Walking into hope on pilgrimage

When you hear the word ‘pilgrimage’, what do you think of? Monks self-flagellating on the way to Rome, The Wife of Bath preening on the way to Canterbury? Or more recently minor TV celebrities sharing their innermost thoughts on their way to Fatima?

A modern-day pilgrimage is simply a purposeful extended journey from one place of spiritual meaning to another, having set an intention. Those intentions fall into three categories: gratitude, penitence or supplication.

In the Middle Ages at the height of pilgrim fever, before Henry the Eighth banned pilgrimage for its idolatrous Papish saint-worshipping overtones, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims would walk or ride to English Holy sites from Lindisfarne to Canterbury

In the Middle Ages at the height of pilgrim fever, before Henry the Eighth banned pilgrimage for its idolatrous Papish saint-worshipping overtones, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims would walk or ride to English Holy sites from Lindisfarne to Canterbury and further afield, Santiago, Rome and Jerusalem with just a leather scrip (bag) and hazel staff, protected by the Knights Templar and hoping for their miracle.

READ MORE: To celebrate turning 70, I walked a 200 mile pilgrimage from Coventry to Bath

Modern day pilgrimage offers a taste of this experience to people of any and no faith. In my experience, it’s side-by side walking-talking therapy. A kind of holistic mind-body-spirit chaplaincy for those who prefer to be out in the natural beauty of creation, rather than inside a church building for a variety of reasons.

Now a trained walk leader, modern-day pilgrimage guide and bereavement befriender, I am a world away from running my busy charity marketing consultancy for over a decade when six years ago, following the tragic deaths of my husband and daughter a few years before, a relationship breakdown and death of my father just as the pandemic struck, were the final straw.

READ MORE: My husband and I did a ten-day tour of the Holy Land, and I learned three important things

As my mental health finally collapsed, I joined a specialist residential trauma recovery community in coastal Kent for a six-month sabbatical, which turned into two and a half years during lockdown.

As my mental health finally collapsed, I joined a specialist residential trauma recovery community in coastal Kent for a six-month sabbatical, which turned into two and a half years during lockdown. It was the best thing I could have done. Alongside the psychotherapeutic trauma recovery techniques I was learning, I discovered the healing power of long-distance walking and swimming in nature. The result was a whole new business and life purpose, Hope Walking.

I have since guided pilgrimages as diverse as the World Heritage site around Canterbury Cathedral, Pilgrim’s Way along the North Downs and onto the roof of Peterborough Cathedral. I also run pilgrimages focused on grief and loss. And those can be multitudinous losses, not just bereavements. People have opened up to me about burdens they have carried sometimes for decades, sometimes through generations. Relationships, finances, careers, health, dreams… all are deserving of our self-reflection, compassion and healing restoration.

READ MORE: How Cathedrals got me through university and why I’ll be watching ‘Britain’s Great Cathedrals: To the Glory of God’ this season

Last year following a traumatic car accident, I set out solo on my own 700 km trek across two countries to complete the world-famous Camino Portugues from Lisbon in Portugal to Santiago in Spain carrying my pack between hostels, raising money for charity with every step. As interest in modern pilgrimage, whether for religious, spiritual or cultural reasons continues to rise, record numbers of almost half a million walked, like me, to Santiago last year.

It was a life-altering inner and outer journey about which I am now writing a book. As on my own pilgrimages, science shows the very act of walking in nature releases our usual guarded selves and, likely also because we pilgrims may never see each other again, people often talk in jaw-dropping depth about the most intimate experiences and challenges of their lives. Feeling is healing, and often the tears flow with the memories and emotions previously suppressed within our brain’s storage systems and accessed by the rhythmic forward movement. Despite all life has thrown at me, guiding pilgrimages gives me this amazing opportunity to honour others by deeply listening, encouraging them into lives of purpose and freedom by sharing the practical, powerful psychotherapeutic techniques which helped me heal, alongside the hope at the heart of my faith.

This Autumn, I am offering these beneficial effects to people who would not want to take on such far away or physical challenges. I have joined with my minister, Revd Fiona Kouble to bring guided modern-day pilgrimages to the inclusive Cathedral of the Peak in the stunning Derbyshire Peak District. St John the Baptist Tideswell is ‘Mother’ to four other churches in the benefice: Cressbrook, Litton, Millers Dale and Wormhill.

I have called the Tideswell Pilgrimage ‘Mills and Martyrs’ because Tideswell benefice has a fascinating story connected with both the Elizabethan Padley Martyrs and the tragic treatment of the Victorian Litton orphan child millworkers, some of whom are buried in the churchyard, which many say inspired Dickens storyline for Oliver Twist.

Both welcome men and women of any and no faith. Bring your own beliefs, all are respected. The pilgrimage on All Hallows Day, 1 November will have a special (but not exclusive) focus on grief and loss, and there is a In Memory service at Tideswell Church at 3pm to follow on 2 November.

More on Hope Walking and Tideswell day pilgrimages 13 September and 1 November https://hopewalking.co.uk/  **and facebook **Hope Walking and Tideswell Church