“Pilgrimage always awakens a rebellious, archaic part of us: our appetites become rough and uncompromising, our impulses become inspired. Because walking longer distances puts us on the vertical axis of life: swept along by the torrent of earth that rushes just beneath us. I guess what I mean by this is that by walking purposefully you are not ever going to meet yourself. For by walking purposefully, you escape from the very idea of separate identity, the temptation to be someone, to have a name and a history, to be successful. Being an individual is all very well for smart parties where everyone is telling their own amazing stories, and it’s just as well for the droning yammerings of psychologists’ consulting rooms. And yet ‘being someone’ also becomes a social obligation which trails in its own wake – for one has to remain faithful to one’s own self-portrait – which is ultimately a highly inaccurate and quite burdensome fiction. True freedom, then, can be found in activities that divest oneself from such delusions of ‘self’ & ‘other’ – activities like being kind to strangers, and openly forgiving one’s enemies, and walking while consciously at one with one’s surroundings. For the walking body – like the loving heart – has no history and no name. It is simply an eddy in the stream of life immemorial.” ~ inspired by Frédéric Gros

Filed under: Peace Pilgrimage #02: Walking HOME (2019) by Scaughdt