We recently returned from a week in Cornwall, and where we stayed was close to the end of a pilgrim route, St Michael’s Way. This is a short twelve and a half mile walk from the North Cornish coast to St Michael’s Mount, in Mount’s Bay on the South coast. Although the route is such a short one – a day’s walk for most people – it still apparently qualifies for a pilgrim ‘stamp’ on the official pilgrim passport for the very much longer long-distance Camino pilgrimage, since in the Middle Ages many pilgrims walked this route to the Benedictine monastery on the island, then took a boat to France to continue on towards Santiago de Compostela.
I am interested in learning – as far as it is possible for the staunchly non-religious person to learn – what the religious get out of pilgrimages. In the past, they were generally viewed as a way of gaining merit, of putting a few points in the bank when it came to whether you were headed for heaven or hell in the afterlife. Frequently, they were also undertaken in the hope of cures from diseases; various remnants of saints such as bones or clothing were held to have miraculous properties, and the touch of these might cure whichever disease ailed you.
Personally, I view pilgrimage as a spiritual thing, rather than a religious one. Something that puts the pilgrim in touch with their ‘finer’ feelings – a way of understanding what is important in life; relationships, simplicity, art maybe, minimal possessions – we will all have a different interpretation of this. In the past I have considered attempting one of the Camino routes – through France and Northern Spain to Santiago de Compostela. These are long, serious, routes, hundreds of miles long. Had I done so, I would have walked these for pleasure, as well as a personal challenge, rather than as a pilgrimage. Now, though, I am curious to see how much of the ‘religious’ experience I might have.
Whether visiting a church or a standing stone, a ‘holy’ well or a Sufi shrine, all are invested with spirituality. All are invested with meaning to many people and although I know I will never be able to experience the feelings of, say, a Christian at a site they consider holy, I might experience something akin to it. I’m not suggesting I might feel awe at the shrine of a saint, more that I might get an impression of the feelings of the visitors who do. And because I cannot quite find the words to express what I might hope to find, I reckon that’s an indication it’s an experiment worth making.
Mick Canning 