Walking Home: The Return of Pilgrimage with Christine and Guests

Podcast
Written By Geneva Tolentino

There’s something timeless about setting out on foot, following ancient paths, and letting the rhythm of walking open up new ways of seeing the world—and ourselves. In this episode, Christine Mason is joined by a circle of fellow travelers and seekers to explore the meaning and magic of pilgrimage, from the sacred caves of southern France to the vibrant trails of India and beyond.

You’ll hear personal stories, reflections on the power of walking with intention, and insights into how these journeys can bring us closer to the land and with each other.

We’d love for you to listen in, and if the episode resonates, please share it with a friend. Your stories and thoughts are always welcome—let’s keep the conversation going.

Press play and join us on the path.

In this episode, we cover:

Introduction

  • Pilgrimage in the South of France and India

  • Embodied Thinking and Devotion

  • Reconnection to the Earth and simplicity of Prayer

  • Historical Context of Pilgrimage in England

  • Modern Pilgrimage and Its Renaissance

    With Adam Bauer

  • The Importance of Place and the Personal Mood 

  • Personal experience leading a pilgrimage in Southern France and The Importance of Local Guides

  • The Importance of Gratitude and Acceptance in Pilgrimage, regardless of the Intensity of one's Experience

    With Lisa Kalfus

  • What is the Importance of Walking?

  • The Stages of a Pilgrimage

  • Transformative Impact of the Camino 

  • Preparation and Integration in Pilgrimage

    With Kyle Buckley

  • Ancestral Pilgrimage to the United Kingdom

  • The Importance of Soul Retrieval and the Deep Work with Plant Medicine and Kundalini

  • Kyle emphasizes the need for Support and Mentorship

  • The Importance of Rest and Integration in Pilgrimage

    With Renee Blodgett

  • Pilgrimage in Local Landscapes where Sacred Sites and Rituals can be found in everyday environments

    More about Pilgrimage with Christine

  • The Concept of Becoming Indigenous to a Bio-Region

  • The Role of Rituals and Seasonal Shifts in Pilgrimage

  • The Antidote to a Culture of Constant Departure

  • Invitation to Resacralization and Walking as Prayer


Helpful links:



Christine Marie Mason

+1-415-471-7010

@christinemariemason

@rosebudwoman

Founder, Rosebud Woman, Award Winning Intimate and Body Care

Co-Founder, Radiant Farms, Sundari Gardens

Host, The Rose Woman on Love and Liberation: Listen, Like, Share & Subscribe on Apple Podcast | Google Podcasts | Spotify

NEW BOOK: The Nine Lives of Woman: Sensual, Sexual and Reproductive Stages from Birth to 100, Order in Print or on Kindle

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Transcript

Christine Mason  0:02  

It's a June morning sunrise south of France, and we park our nondescript rental car at the bottom of this mountain, and we begin climbing, step by step, over the stone, well worn footprints going in front of us, not too far up, there's a spring on the left side. It's beautifully decorated. Fresh water is coming out in a spigot that's been carved. And we fill our water bottles and we also anoint ourselves here, and we continue walking still in silence. There are others walking also in silence, climb and climb and climb. And we come to this stone ledge, and there's a long, low slung cave. And inside that cave, in this grotto, are shrines to the Magdalen and to the Virgin Mary. It's a cave also of Lost Children, children who were miscarried or died soon after childbirth. And men and women, but especially women actively still, make this journey to this cave to light a candle for their lost Young. This particular sacred site is part of a larger pilgrimage route 147 mile, or approximately 220 kilometer foot route from Saint Marie of the sea, Saint Marie de la Mer, to maximum, to st Maxim, comes through this grotto. This particular part of the path is a wide road known as the path of the king, and it's a pointer to how, for 1000s of years, everyone has come to pay their respects to Mary on this particular mountain, the whole pilgrimage route retraces the purported steps of Mary Magdalene, the apostle to the apostles, the Great Christ in consciousness, counterpart to Jesus, theoretically, his wife and the mother of his children, as well as Jesus's mother, Mary and his grandmother, Anne, Saint Anne. Here's another one. It's south of India, four o'clock in the morning before the sun even thinks of breaking in January, and the streets are packed with people, quarter million people, and there are vendors on the side of the road, and everyone is barefoot, and they're walking a paved path around the base of Arunachala mountain, the sacred mountain of South India that's considered to be the embodiment of Shiva. It is quite amazing to watch so many people be connected to place and do their prayer while walking on these sort of tinny speakers perched on lamp posts all around the path is like a very flat rendition of Om Namah Shivaya, kind of running in the background. And there are people who have set up food spots, offering Pongal, which is a local South Indian porridge. There's a savory kind and a sweet kind, and offering blessings to people as they walk. People walk the path every day. They walk it all year round, but especially on the full moon and during the annual harvest festival called pongal. There are other examples of this across every tradition you can think of. There's the Hajj to Mecca, where 2 million Muslims go every year, some by air. You know, things are not so by foot anymore, although a large part of what we're going to speak about today is the importance of it being by foot, at the pace of the human body, at the pace of human time, because pilgrimage creates what one might call protected thinking time, the repetitive rhythm of walking frees the conscious mind from having to make constant decisions, allowing deeper thoughts and feelings to surface naturally without phones buzzing or children or work needing attention or household tasks calling it offers a space for some of the big questions that might evade us in regular life. And it's not just any kind of thinking, it's embodied thinking. You know how sometimes you can't figure something out, and then you'll be in the shower and it hits you, or you're out for a run and it hits you. The physical act of walking seems to unlock different kinds of insights than sitting at home trying to figure things out. And the combination of movement, fresh air, changing landscape seems to also help process emotions and clarify thoughts in ways that feel less possible when you're surrounded by the familiar demands of daily life, and that's without even adding in the element of devotion or possibility or resonance with something that many have held sacred over a long period of time. So. So today we're talking about pilgrimage in a whole variety of ways. This matters to me personally, because I feel the reconnection to the earth and the earthful, embodied prayer is a very important step for us to be reconnected to how we are impacting the rest of the web of life on the daily. So let's get into it pilgrimage. I was in Barcelona at the science and consciousness conference, and I got a chance to sit with Rupert Sheldrake, so we were all chatting over beverages one afternoon, and he indicated his desire to go to Mass in the morning at the Sagrada Familia. Now that is an unfinished prayer in stone this whimsical and towering cathedral giant stacks of Chiquita Banana looking things and oranges and word poems and everything you can imagine, designed by Gaudi 100 plus years ago. So we went over a little group of us, six of us, and we didn't get into the Masset. We got there an hour early. It was already full, so we ended up just walking around and looking at all of the details and pointing out to each other. What we saw the group was a Spanish physicist, Alex Gomez Marin Rupert himself. He's both a biologist and this theorist that memory is inherent in nature, the shape of things is inherent in nature and in the fields around us. Jill, his wife, who is a body of work on reawakening the ancient power of chant and overtone singing. My young friend, Alessandro genevaziconia, who is a diamond approach, plus sort of facilitator, he's crafted an inquiry system built on the diamond approach. And Janine Hernandez, who's not only a PhD in cognitive sciences and a writer, but a Sufi whirling dervish, and me, I don't know what my one sentence would be in the context of these genius people. So after walking the grounds, we sat for a couple of hours over coffee, and we started a conversation on what methods we each had of aligning with love and beauty and truth, like what practices, experiences, paths, ways and methods do we have? And people went around the table, and they were talking about their methods, and they had some varying degrees of complexity. And then Rupert, you know, he's 83 now, and he just simply said, why not just pray? So a conversation opened between us on what's emerging in the new Christianity. And Rupert said that he was going to be doing a journey with the ligari Society for the feast of the Magdalen ligari as a word, means to bind back to source, back to wholeness. And this particular society combines some ancient rites that are reminiscent of the early Christian psychedelic rites with modern worship. And the conversation also turned to sacred community and how it's evolving in this era, not around fixed institutions, but more around vibration and resonance and remembrance. We talked about. You know, one of my big things over all time is how the body gets included back in faith and the feminine gets included back in faith, and how the future of whatever church might be created with people who are in presence, and how the altars aren't going to be of stone making, but they're going to be more altars of attunement and attuned hearts, like we become each other's altar. We talked about devotion and humility, and then the conversation turned to pilgrimage. So then Rupert tells us that he has joined the board of the British pilgrimage trust, and he opens up a whole new understanding for me as a North American, Western person, on how we lost the land and the body in our dominant traditions. So I'm going to do a real short take on this. So


Christine Mason  9:17  

history begins now. History class. Okay? Street glasses in session.


