What happens when six strangers travel from Seattle to Scotland to walk and write together?
Triumph over a challenge, for one.
Incredible prose and poetry, for another.
And, perhaps most importantly, the creation of a community.
Over the next few weeks, I'll be posting about our recent adventure along St. Cuthbert's Way, an 80-plus-mile, 8-day walk starting in the Scottish borderland village of Melrose and ending on the wandering trails of The Holy Island of Lindisfarne, located across the border in England.
"St. Who?" you ask. And who could blame you? Despite having been raised Catholic and spending countless nights riveted by the (often-gruesome) stories in the 700-plus pages of "Butler's Lives of the Saints," I'd never heard of Cuthbert.
However, since this long walk is both an official, non-religious, historical Scotland Great Trail and an official pilgrimage, you should have some background on its namesake. Thus, I offer you Cuthbert's greatly abridged story:
Cuthbert was a shepherd boy who became a monk who became a bishop who became a healer who became a wildlife conservationist who became a hermit who became a saint — pretty much in that order.
He lived most of his life in the monasteries of Melrose and Lindisfarne in the Kingdom of Northumbria, located today in south-eastern Scotland and north-eastern England, respectively. Among many other things, he has been called one of the earliest wildlife conservationists for his efforts to protect local birds.
Cuthbert was also called 'the Wonder Worker of Britain' for the array of human healings attributed to him. But he was and is most known as a leader of a significant spiritual melding within the Roman (Catholic) church of his time. That is, he was integral in the church's integration of the Celtic traditions of the Indigenous Scots with the more man-god faith of Christians. Celtic religion is rooted in nature, the cycles of the moon, sun, and stars, and a belief in the supernatural forces of all aspects of the natural world. The post-Cuthbert church was far more comfortable with references to the animal-nature-human connection.
St. Cuthbert's Way is, ostensibly, the hilly path that the not-yet-saint walked from his post at Melrose Abbey to Lindisfarne (called Holy Island), where he retired to spend the last days of his life as a hermit.
It zigzags up and down the beautiful (if steeply inclined) Eildon Hills, moves along the meandering River Tweed, intersects with the old Roman Road across Scotland, and passes by a castle, a cave, more than one cairn, and the 13th Century market town of Wooler. The latter is the largest settlement in the Cheviot Hills, FYI.
Along the way, walkers encounter steep rocky climbs, whipping winds, inevitable rain, sticky mud, and, depending on the time of year, the possibility of biting midges. They also meet the incredible hospitality of the Scottish people, a fantastic array of dogs, many plates of eggs and bacon, and some of the most breathtaking country landscapes in the UK.
The writers who have joined me on this path have each come for their own reason, of course, and I think all with an earnest desire to meet themselves anew on the page. There are no practicing Catholics among us, so we are not counting on plenary indulgences. Instead, we've come here to learn about ourselves and each other, spend time in nature, move slightly outside our comfort zones, tickle the creative centers of our brains, and, ultimately, see what these things bring to the page.
And yet, this is a pilgrimage.
I've read a lot of definitions of this word over the years. Thus far, the one that feels most true to me is this: "A pilgrimage is a journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about their self."
Every person on this walk came having read this definition before deciding to come. Having walked other pilgrim paths, I have no doubt each will find whatever new or expanded meaning of themself meant to be found in the process of moving through space, time, and paper with intention.
In its shortest definition, to make a pilgrimage is to leave one place and arrive at another. I know there is a place (or, perhaps, a way of being) I want to leave behind as I start this walk. I have no idea at what or where I will arrive. But I look forward to sharing my pilgrimage with you wherever it takes me.
And, while I can't share the journey experienced by the others, I look forward to sharing some of the writings that find them as they walk — each moving toward their unique moment and place of arrival.
Thanks for following us on our adventure! In the end, if the journey intrigues you, come write and walk this path with me next April.
Or, consider taking the writing prompts we use along the path and included in these posts and seeing where they lead you.
But for now, off we go.
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The Writing
Haiku before a path
Here, on a new path
Wind waiting, dark clouds parting
“Come!” they shout. “Come!”
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Shoes full of myself
Could flexibility find
Me on this long road?
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Begin, the winds says
I listen hard once again
And ‘Yes’ sings out loud.
— Cheryl Murfin
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