This was the first Roots into Reverence pilgrimage in Devon and the first in the depths of winter. We started out in the pale afternoon light of an early December day and the light faded as we walked a circular route from St Mary’s Church, Dartington. We walked in silence and in song and each carried an intention or prayer offered to the earth with every footstep.
There was a feeling of ‘being cradled’ about the whole day. Cradled by the church, the trees, the darkness and a freshly formed circle of friends. There is both an ordinariness and a profundity about walking together in pilgrimage. As we set out in daylight, it felt beautiful and comfortably ordinary to be trudging along paths where many of us work and live. The call to pilgrimage is so simple. It is only putting one foot in front of the other, just this step and then the next. And then, when it is time, it is only answering the call for shelter, the call to take rest in sacred spaces and the warmth and company of others.
On this walk we took our shelter under the grandmotherly branches of the yews at Dartington and Staverton, forming a circle to speak our intentions into the air, then breaking it to stomp them into the earth, forming a circle again to share communion. The circles of our footsteps and the circles made by our bodies mirroring the circle of the year as it comes to an end ready to start again.
As day turned to evening the ordinary faded from view and something more hidden made itself known. Darkness and shadow can have fearful connotations in our brightly lit world. Walking into it in this way brought back a cellular memory of darkness as a place of safety and mysterious creativity. I can see why the early Christians chose this season to celebrate the birth of Christ, the coming of the light. The winter darkness has a gestational quality to it, a tangible sense that something is about to be birthed. As we walked through the fading light, it felt as though we were actively walking into the darkness, entering into its mysteries in a bodily way. It reminded me that at this time of year all the action is on the inside, in the dark places beneath the earth and under the surface of nuts and seeds. We walked back through the woods torchless, letting our night instincts lead us. As it deepened, the darkness took on a velvety, embracing quality. I could almost touch it, felt it touching me, wrapping itself around me like a blanket or a snake. The trees lost their visible clarity and became looming benevolent shadows rustling and whispering. The Dart which was a shiny and entrancing companion in the daylight, disappeared in the gloom making itself known by its roar. We too become creatures more of sound and silence than of sight. We broke silence just before darkness fell and some of us spoke to each other for the first time. These meetings took on a different quality in the darkness. Voices are more musical and words carry different significance when they are detached from faces and outward appearance. The silent spaces between sounds seem to stretch and widen. Things become clear, not because we can study them and see all the details, but because something of their essence emerges.
The darkness is beautiful for its own sake and also for the promise of light within it. At this time of year, the light itself is mostly gone from our experience, making the flickers of light that do appear all the more poignant. The short days are so pale and beautiful and gone in a heartbreaking flash. And in the darkness it feels so good to turn towards the light in our own hearts, the mysterious sparks of electricity that makes our hearts beat. As we formed our final circle in the church we turned the electric lights off and lit candles to represent the intentions we had walked with, the brave, bright, flickering lights representing the courage of each human heart hidden beneath the skin.
Pilgrimage reflections by Jess Stein