Christine Mason  9:23  

All right, so in England, we're gonna go back into England in the 1600s and in the time before the Reformation, Britain was laced with sacred sites, Springs and wells, meadows for pilgrimage. People moved through the land with this prayer in their breath and offerings in their hand. Their body was a vessel for presence. The land was alive. There were wells, springs and sources that were dedicated officially to Mary or to older goddesses. They were tended with flowers and songs people. People would go to these places, not just for big, you know, journeys of the self, but also to mark, baptisms and. And births and deaths and all kinds of things like that, to ask for blessings. And there was a network of monasteries that were Catholic monasteries, nunneries that were extended across the land. And one thing it's important to know about how monasteries work when people were on pilgrimage between monasteries and abbeys and things like that, is that it was a gifting economy. People would move from place to place, and they would be fed and and usually pilgrims are fed. Even now, you know, you carry your begging bowl and you get a scoop of Kitchari and something, if you're in India, right, they feed you because you're doing the spiritual inquiry that helps all beings. So under Henry the Eighth when he split from the Catholic Church and created the Anglican Church, the dissolution of the monasteries act disbanded, over 800 of these sacred houses. The lands were seized, the libraries destroyed, gardens torn up, and all their stewards, the monks and nuns, cast out. And whatever you think about, you know, church, in the Catholic Church, and all of the weird stuff that has come down from that. At that point, they were still the holders of a spiritual technology that had lived in Britain for over 1000 years. And they were still aligned to earth based cycles. And they were aligned to sort of the the keepers of the pilgrimage worldview of like honoring and holding those who were in the process of seeking. But during that period in the dissolution of the monasteries, the springs were capped, the shrines were smashed. Sites that were dedicated to the Virgin were renamed or defaced, all the sort of maples and sacred trees, those were taken down, felled, and the body of Mary, who was a symbol of compassion, of birth, of intercession, of the holiness of the flesh, was replaced by a disembodied male authority. So the whole rhythm of earth based ritual was replaced by scriptural discipline, by stuff that was in the head and in the thinking mind, and by the time, still in history, time here, I promise we'll come back, Oliver Cromwell came to power. All that remained of the sensual place based Christian tradition was deemed suspicious. So the Puritan imagination had very little room for mystery and matter. Even the ringing of bells, which once marked the passage of holy time, was silenced no bells. So this intentional removal of the sacred from matter, from water, from stone, removed it from women's bodies too. So the places where water rises unbidden from the earth have always been linked to the feminine, to healing, to intuition and life force. And so in the same sweep of history that de sacralized the land, so too were the feminine mysteries diminished. Mary was pushed aside. This is also the time in history when the midwife and the healer were condemned. The cyclical body really treated with increasing suspicion. The earth and the body were flattened together, and both were placed beneath the gaze of a colder, more abstract way of being. And then that disenchanted worldview was exported, like if you think about how countries that stayed Catholic, like Portugal and France and Spain, how they moved into a territory when they colonized it, versus how what happened if the British colonized the territory? You'll notice a vast difference. So in the vast reach of the British Empire, India and Africa, the Caribbean, Australia, Southeast Asia, the worldview that was stripped of land based reverence and bodily sanctity moved with colonists and missionaries and soldiers into places where indigenous peoples still lived in relationship with water and mountain and tree and sky, and in place after place, British imperial power overwrote indigenous cosmologies, and there too it desecrated water shrines, cut Down sacred groves, paved over ceremonial sites and replaced them with institutions that mirrored its own internal disconnection. So where there might have been holy spot is now a fort at the confluence of multiple rivers, for example. And this shape more than geopolitics, it shaped our imagination. It shaped what is real and what is worthy and what's alive, and how we see our own bodies, how we name the feminine, how we move through the world without bowing, without bowing on the daily I'm not going to say that the Spanish, or whoever went to colonize other places were were great or anything, because they also did horrible things to the indigenous. But one thing they did not do is they did not destroy or try to eliminate the land based shrines. They just co opted them and put their own deities on top of it. And a lot of indigenous and local worship began to incorporate the colonizers influence, but secretly kept the undercurrent of. Original worldview, like if you go to New Mexico and the United States to the Pueblos, you will see that the missions were built on top of local sacred sites, and that the murals all incorporate the indigenous hierarchies of archetypes and symbols and consciousness. Okay, so forgetting isn't the end of the story, the practice of pilgrimage, which has woven still weaves people to the body of the Earth, isn't gone. Rather, it's experiencing incredible re emergence. So across the world, pilgrimage is having a renaissance what was once largely a religious act or a walking journey, has become a much broader cultural phenomenon you have, you know, going to the places that a famous artist or your favorite writer or your historical figure walked in, maybe, maybe to get a little bit of the magic or the juice that they once touched. Maybe you're doing the Shakti temples to touch the sacred feminine in the pre invasion times in India, maybe you're doing a pilgrimage to see some of the sites that are considered to be the wonders of the world, and you just feel called to go there. I'm going to go to the pyramids at Giza. I have to go touch that some way. When you see the Northern Lights, I have to touch that in some way. But this phenomenon like let's just look at the numbers, the Camino de Santiago was reopened in 1987 and in the 80s, only a few 1000 people walked it each year. By 1993 it was 100,000 people. In 2024 over 400,000 pilgrims from 150 countries had made their way to Santiago to Compostela. Americans alone accounted for 32,000 of those pilgrims. That surge is not just about faith. It's about seeking something like something simpler in the medicine of walking. And there is similar growth across all the pilgrimage. Droughts everywhere the Hajj in Saudi Arabia, while strictly regulated by quotas, welcomed almost 2 million people returning to its pre pandemic numbers this year in India, in Japan, in the Andes, formal pilgrimage routes are swelling with international travelers. So why now? Perhaps because our world has become so relentlessly fast and virtual. Pilgrimage is literally the opposite of scrolling or rushing. It's slow travel. It's digital silence. It's putting your body in direct relationship with the earth and with the others you're walking with, including the four legged ones, the winged ones, the plants. Someone told me once the spirit can only move as fast as the body can walk, like the body can walk or a horse can go. And if you're moving any faster than that, the Spirit just can't keep pace. And certainly you're not noticing the details around you when you're racing by things in a car, and you're probably not noticing yourself in the context of the environment. So this pacing is a deep reconnection to the actual speed of the body. And it's not just about solitude. Many pilgrimage routes have other people on them. So it's it's yes, you are alone and you're in your own examination, but you're also in community. You know, people are nodding and smiling. There are conversations that unfold when you're tired and you're blistered and you normally social constructs that are holding you into particular roles that keep you like open and in a way that you aren't in normative everyday life. So when Adam speaks of Lords, I feel the power of the collective devotion, the way that a place can be transformed by the prayers and tears of millions of people over centuries. I feel this is Rupert's morphic resonance and action that pilgrimage routes hold some sort of memory. They hold an energy, and when you walk into it, you're walking into a crystalline structure. You feel it in your bones.


