Saturday, February 25, 2017

Pilgrimage

Holy Places

If where you are isn't good enough, then love and healing and God will remain forever out of reach.”
Deepak Chopra (The Book of Secrets, p. 12)

I have always wanted to see Stonehenge. One of my favorite sites in Central America is the Mayan ruins at Tikal. I will never forget the silent presence spread across the battlefield at Appomattox Court House. I have friends who have made pilgrimages to the grotto of Mary Magdalene in the south of France, to the ashram of the Sai Baba in India to gather holy ash; who have been to drink the healing water at Lourdes, and to stand in the vision fields of Medjugorje, Yugoslavia. I have even known a handful of folks who attempted to scale Mt. Everest, and others who walked on the plains of Kilimanjaro. As a child, I sat for hours with the World Book Encyclopedia on my lap, amazed by the grainy photographs of the seven wonders of the world. Holy places, all. But, if we wait until we travel to a designated “holy place,” we may never experience the movement and energy of the universal Source.

That which we call Holy is everywhere equally—within and without, above and below, and surrounding us. It is not necessary to leave home and fly away to a distant land to feel the presence of divine energy—it's right here, right now, wherever you are. You probably have your favorite holy sites—places where you feel closest to the Presence—the North Carolina mountains come to mind for me. I call them “recharging stations,” where we go to recharge our spiritual batteries. We all have them. It's nice, but it's not essential to physically travel to them; you can go there in your mind. You can pull up the image from deep in your memory banks, layer on the sounds, the smells, the feel of the soil and the sun, and for five or ten minutes, be there every bit as much as if you had gotten in your car and driven for hours. You carry that holy ground within you because you yourself are holy.

                                                    In the Spirit,

                                                        Jane

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