The Art of Pilgrimage | Rabbi Shefa Gold

In 1980 I hitch-hiked through Europe with a guitar, a change of clothes, a tent and a sleeping bag. I was learning the “Art of the Road.” I was learning to open my eyes. I traveled without a set itinerary, determined to open to a new adventure each day. Daily I was forced to let go of expectations and I encountered generosity in the most unexpected places. I kept making plans, only to see them dissolve in the light of startling synchronicities and unforeseen encounters. Every place of rigidity in me was forced to bend or soften.

As I stood at the tip of the Greek mainland, at the Temple of Poseidon, I heard the call of Jerusalem. I decided to make my journey into a pilgrimage. I imagined standing before the Western Wall of the ancient Temple and bringing the force of my whole life’s longing as my offering to lay before God. I imagined standing before that Wall with so much love, that all the walls between myself and God might be shattered.

In that moment of Intention, my journey was transformed. At one level I still looked like a sight-seer, entertained by history and strange customs. Yet I also knew that as a pilgrim, each step of my journey had the power to strip me bare, so that I might finally stand before God and know myself.

It was a wonderful and dangerous journey. The military had recently taken over the government in Turkey; there was a civil war going on in Syria; and then the Iran/Iraq War broke out, with Syria and Jordan taking sides against each other. I was learning about the subtle arts of survival, bargaining and bribery. I was, for the first time, stepping out of the “Western” world-view, learning new rules and unlearning so much that I had believed certain.

Meanwhile, I was keeping a meticulous journal of my inner life. I knew that each strange scene I confronted was reflecting back to me some aspect of my inner landscape that I had till that day been ignoring. I was determined to use each step of my pilgrimage as a vehicle for self-discovery. I was determined to see each person I met as a messenger who had come to teach me something essential.

I arrived at the Wall in Jerusalem in the middle of the night in the pouring rain. I was tired but more alive than I had ever been. Each outward step towards Jerusalem had also been an inward step of uncovering the complexities of my own heart. The daily Jewish prayer says, “LiYerushalayim ircha, b’rachamim tashuv.” (To Jerusalem Your City, you will return with Compassion.)

As I approached that ancient holy wall, I tried to keep my heart steady with compassion. The sound of rain against stone seemed like the tears of all my ancestors flooding me now… and then I heard a voice, calling me. “Hey Baby, come here and kiss me!” I could not believe it. The voice was coming from the guard-booth at the edge of the courtyard where a bored but insistent Israeli soldier was beckoning to me.

I turned to him, exasperated. I sighed and thought, “I can’t believe you’re ruining this historic moment!”

Turning back toward the Wall, I tried to compose myself and focus my intention to be wholehearted before God. The whole time I stood there praying, the soldier kept yelling through the rain, “Kiss me, Kiss me!” And I couldn’t help but laugh.

Many years later I studied the Song of Solomon whose opening line says, “Kiss me with the kisses of your mouth, for your sweet loving is better than wine.”

Finally I am able to receive the hidden message of my pilgrimage. That obnoxious Israeli guard who only knew a few words of English was my messenger, my angel, come to tell me:

God is calling you to intimacy with the Reality before you. “Kiss me,” Life says. “Open to the truth of God in this moment. Open to the fullness of pleasure and pain. Every time you turn towards the past or towards an abstract idea, I will call you back to Me through a simple yet profound engagement with Life. Your sweet loving is better than wine, better than an abstract ideal, better than getting high, better than fame, better than sex, better than knowing a lot, better than success. Kiss me, Kiss me!”

To embark on a pilgrimage is to open to the message that you have spent your whole life resisting. To embark on a pilgrimage is to be willing to leave behind the familiar comforts, habits, addictions and self-definitions, and walk straight into the Truth of who you were meant to be.

Is there place in the world that compels you, someplace where you’ve always wanted to go? For me, one of those places has been Machu Picchu. In March of 2008 we will embark on a pilgrimage. Our trip is a pilgrimage inwards aided by daily journeys to special sites. Our pilgrimage will take us to some of the most sacred and most magnificent natural sites in the South of Peru. We will journey to the most-magnificent Machu Picchu sanctuary, the Inca sacred valley, and hike through archeological ruins. We will also meet and converse with local Indigenous practitioners. We will travel to enjoy incredible natural sites and visit the people who still make those mountains, rivers, and valleys their home.

My dream is to gather a group of people who will travel together with me as pilgrims and support each other in our heart’s yearning for wholeness. Each morning we will gather to build and refine our intentions, using practices of meditation, chant and prayer. Then we will spend our days exploring the sacred sites and beautiful landscapes of southern Peru and meeting the people who live there. Each evening we will gather again to reflect, integrate our experiences and celebrate the insights we have received.