Christine Mason  19:11  

We have a special treat for you today, because we have several guests who are here to add their voices to the idea of pilgrimage. Three of these people lead their own trips to the Camino or to India or to the roots of the Magdalen and probably other places. Once you get this in your bones, it doesn't go away. They are Adam Bauer, who you have met on the podcast before, and who I also talk about a lot. He's a great bhakti, great devotional person. And then Lisa calvis, Renee Blodgett, and then Kyle Buckley, who, while she hasn't been leading pilgrimages outside, she has certainly been leading pilgrimages inward. So let's begin with Adam Bauer.


Adam Bauer  19:59  

You know, to me, the. There's a couple of aspects of pilgrimage come out and shine for me, you know, one is the place. One is the physical geography, or the spot, you know, oh, it's a sacred tree. It's a special place. It's a place where a saint had an experience, or there's a special temple or, you know, and so there's, like, a place to go to, you know, we go to Lourdes because that's where the vision was seen. That's where the sacred waters are. That's why people kind of go there. There's also, I think, this other element of pilgrimage, which is really entirely kind of personal. It's the mood of being in that reaching for the invisible essence, which was sort of distinct and separate from, like the places themselves. It's like the mood of the yearning. It's the desire to be in contact with something transcendent, something powerful, something that shifts our state, something that shifts our perspective and invites a new way of being in relationship with the cosmos somehow. And I think I'd say I'm more interested in the mood invitation to be in a pilgrimage vibration in my life, rather than, let's go to a bunch of cool places, because cool shit happened here 1000 years ago.


Christine Mason  21:20  

Oh, I love that the pilgrimage vibration. That's such a beautiful idea. That's a little bit like a devotional way of life. Yeah. So how do you separate the devotional mood of being, or the life of a bhakta versus a pilgrimage?


Adam Bauer  21:33  

It's an excellent question. I think I'll lean first on the pilgrimage of place, because when we go, when we're on pilgrimage in a certain kind of domain, or certain geography or certain tradition or certain places, then there is an invitation to be touched and felt in and by this particular place that has its own inborn frequency, and so one's natural devotional inclinations, being whatever they are, there's a willingness to put ourselves under the influence or in relationship with some special place, some sacred energy, which might lie outside of Our daily quotidian bread and butter kind of devotional practices. So there and one hand, there's like an invitation to something new, something fresh. I think what we're talking about at a certain level, it's all emanations or articulations of a common source that the that the mystery, the great mystery expresses itself in these different luminous and mysterious iterations that have their own flavor. You know, the cave where Mary Magdalen is supposed to have spent some time, or the temple where, you know, hanuman's mother was supposed to be presiding.


Christine Mason  23:01  

Well, just to pause for a second, the idea of putting oneself in relationship to a mood or a place or an archetype, that's a really beautiful kind of specific kind of kinship. I'm reminded of a hike that you and I did to the top of the temple in Hampi, a hanuman's mother's temple before sunrise. And like there was a specific quality or flavor of waking very early before everyone else, and doing something intentional and special to commune with the energy of that place, walking, walking up those stairs, something in the deliberateness of entering into that kinship. I hadn't really put a finger on that flavor until you named it. Okay, but let's keep going. So this idea of places with specific energies, archetypes, flavors that you're pulling out when you enter into these spaces you're communing with or entering into in yourself,


Adam Bauer  23:53  

I mean, I think that's what gives flavor and nuance and specificity and a unique invitation to any kind of particular pilgrimage site or spot or geography or intention, but then you were also asking about the lean in one's individual soul or one's personal Nature, the lean towards pilgrimage as sort of an orientation around life, a kind of a devotional orientation. And it's an interesting question. I'm not sure I've ever entirely considered it specifically. You know, what's the difference between being of devotional mindset generally in one's life, and what is the mood of pilgrimage in that I mean, in a sense, I don't know how distinct those are. They both live in such a similar place. It's a question of, what is our guiding star when we're walking through the day, when we're orienting ourselves through our movements in the world? What are we thinking of when we arise in. What are we resonating with as we move through our lives? And if there's a devotional orientation, if there's like is it possible that we can see the day to day life, our movements through time and space, in physical geography, whatever and wherever we might be? Is it possible that we can contextualize our movement through the world in the sort of frame of pilgrimage? That mood of pilgrimage seems to me to be an invitation, a request from my soul to the oversoul, to the community of angels and realized beings and energies in the world to say, Hey, this is my orientation. I want to be in relation with this. Please help me establish and make contact with the holy and with the sacred as I'm moving through whatever this day is, I don't want to lose touch with that. I don't want to get lost or be tethered past a certain point into the bump and grind of the material world. Because I'm recognizing and I'm asking, I'm requesting, I'm praying, I'm pleading. Help me stay connected. Help me remember the most real, even as I'm transiting through the world of distraction, the worldly body which invites us to forget, can that become instead a vehicle for remembering?


Christine Mason  26:41  

So as we're speaking about this, I have this picture in my mind, like a connect the dots. And I'm thinking about how when I when I go to a new city, like I look for the yoga place, I look for the shrine, I make a mental map or grid around the world then, which is driven by my core values, the core things that I keep in mind someone else's might be croissants, I'm not sure, but there are many kinds of pilgrimages, not necessarily spiritual, like people who go and look for a particular kind of record store or the ancient place where the great rock and rollers once played, they'll be sure to find that in every town or something. The


Adam Bauer  27:16  

other thing I think that's deeply connected with all this and potentially easy to miss, is the community component of it, the sort of sangha element of this, because it's not just us going to places in physical geography. It's also the people we meet along the way. It's the other pilgrims who we meet along the trail that often open up kind of miracles and connections and relational possibilities and friendships and the ties that bind because of our fellow seekers, our fellow pilgrims, that we connect with along the way. And sometimes, you know, because we're humans, because we're relational beings, because we live in a web of relations going to a particular rock or particular cathedral, you know, has a certain pregnancy of meaning and potential, I think. But the possibilities that emerge when we meet fellow practitioners, fellow seekers, fellow people who resonate and vibrate along a similar, you know, kind of line of priorities or yearnings can often represent a long tail of the positive contributions that pilgrimage can make in our lives, because those are things that can open up new territory, new conversations and ongoing adventures, kind of beyond whatever the initial spark of I want to go to this church. I want to go to this sacred cave. This past year, I led my own pilgrimage in southern France for the first time in the area, rich with the lore and legends of the Mary Magdalen work, the Knights Templar, the Cathar community, which all goes back into esoteric Christian mysticism from their respective different angles. And for that, because I don't know that area super intimately like I do. From 25 years of traveling to India, it was important for me to pick the right local guide, and I was lucky enough to be led to that person a few years ago, I went and did my own personal pilgrimage with them for several days last year to make sure that it was what I hoped it might be, and once I determined that I brought my own group to work with him, his family's been around there for living in that area for almost 1000 years. He is part of the culture that has kept alive some of the teachings which were forcibly, violently driven underground. Around by the church, by the popes, by the people who were sufficiently threatened by what the Cathar modes of worship were, for example, that they turned loose. The only religious crusade to be turned against the Christian people. All the Crusades were facing out towards the Muslims and towards some sort of perceived invader or threat to the faith. But in this particular case, they were worried enough about their own people worshiping in a different way than the Catholic Church was advising that they literally put these people to the sword and burned as many of them as they could because they were threatened by the difference in modes of worship and ways of approaching the invisible and the divine. That's a whole nother crazy story, but there's a lot of history there that is just not something that's as familiar to me. So for me to find someone who knew that place, knew these histories, these mysteries, these legends, was very important to me as a pilgrimage leader, that I had somebody who was much more versed in the particulars and history of that place and those people. As one example, I had never been to Lourdes, the famous pilgrimage spot there where a young peasant girl, not entirely unlike the Go piece from a certain perspective, young, uneducated, utterly unqualified by any modern conception of who should be eligible to receive the higher teachings, utterly unqualified to have a personal relationship with the divine mother, or with the manifestation of Mary, and yet this young peasant girl saw an energy and had a relationship in this moment that turned into one of the most famous pilgrimage spots in all of The world, the sacred waters of Lourdes, massive cathedral, several churches and cathedrals all kind of, I mean, they've taken over the whole area. I'd never been there. I'd always been a little bit curious. And I thought, you know, if I'm going to bring a group there to southern France, even though Lourdes is not really exactly next door, you know, what do you think let's, let's maybe think about going there, and I asked my guide partner, and he said, Oh, that's a fantastic idea. As a matter of fact, after I studied at the seminary, but before I eventually decided not to become a priest, my station was to work in the office next to the Grotto, the site of the vision that the young girl had and help care for visiting dignitaries and guests from all over the world who came to witness and pay homage at this place. So he said, this would be a great place to go. Let's absolutely do that. So we made plans to go there. Actually, from the airport, we went directly to Lourdes. It was an example of all of the stars aligning spontaneously in those last hours after covid came and changed all of the rules of engagement for big public gathering spaces like that. They changed a lot of the ways that they handle the numbers of people who come there, and apparently you can't reserve spaces and times and several things changed. And yet my guide, because he had some connections there from ages ago, was able to find a sympathetic ear there. And we spontaneously, kind of got walked up to the front of the line, and all had our own experience in those sacred waters held by people who are there to receive pilgrims all day and half the night every day of the year, everybody had an extraordinary experience. I found myself unexpectedly weeping like a baby as I prepared to enter the bath with one beautiful man on each side of me carrying my arms and helping me enter to the water, and I hit a place that softened and melted me in a way that was entirely unexpected. And just about everybody in our small group had their own experience like that. So I think these pilgrimage places can hold their own. They speak for themselves, and they invite us to engage with them, or they reach out to engage with us in a way that can be transformational, above and beyond whatever our stories are about the blaze, whatever our skepticism might be.


