Award-winning Australian journalist Stephanie Dale shares with readers a very long walk she took in 2007 as she took time from her newly minted marriage to join her son Ben for a walkabout journey from Rome to Istanbul, all on foot for Ben; mostly on foot for Dale. It was during this walk that Dale not only traveled the beautiful countrysides of Europe and the Middle East, she also visited the inner landscapes of her mind and marriage. She took what she saw and experienced and put it on paper. The result: My Pilgrim's Heart.
In Pilgrim Heart: The Inner Journey Home, we see that pilgrimage is not just a literal journey or simply a spiritual metaphor, but rather an inspiring path toward greater self-understanding. Whether sharing the experience of her own pilgrimages to Nepal, Thailand, and the Celtic island of Iona, Scotland, or recounting the stories of others' spiritual journeys, Sarah York reveals to us how the cultural and physical discomforts of travel can lead to profound personal change. Beyond the going forth that pilgrimage demands, there is also the process of returning more at peace and at home with ourselves. To be a pilgrim means to have our hearts open to the struggle of being human and to allow that struggle to change us, no matter where our lives take us. Meet Sarah York! Click here to see if Sarah York site.
We all encounter times when our spirit feels dry, when doubt looms. The opportunity to tour Israel came at a good time. For months, my life has been a mindless plodding through necessary routine, as monotonous as an all-night shift on an assembly line. Life gets that way sometimes, when nothing specific is wrong but the world around us seems drained of color. Even my weekly worship experiences and daily quiet times with God have felt as dry and stale as last year's crackers. I'm ashamed to confess the malaise I've felt. I have been given so much. Shouldn't a Christian's life be an abundant one, as exciting as Christmas morning, as joyful as Easter Sunday? With gripping honesty, Lynn Austin pens her struggles with spiritual dryness in a season of loss and unwanted change. Tracing her travels throughout Israel, Austin seamlessly weaves events and insights from the Word . . . and in doing so finds a renewed passion for prayer and encouragement for her spirit, now full of life and hope.
The renowned author of eight books and abbess of the online retreat center Abbey of the Arts, Christine Valters Paintner takes readers on a new kind of pilgrimage: an inner journey to discover the heart of God. Eight stages of the pilgrim's way--from hearing the call to coming home--are accompanied by scripture stories of great biblical journeys and the author's unique and creative practices of prayer, writing, and photography. As she did in The Artist's Rule and Eyes of the Heart, Christine Valters Paintner once again helps readers travel to the frontiers of their souls to discover the hidden presence of God. In The Soul of a Pilgrim, Paintner identifies eight stages of the pilgrim's way and shows how to follow these steps to make an intentional, transformative journey to the reader's inner "wild edges." Each phase of the exploration requires a distinct practice such as packing lightly, being uncomfortable, or embracing the unknown. Paintner shows how to cultivate attentiveness to the divine through deep listening, patience, and opening oneself to the gifts that arise in the midst of discomfort. Each of the eight chapters offers reflections on the themes, a scripture story, an invitation to the practice of lectio divina, and a creative exploration through photography and writing.
A new approach to using walking to heal emotional trauma and bring forth optimal mental functioning • Explores why and how we carry emotional wounds, and how they can be healed and resolved • Shows how walking stimulates both sides of the brain to promote and restore mental health • Provides simple, yet potent, mental exercises to use while walking Our bodies usually heal rapidly from an illness, injury, or wound. Yet our minds and hearts often suffer for years with debilitating symptoms of distress or upset. Why is it so hard for our minds and hearts to heal? The key to healing them is simple and can be just a short walk away. Walking--a bilateral therapy that has been a part of human life throughout history--allows people to heal emotionally as quickly as they do physically. Bilateral therapies engage both sides of the brain and unlock natural states of optimal function and creativity. Thom Hartmann examines how memory works and why emotional shock can resist normal healing. He found that the simple act of walking is effective in treating emotional disturbances ranging from temporary upsets and problems to chronic conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. Case studies have shown dramatic results. Walking consciously, while holding a distress or desire in mind, can rapidly dissolve the rigidity of a traumatic memory or negative mind state, dispersing its unpleasant associations in as little as a half hour’s time. While walking has always been a natural part of life, its importance in promoting and maintaining mental health is only recently being rediscovered. Hartmann’s simple yet potent exercises allow us to create our own walking journeys to restore our mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being as well as rejuvenate our body’s health.
This is the story of a religious pilgrim's experiences as he wanders from place to place in Russia and Siberia in the middle of the nineteenth century.
My Pilgrim's Heart is a beautifully written story about simultaneous journeys: a woman's pilgrimage across the landscapes of Italy and Eastern Europe and a marriage on the line. At 48, Stephanie Dale took time out from her marriage to walk with her son from Rome to Istanbul. There were three things I walked on my journey from Rome. I walked the geographical landscape, allowing myself to meet the world and her people, the earth and its forces: the sunshine, mountains, wind and ocean. I walked the inner world, as within so without, exploring how the world before me mirrored my thoughts, beliefs and prejudices. And I walked my marriage. My Pilgrim's Heart is an extraordinarily honest narrative that explores the timeless issues of sex, money and power in a marriage. For even though Stephanie left her young and troubled marriage behind her, in reality it was with her every single step of the way - a much more significant weight than the 20kg she lugged on her back. This book is an uncommonly bold exploration of the relationships between women and men: between husband and wife, between mother and adult son, between a woman and the masculine world, between an Australian woman and the men of different cultures she meets on the road, West to East. The book is also a compelling voyage into the unnamed fears that shape our world.