Christine Mason  34:35  

Do you think that modern people are having the same energetic perception of nature that was happening when many of these sites were


Adam Bauer  34:41  

consecrated. I doubt it just because modern humanity is almost definitionally, in most cases, more and more separated from nature. I mean, even in my life, when I was a young pre teenager, it was. Get on your bicycle and ride all around town and be back before dinner, and now everybody's on screens hours and hours and hours and hours a day. I read an article just the other day, actually, about how the number of kids riding bicycles in America has dropped in half in the last couple of decades for all sorts of reasons, and that's just an example of our poverty stricken nature, of our relationship with nature. So some people live in the country, some people are connected with the land, but by and large, part of the story of the modern world is the disconnection from the maternal the disconnection from Mother Nature. So I can't imagine that it's anything other than modern humans are much more disconnected from nature than whatever was happening at the time these sites were consecrated, even if some of these sites are only 100 years old, I think the functional nature of our relationship with the natural world has gotten thinner and less powerful and less relevant for most people.


Christine Mason  36:05  

Yes, and despite that, you can still go into a place where everybody's been worshiping like an elephant statue for 800 years, and you have this sensation, perhaps, of whoa, whoa, whoa. What's that? Why is that so potent? So even though one is in a modern body. There's something that we can feel. I noticed, for example, Saturday morning, I went with a friend of mine to do a little ritual at the ocean at the beach of Pacifica, and she put roses in the sand. And we were talking and getting ready to do ritual. But every time we said something that was affirmative, a conscious statement, a bold statement, a whale would breach like as it was right in front of us, as if it was punctuation. Every time we spoke a truth about our future and we were going, a line of pelicans would start moving across the horizon, and it was a moment of sort of here we are. We're being tuned in. We're paying attention, and nature is speaking to us constantly. We're being constantly given signs. But it took us sitting down, setting up the ritual, opening up our perceptual field. But we were able to feel it. We had the capacity it was still there, to see it, to feel nature's complicit engagement in a way. I mean, that might sound a little, you know, superstitious, but I did experience it as if I was in a direct context, like, pay attention to the signs at the minute. We open to perception. It's there. And I wonder if it's similar, like, you know, if you go to receive the waters at Lourdes, just as much as it's being a place of energy that you have also prepared yourself to be astonished.


Adam Bauer  37:41  

Yeah, hopefully we're doing a little bit of work on our end to prepare ourselves for that, to receive some level of that. I mean, in my experience, there are many different kinds of human nervous systems we do not all perceive with the same sensitivity, you and I, and any other person we might find might go to the same place, and you might be feeling that Ganesha statue that's 800 years old that you mentioned a moment ago, and be like, Whoa. Do you feel that? And I might be sitting there scratching my butt saying, I don't know it looks cool, but no, I don't, I don't really feel that. And somebody else might be seeing the vision of, you know, might be seeing Ganesha trunk move and have the image, the embodiment of the statue, wink at them, you know, like, and we're all having our genuine experience, you know. So I, I'm always a little bit shy to assume that anybody will react the same way to anything, because so much of it is the reception of our particular nervous system. And we're all wired. Many of us are wired really differently. I think ultimately, it's all okay. However we're wired is it just is what it is. It's okay. I don't want to feel so bad about myself because I didn't see Ganesha wink at me, because I don't feel the vibes of the place like you feel the vibes of the place like you know that that's a that's a loser's game, I think, to compare myself and then feel bad because I'm not feeling whatever it is that somebody else is reporting that they're


Renee Blodgett  39:15  

feeling love, but you're bringing this like, like, that expectation of The mystical it's moves could be a trap,


Adam Bauer  39:21  

absolutely and you know, we don't want our ego to be in that thing where suddenly we feel bad because we didn't get the full blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, you know, we all get what we get. We are who we are. We perceive and receive what we do. And if we want to judge ourselves and feel badly about that, then that doesn't really do anything to open the field of pilgrimage. I think it's perfectly fine to say, Hey, I wish I could be more sensitive. I would like to feel something profound. Please, God, let me feel something profound and inspiring like I think it's perfectly fine to yearn for that. To. Desire for that. But if we find ourselves judging ourselves about it, to me, that's a dead end. There's nothing about judging myself as inferior or not sufficiently plugged in that's going to help me get more plugged in. It's always for me, and maybe this is one of the fundamental energetics of pilgrimage, as it is, in my perception, one of the energetic pillars of life incarnation itself is the mood of gratitude. Is just to appreciate whatever it is that we're experiencing. If I'm going to trip myself out and feel bad because I didn't get this and I didn't feel that that's not generally going to lead me anywhere good. But if I can be grateful for whatever it is that I'm perceiving and receiving and accept myself in this moment, in this time and space, to me, the gratitude opens a portal to being in an honest and true relationship with reality. It's not about faking gratitude. There's a certain fake it till you make it that sometimes you know plays into life, I suppose. But you know, it's not just voicing gratitude, but not feeling it. If I can really feel it, if I can really tap into you know what? God damn, I am so fortunate. I am so lucky to be here in this place right now. What an opportunity this is. There are so many situations which are not as sweet as this. There are so many people who may never in their life have the opportunity to come to this place, to be in this place, to perceive in the way that I am now perceiving, what a fantastic blessing it is that I can be here at all. If I really feel that about any moment that I'm in, then I feel like I'm ahead of the game. Somehow I'm living right. It's not about the volume of the transcendence of my experience at a certain level. It's about can we accept and appreciate where we are, who we are, what the moment is. Because no matter how amazing it is or how frustratingly unconnected the moment feels. It's meditation, 101 it's reality management, 101 this will change. This moment will not last forever. I might be fearful, anxious, depressed, full of agita and frustration, but if I can just hang on, this moment will pass, and another moment will come, and if I am in the depths of profound revelation and seized by an innate appreciation of the wonder and magic of creation and surrounded by love and feeling utterly at one and at peace with everything you know that's not going to last forever either, because at some point that moment will morph into the next moment, and then we'll discover somebody hit our car in the parking lot, or whatever you know life will intrude. So I do believe that life is a sort of upward spiral of integration that allows us to feel connected and grateful and part of the oneness more and more often. But every moment will change into some other moment. There is an up and down. There is a an arc of our experience, which just does move in and out of coherence, in and out of the feeling of gratitude and blessing, in and out of the certainty that we are part of this magical, wonderful reality. You know, it just, it ain't all the same. You know, the people we hang out with, the experiences we have, the drugs we take, or don't take the classes we take, or don't take the relations we have or don't have with our family and our loved ones, with ourself, with myself. These are all in flux all the time, and there's no way around it. So the gripping, the wanting, the hoping that it lasts, these are all just froth on the waves of the ocean of our experience. And at some level, life is about, and pilgrimage is about, and reality seems like to me, it is about. How much can we feel stable and grounded in a baseline orientation of wonder and gratitude and astonishment at the miracle that it is to be conscious in a body in a dimensional world filled with every amount of beauty and heartache and suffering and bliss that we could possibly wrap. Our heads around.


Christine Mason  45:06  

All right, let's move on and hear from the wonderful Lisa Kalfus.


Lisa Kalfus  45:13  

I found the Camino, you know, was, became aware of it, of course, you know, from many different ways, but certainly also the movie, the way that had popularized it years ago. And, you know, I chose to walk it years ago, when I was in a time of transition. So it was very deeply personal for me, and I knew that I was navigating some grief and wanting to really feel into, you know, what really mattered to me? How did I want to evolve, how I lived, how I worked, and, you know, getting unmarried, also losing my father, it was like these pivotal moments of, how do I live life with greater purpose and intention and fulfillment? And so I chose to walk the Camino, and it was literally one of the most transformative experiences of my adult life, and has had a profound impact in who I am today and how I show up in the world that has had such a lasting impact. And so that's, you know, truly what inspired me to, you know, go back and then also to share the magic with others, because it's this like incredible canvas of something that you can kind of create, a container that allows for someone to really deeply connect with himself, you know, with nature and, you know, with with others.


Christine Mason  46:30  

What do you think is so magical about walking


Speaker 1  46:34  

first? It's about like, what is, what does a pilgrimage Do you know? And I think that there's like an element of the pilgrimage, first and foremost, that, like I've always felt like it's this journey within oneself to transform you know, just as much as a journey you know within the outer world and something that's much greater than oneself. And so there's like always this difference for me between a vacation, trip, adventure travel and transformative travel. And so I, in my past have have done a lot of just treks or hikes or walks, but there's something about walking with intention in a mindful way that allows for you to like, truly slow down, to be, to hear and to like, have these incredible downloads and greater clarity and creativity from that movement. So I'm such a believer in walking. And while all forms of experience and adventure and travel are important. I've always found that, like investing in not just time and energy and dollars to go and explore or relax, like there's something about walking with greater intention that is, like one of the greatest like investments that you can really make within yourself, because it has such a lasting


Christine Mason  47:59  

impact. When you think about the people who've come on your groups. What are the motivations


Speaker 1  48:03  

it it really, really varies. You know, there's all different reasons why people might walk. It might be a time of transition, you know, and they're ending a relationship, or they're empty nesting, or there's a career shift or desire, there's some inner turmoil or stuckness, or they're kind of experiencing these like internal shifts and overcoming a challenge, maybe a health challenge, and they've realized, you know, things that matter to them now and want to greater. You know, have that time for themselves to feel until what's authentic to them. There's sometimes you know people that do come, you know, out of grief or mourning, but there's also people that come just because they they feel that there's something more to experience in life. It's like there's this feeling of desire around greater aliveness, and that having the time and space to just reflect and get out of like the Go, go, go and to just slow down will allow for them to have this greater clarity and calm that they know that a pilgrimage, walking a Camino will really


Christine Mason  49:11  

offer. Are there predictable stages of like when I lead people through a yoga class, for example, there's like an arrival stage, and then all of a sudden, I can feel the nervous system drops in, and then we're in it. You know, do you notice a similar arc 100%


Speaker 1  49:29  

the biggest thing I notice is people's energies, how they shift, and how they become so much more grounded and peaceful and joyful by the end. So in the beginning, it takes some time, you know, usually it's probably about a day or two for people to really drop in and appreciate the slowing down, because we're so trained in our society to be in that go, go, go. So it's so hard for everyone to eliminate the stimulus, you know, and not to walk with podcasts or audible books or. Music. Like to be in that quiet is very hard for people. So they're in this energy of anxiety or stress or overwhelm, and then it's really hard for people to just be in time by themselves, like that's also something. So there's like an discomfort that people are experiencing. And then as people start to really drop into it, you can, you can see this contentment that's starting to kind of like become this, this new baseline. Everyone starts to really calm. They're in nature. And so then they start to feel this greater presence, and they're more patient, like with each other, with themselves, they're more compassionate, and they start to enjoy time by themselves. And so what you start to then see is, you know, people start to feel by the end, this exponential joy, like they're so inspired, they're so lit up, they're so fully alive. And I'm noticing that. But these are also the words that people say, because I'm asking people, at the beginning, how do you feel, and then how do you feel at the end? And that's what people are sharing. And so, of course, from that place, then they go and they bring it into their daily lives. And so after then, what I also notice is, you know, they're kind of trying to, you know, really get into that same rhythm of what they're feeling from the Camino. And that takes time, like it takes time to integrate, but they're starting to bring what they experienced on the Camino into their daily lives, and they're having the types of conversations like, you know, we had on the Camino, and they're appreciating time by themselves, which is allowing for them to not feel this anxious attachment to anyone. So all their relationships also start to have this positive effect, which, in turn, is like adding to this elevation of what they're feeling.


Christine Mason  51:58  

I never thought of how you might be taking this walk in silence, really? Yeah, never. I mean, I know from my like, I climb a mountain, I go in, I go in quiet, I go inward. But if I was going with a group, I automatically thought that I'd be talking to other people most of the time. But you bring up this really interesting question of, like, that's kind of a Vipassana. That's like a mood Vipassana, you're like, in with yourself and your own thoughts and your own body the whole day. What's the mean? Like talking with others, being in community and being with yourself,


Speaker 1  52:33  

it's a balance, and it's a huge invitation to walk by yourself in a lot of silence, so that especially early on, because that's where you really, really can start to hear, right? And that's when you're able to start to notice and tune into like the light on the leaf, or, you know, the way that the sun is shining, like all these little nuances. That's how you cultivate presence, and so it's so important to also have the mindful time. So there's a big balance of that, especially early on, because the arc of the experience that I create is first around connecting within yourself, and then as we move into connecting with others, then there's more time for connection, because the conversations are just as powerful as well, because you're learning and growing and expanding from each other in conversation, which is also something I very much deeply believe in. But if you have only the time with others and you're in conversation, you're going to really not have the ability to know, how do you create the conditions to be truly present with anyone at any point in time, and that comes from the time for yourself and most people, what I notice is they're not present in their day to day life, and they believe that it's because I have lots of things that are going on. There's no way that I can possibly be present, and really it's they're not creating the conditions that they need to be present. So by taking the time by yourself, then you're actually learning how you can do that for yourself, what's important to you, and then you can do it in your day to day. So then when you're in conversation with others, it's so much more meaningful and enjoyable and interesting and powerful, because you're fully there with someone. And we all know what that feels like when someone is distracted. And you can tell you can feel that energy. So that's why I believe that the Camino is this massive accelerator for cultivating presence, and it takes the time to actually be in mindful walking in silence, to also enable that. There was a


Christine Mason  54:39  

guy at the party. We went through this party


Christine Mason  54:41  

this weekend, and I stood with a man and spoke to him, and I have never been with a person who was more present with every question he asked and every answer he received. There was no rushing, and was eye contact the whole time, and my whole nervous system went, Whoa. I know you. Teach that, I know you bring that to people like how to do it, how to be fully with someone. What a difference. I can imagine that for people who are sitting at a desk that walking and walking and walking would start doing things to your hips and feet, and you're sleeping in bunks houses, and people snore. So it doesn't sound like joy is tied to physical comfort.


Speaker 1  55:23  

That's such an interesting observation. Yes, you know a friend of mine, I love how he has shared with me, my friend Charlie. You know it's the relationship that you have to pain, right? And it's shifting your relationship to appreciate the pain and what it then also can enable, right? And so there is that discomfort. It is a physical challenge, just as much it is as emotional and spiritual challenge. And you're walking over 15 plus miles a day, you know, day after day, and it takes a lot in your body. No matter how physically fit you are, it is challenging, and you're gonna get blisters and it's gonna be uncomfortable. And what I always love hearing is, especially those that are a little bit nervous about the physical challenge coming into it, and they always say, I'm actually glad that I didn't know all of the things that we were gonna do, like crossing the Pyrenees, which is an epic hike, 4000 feet incline, and coming out of the physical challenge, they're always amazed at how they could Do it. And you're, you know, It's mind over matter also. And so what it creates is this sense of pride in people. They are like, I can do hard things. I'm amazed at what I was able to do. And so from that place, they appreciate the physical challenge. And that's why it feels joyful, because it ends up having them realize they could do hard things in general if they set their mind to it.


Christine Mason  57:07  

Yeah, well, that feeling of you can do more than you think you can, that's pretty great to prepare. What do you recommend people do if they're going to prepare or in the selection process of a trip, like, what are the kind of questions they might think about, or how to drop into the inquiry, is it right for me? Which trip is right for me? Is my body ready for this?


Christine Mason  57:30  

Physically?


Speaker 1  57:32  

It's just about really starting to get your body used to just walking longer distances. If that's not something that you typically do. Otherwise, I wouldn't do a ton of training for it, but it is important to have some level of activity. And you know, the more that you've done some level of strength training as well, like your your muscles are going to, you know, handle it a little bit better. I personally don't train, you know, for the walks, but I do ever since walking many years ago, I do take daily awe walks, and every single day, for at least an hour, I'm walking and I'm pausing and I'm noticing what brings me awe and what elevates my energy, what drains my energy? So part of the training too, is, if you've never done any sort of mindful practice, it's kind of just inquiring for yourself. You know, around why that might be important to you. Have you done any sort of transformative experiences? And you know, if not, you know learning around like, what that could mean for you, what's your intention around going on a more transformative journey? You know, what might you want to, you know, evolve in this stage of your life, so that you're living your best life, and, you know, asking yourself some of these types of questions, so that you're really deciding, you know, what is the right journey for me to go on, for me personally. You know, for the groups that I curate, they're highly curated. I'm extremely thoughtful on who comes on the journey, and I know that they're going to get something so powerful based off of how they're going to evolve their connection to their self, or where they're at in terms of their relationships and their life and who they want to strengthen key relationships with, whether it's you know, people that they love, people that they want to expand within their community, and then I also know how they're going to actually help support each other based off their experiences. And so I am very thoughtful in the questions that I'm personally asking when I'm speaking to someone to then know, okay, this is the right fit for our experience. And if not, then I'll make a different recommendation for them. You really have to tune into every single person's energy and know that they are going to be elevating the energy of the group. Because at the end of the day, the best experiences, I believe, are also co created like so you know, one, one woman that had come to


Renee Blodgett  59:59  

message. Are whiny,


Christine Mason  1:00:00  

leaning people, this is opportunity to expand your circle of concern, to get out of your own direct experience, and uplift and CO create with the group. So if you're going to commit to a group trip, you might also consider committing to being a great group member. What is a great group member?


Speaker 1  1:00:24  

Yeah, someone that is so in they are not wanting to control the experience. They just want to be in the experience. And there's an in there, like, I can't wait to just be in all of this. I want to connect with people. I'm open, I'm curious, I'm comfortable, you know, sharing parts of myself. I have this sense of wonder and adventure and who knows what's going to happen, but I'm going to release expectations. Now. Don't get me wrong, we're also doing it in a way that's luxurious. We're staying at the most curated luxury boutique hotels and inns, and so you're very comfortable. All of our bags are taken care of. They're Porter services from place to place. So I do that so that you don't have to think about anything. You're just being an experience, and you're sleeping really well at night, so at the end of the day, you don't have to show up in a way that is worrying about any logistics, but you're a great participant, if you just are open and curious and all in about who everyone is, and you're not just going to want to, only, you know, talk to like a friend that you might have invited with you.


Christine Mason  1:01:44  

There's more. There's more to look at in that. Like, what does it mean to be a good group member? There's a prayer that we say in the beginning of the Vedic study, and it's, you know, may we, may our time here, our time of study, be nourishing. May we work with great effort. May we work with great enthusiasm, may our time together be nourishing, and may we work with no enmity or conflict, like no protest, basically, is like, it translates loosely, and I love that too. Like, like, I'm not, I'm going to commit to working without working, being here, without an argument with my being here, and it might come down to that to be a good guest.


Speaker 1  1:02:25  

Yeah, it's an interesting way to phrase it, because it's almost as if, in life, if you have all this resistance, yeah, and you're not just surrendering, then of course, you're going to come with that energy and everything's going to be tense and hard, yeah, yeah, just showing up as a good human. And, you know, just surrendering to it and deeply listening. And, you know, just showing up for someone else and holding space. And you know, as you beautifully, also eloquently said it like that, would be a great participant. It could be as simple as that,


Christine Mason  1:03:01  

yeah, the next person we're going to hear from is Kyle Buckley.


Kyle Buckley  1:03:07  

I got to go with my mom, and my mom and I agreed that we wanted to take an ancestral pilgrimage together. And so we did some visioning into where would we want to go and visit and planned this whole path we had, we had some guidance, and some of it was personally dreamed into and created, like some parts we did with a group, and some parts we did on our own, and we started out in the United Kingdom, what was In times of your known as Albion, and we flew into London and then traced this path from the coast, the coastal area of Cornwall and visiting Tintagel, you know, these lines that are really rich with Arthurian legend, and what are called dragonlay lines. This you know, deep draconic path and energy that's supposed to be profoundly awakening of inner fire and transformation. And we visited places like Merlin's cave and these cliffs that just sang to my soul. You know, I had points where I remember being infuriated with our guide, you know, who would have us going through some process in the evening, I was like, I just need to be on the cliffs at sunset. That was all my body and soul wanted, because there was such a profound blood level remembrance of this land. And in particular, being in the UK really brought home for me the particular potency of ancestral pilgrimage, because there was this recognition on a blood and body level of the stones and the plants like I already had a sense of kinship and relationship with. Uh, the rocks and with the trees and with the, you know, weeds that are growing in the forest that are actually deep medicine, like nettles and dandelion and plantain and, you know, things that you can make tea or poultice or, you know, drink internally or put on your body in different ways. So it was this, this quality of also homecoming and recognition for me and realizing, Oh, the coastal rainforests of the US. When I lived there in Portland, Oregon or the Bay Area, and I felt that kind of kinship with the land, it was a deeper place of embodied remembrance for me of the places my ancestors had come


Christine Mason  1:05:43  

from. It's a very interesting distinction between an ancestral pilgrimage and a spiritual pilgrimage and a regular vacation, and they they hit the body in different ways. But there's some feeling that I have when we're speaking of ancestral pilgrimage that we are speaking of a spiritual journey. Do you feel that?


Kyle Buckley  1:06:05  

Yes, I experienced it as what I would call a kind of soul retrieval. And you know, we started, like I said, out in the coastal regions, and then sort of worked our way inward to these different Heartlands. And you know, visited the stone circles in Avebury. You know, we went through Stonehenge, but also this greater architecture of the body of the Goddess that was, you know, built through these different stone sites and burrows. And you know, also visited churches that have been built atop some of you know, what were these sacred sites for the indigenous peoples of that land and ended up in that trip in Glastonbury, and the people who live there in Glastonbury call it Glastonbury Avalon, as if it's one Word you know, because they're also referring to the sacred city of light that is believed to have been, you know what? What founded and anchored this land eons ago. And I absolutely felt like I was going back and unlocking these deep pieces of my soul, remembrance or cities, you know, as I would go to these sites and suddenly awaken in my capacity to communicate with the elements and with the land and to receive guidance from the stones or the trees about how they wanted To be communed with during my time. There it was, you know, I came back from these journeys through, you know, starting in England and then going through the south of France, feeling like, you know, I'd been doing deep work with plant medicine, or some, you know, deeper quality of a kundalini awakening that had just been happening. Been happening day in and day out through my visitation with these places, which is also part of why I started talking about the electromagnetic quality of this spiritual journey and initiation that happens when we go on pilgrimage to sites like this.


Christine Mason  1:08:18  

Now that you've been back for a year and you've been integrating. Tell me how it's evolved over the year. And what would your advice be to others who are going for a journey on the integration side of it,


Kyle Buckley  1:08:34  

my advice would be, don't underestimate what will be asked of you in the integration, you know, body, life, spirit, you know, over the past year, watched a full scale change and my intimate relationship and partnership In my community and circle of friends in my professional work and livelihood, you know now continuing to ripple through my home and community space, when you step into pilgrimage with these sites where there is a profound spiritual intentional alignment between the land and the energy and then your body, as you engage with it, it's just going to bring up everything in your life that doesn't have that degree of coherence and alignments you're in, taking a level of light that is giving you that much of it, more availability to Access, become intimate with and actually integrate your your shadow and the power that's held in the shadow. And so for me, through those journeys, I've found actually profound support and mentorship for my own deeper, ongoing spiritual work and integration, there have been you. Really significant shifts in how I embody, I think that would, that would be the most simple way of putting it, of how deeply I've incarnated my own soul into this form, and that will change a lot of things in the rest of one's world. So that, you know, for me, when I was thinking about it after the fact, I was like, I would never guide people on a sacred pilgrimage without requiring post integration, support and sessions. I would, I would consider it irresponsible to take someone on a journey, and not on a journey of that magnitude, and not ensure that they had very competent, spiritual and emotionally, psychosomatically integrated support for their landing back on the other side of it,


Christine Mason  1:10:57  

that's a good suggestion. I feel that so many of the things we're doing in the modern world were rushing, rushing, and it's hitting our system and not integrating in we just did an episode with Zach Leary, Tim Leary's son, and he spoke about integration in psychedelics as having a neuroplasticity phase, like a window after you're done between 24 and 72 hours, or between 48 hours and five days, like where you can lock in what was experienced. And so many people go for these large other kinds of experiences, and then go right back to work on Monday morning without leaving the space for that, like whatever was opened in you to like land and settle and be digested. So I think this lifestyle of integration is a is a broader topic, but even anticipate and also to feel like the quality of like, squeezing every little drop of juice out of an experience that comes, if you think of it as a I'm preparing myself, I'm doing the thing, and then I'm allowing for this long arc integration. Like, how much more you can extend the joy, not even like as a job, you know, like a content degree, but like as a like, I'm gonna like, dwell and like, make these memories come alive in myself. Yeah,


Kyle Buckley  1:12:16  

we could definitely do a whole other conversation on the lifestyle of integration, but I mean what you're speaking to it this connects into my work in the pre and Perinatal realm, and with birth imprinting, you know, there are five distinct cycles of one's birth journey, from, you know, preconception through gestation, and then, you know, the labor and delivery and afterbirth that are our own personal origin and creation story that we're then mostly unconsciously recapitulating throughout the life cycle. And the final phase of any creative cycle with these, you know, five steps is rest and integration. Right? You go from intention, setting, the initiation, the visioning through the action and the follow through into the rest and the integration. And that in our western model of how we birth is the phase that is most commonly rushed over and skipped, and we see it epidemically. And the western lifestyle, nobody stops to rest and integrate. And that rest and integration phase that's like the juice of humanity, that's the oxytocin, that's our awe and wonder and reverence and love and how we uptake the joy of being human. So it's exactly what you were saying. When we skip that rest and integration, we skip the actual bonding with the fruits of our labor, with it's we skip the uptake of what we have just lived through and really receiving into our bodies the nourishment of that as fruit and harvest for the journey that comes next in our lives. So yeah, if anything you know to to complete on that note and with that reminder of the more you know, when any profound pilgrimage is undertaken to give ourselves the gift of that space for rest and integration with ourselves and also with the support of some you know, whether it's relationship With our you know, spiritual teacher or with a trusted circle of friends. And who are you know, have similar devotion of path or whatever kind of therapeutic guidance or support to have it in relationality as well, so that we become what we've lived and are able to carry that forward. Forward as fruit in the rest of our life and offering, but the you know, reminder for anyone doing pilgrimage to these sacred sites, you know, in particular, when we're visiting more of the human made kind of edifice of the sacred, you know, and we're going to these churches, or, you know what, whatever, whatever the human construct may be, to remember that it was built over the land as temple. And for me, one of my most powerful direct experiences of this was visiting the Basilica of the Black Madonna in the mountains of northern Spain, and you know, there was this incredible human monument, gilded, painted, human monument that was sculpted and decorated and an enshrined monument to this very powerful statue of the Black Madonna, but my most potent direct experience of her was had walking the mountain pathways Around the Basilica and sitting with these incredible stone beings out there and really hearing and feeling the transmission of her love through that land. So when we go to visit these buildings, let's remember that they were built there because of the power of the land that they're sitting atop, and to really make the space to listen to the transmission of the land that came first and is what is echoing through anything that's been built over it.


Christine Mason  1:16:57  

Look, if look


Christine Mason  1:16:58  

for it in the Domination spot, not in the shrine. That's actually like a good lit lesson in abstraction in general. I was reading this thing like a chick. A chick pecks itself out of the egg because it can sense the light and the warmth on the other side. At some point you have to start like pecking at the egg. So of course, I asked, Is that true? Is that true? Is that what like makes a chick Peck turns out, no, it's carbon dioxide. They're getting too big for the space, but that there's two steps, like it's in the amniotic sac, and then it pecks, and it pops the inner yoke, and then that opens up a pocket of air so that it can start breathing, its lungs can start moving. And then when it's starting to breathe air, then it starts to use its PIP to crack the shell and then open up to the larger truth and the larger air like that seemed to me so much like the stages of opening and spiritual development. It's like you're you're in your inner membrane, and you can't, really, you know, take it anymore. And then you get the first experience, these first touch the air, and you're getting a little bit of a and then they can't take it anymore. You got to break through the shell. You got to, like, touch the wholeness.


Kyle Buckley  1:18:14  

So it's a journey of lifetimes.


Christine Mason  1:18:22  

Let me introduce you now to Renee Blodgett. She is the author of a recently released book called Magdalen journey, which has gotten like 155 star reviews on Amazon or something like that. And she is also taking groups and creating one coming up this September, if you are listening to this in 2026


Christine Mason  1:18:44  

maybe you want to join her. Renee,


Renee Blodgett  1:18:48  

well, I think pilgrimage is an exciting topic because it means something sacred to so many people. So just the word pilgrimage, it brings up this, this idea of awe, this idea of journey in somewhere, right? That's sacred. And so, you know, when you think of it in the traditional sense, people have been doing pilgrimages for so many years, and you usually think of Eastern destinations like India, right? You know, because it's very common in the east to do pilgrimage, and I think in the West, we've lost that sense of pilgrimage, and it's reemerging now. I think it's reemerging because the collective consciousness is yearning for that reconnection to the land. And in essence, really, it's not just about the land, it's about the journeying back to you, and we do it through sacred sacred sites and sacred places. Because, first of all, it serves as a reminder that there have been sacred sites and holy sites across history. That we've forgotten. I think the other thing that pilgrimage does is connects us, not just back to ourselves, but to each other. Because we're doing things in community, we're doing things in synchronicity with each other, whether it's, you know, ritual or ceremony, we're reminding ourselves of the sacredness of the land and the sacredness of us, and that there's no separation between us and the land. And I think that's at least for us in our pilgrimage with Mary Magdalen is going to be a very key part of the teachings while we're there and while we're doing this, the sacred ceremonies and the sacred rituals. Because I think for so many of us, we have forgotten what it means to listen to the rhythm of nature and listen to the rhythm of the land, and to look at a tree with awe and to realize that the leaves and the you know, the dirt beneath our feet, and you know even the worms, right and the soil, they're all part of us. So that's, that's a big piece of pilgrimage, too. So there's so much baked into the idea of pilgrimage. The other great thing about pilgrimage and the idea of it, is to make people aware that the land is alive and with it, because we're all energy. You know, as human beings, we're energy, we're light, we're photons, but the land is alive too, and it carries energy, and with it, it carries memory. So for those who think that may sound a little too woo, woo. By this, I simply mean this. So when you think of a site, for example, you go somewhere and there's been a lot of destruction and war on the land. You can almost feel it like, you know, if you ask people, they'll say, Yeah, you know, I feel something here. I can't put my finger on it. I can't describe it in linear terms. I can't put facts on it. I can only describe it that I feel it in my body. And people say this often, right? And some people feel it more than others. And so it's just a reminder, in a way, that the land carries trauma, right? And Thomas hugel talks a lot about this in his work, that trauma lives on the land. And so when you know, we realize that we realize that when we're clearing trauma from ourselves, we're clearing trauma from the land and vice versa, because everything's connected. So I think that's another just beautiful point to mention that when you go on your own pilgrimage, whether you join us in France or any of ours or not, when you go on your own pilgrimage, and maybe it's an individual pilgrimage for you that you actually tap into that idea that the land carries memories and trauma, and with your intention, you can clear that from yourself and from the land.


Christine Mason  1:23:00  

And I also want to speak a little bit now to the idea that I was kind of alluding to in the beginning, around going to my local mountain, and to invite us to think about pilgrimage in place. We've talked before on the show about becoming indigenous, where you really start to belong to a bio region where you know your local landmarks and a bio regional spirituality of sorts might emerge. And I think this is a really important shift in how we understand pilgrimage, that it's no longer just about flying across the oceans to walk someone else's sacred road. It's about the sacred in our own backyards, there's one particular path that my friend walked every day when he lived in Petaluma, as often as possible. This was the route he took and saw it in every season. You can think about the wica in Mexico, they walk to wiricuta or the Dene in the Navajo tradition, who orient themselves within four living mountains. Within our own landscapes, we can create these kind of circuits of devotion. Closer to home, I live at the base of the mountain Mount Tamalpais when I'm in California, and I live at the base of Mauna Kea when I am in Hawaii. So in at Mount tam the sacred sites include these springs, like Red Rock spring. You know, my friend Ishta came over from Berkeley, and we went over to the spring, we filled our water jugs and we brought them back, and they're so so something about the source right touching into the source of water, and you arrive at the spring, and it's this big red clay cliff, and there are flowers scattered all about and little shells and keys and some mementos and photographs, and it's all like overlooking the vast Pacific. It feels like, you know, a place of collective memory and devotion. People have brought garden plants and perennials and herbs and planted them all around where the spigots have been. Into the wall on the Big Island, the pilgrimage spot is the caldera of Kilauea, as well as the top of Mauna Kea, where you go all the way to the top to be above the cloud layer. And both of these places have this quality of when you come, you make a devotional pilgrimage to that place to say thank you for a safe arrival. For some it's also the old lava fields down in Kalapana. But it struck me that pilgrimage is still alive, even if it's not named as such. So I want you to imagine knowing your watershed like sometimes you know what I was being sort of, oh, I'm going to introduce myself in a certain way. I live in the watershed of Mount Tamalpais, you know, the Western watershed of Mount Tamalpais, instead of I live in, you know, Mill Valley, California, you know. And try to define place by on the cascade Creek, you know, near the zigzag trail you you can take your own ridge lines, your creek beds, and imagine walking to the highest point in your own watershed under every full moon, or following the flight paths of migrating birds. Each season, I just walked 1000s of pelicans run down Stinson Beach in a long line, and that itself was a sort of a pilgrimage. You could find a particular tree or stone that becomes your place of offering, your axis of prayer, pilgrimage. In place is very cool. There's a little waterfall not too far from my house. And whenever I'm home, I make sure to walk over there and say hello. I kind of feel it. Saying back, welcome back. Missed you. You know, we're sort of in a dialog, you know the dialog with this land. So this might look like walking a two to four hour loop each week, pausing at certain stations that you mark as sacred. It might be celebrating seasonal shifts with rituals like a flower offering or a song for the snow or a moment of gratitude under a Harvest Moon. It might include learning the names of the plants and birds and stones along your route. It may include making the act of walking itself your meditation a way of carrying questions or grief or gratitude into motion and then letting the land hold it with you back to Rupert again and morphic resonance, which in this context, is an idea that places and practices hold the memory of those who have come before, so that when you walk a path in devotion, you're not just walking your own questions. You're adding to a field of prayer that future walkers can touch. You don't need a centuries old pilgrimage route to access this your own circuit can be just as potent as long as you return to it season after season, in the spirit of attention and reverence and care, the sacred accumulates where it is tended. So pilgrimage in place as an option might be an antidote to a culture that values constant departure, teaching us to stay, to deepen and to fall in love with the land that we live on. And I'd like to talk especially to my beloved friends for in transition, and offer this most of what we call enlightenment or spiritual development is in the yogic traditions, just about clearing the lens that we already know in our deepest selves what is true and that when we are seeing the world through the clearest possible lens, when we're having direct perception of reality, then our innate wisdom and genius is present. Unfortunately, many of us have a lot of veils over our direct perception that are accumulated habits, adaptations to our families and culture of origins, ways of spinning the world into a meaning that is largely of our own making. And there is nothing like slowing down and giving yourself the space and time to look and see. Is this a story? Is this a spin? Are there other ways to see it? How clean can I make my lens so that I'm perceiving the world as directly as possible? And how can I walk even more in the field of compassion and unconditional love and curiosity and gratitude, and how can I do that with others? Sometimes you just have to remove yourself from the habitual and move into the ritual.


Christine Mason  1:29:36  

Wherever you're going. My hope is that this journey today has been an invitation to resacralization of the earth and of walking the earth as prayer, and to take the time to put the hand on the heart and say, whew, I'm here. I'm listening, and to also listen to the earth beneath our feet. I'm Christine Marie Mason. I'm your host for the rosewoman pod. Cast. I'm also the founder of Rosebud woman. We make beautiful Reverend, intimate and body care. I know you will love you can find that rosewoman.com along with my recently released book, The Nine Lives of woman, sensual, sexual and reproductive stages from birth to 100 something, I worked very hard on and I'm happy to tell you that Kirkus has named an indie book of the Munch for this month. I also blog frequently on Tantra mantra, unity, consciousness and the way it hits human society and human culture, and how we might walk in the world increasingly as pure, clear perceivers and seers walk in the body of light, and that's over on substack. I've done a recent series on Androids and AI and the body, and on how we use our media and how we bring ourselves back into the real physical life of the body. I also want to point you to radiantfarms.us which is a beautiful, psychoactive gummy company making kava, Kana, Bogan sauna, Blue Lotus and other high quality Traditional Medicinals that can help with things like anxiety or sleep or social relaxation or just heart opening for a better living. Check it out. Radiantfarms.us, all love all the time. You


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