The ancient tradition is to journey out into the unknown and meet the Other in order to understand ourselves and our place in our communities back home. Sometimes we are drawn out by curiosity in what the next stage of life has in store for us. Sometimes an identity altering event such as divorce, a loved one’s death, illness, or a career change can thrust us out onto the journey. And so we answer the cry of our heart to seek something meaningful and true.

“For millennia, this cry in the heart for embarking upon a meaningful journey has been answered by pilgrimage, a transformative journey to a sacred center.”

~ Phil Cousineau, The Art of Pilgrimage

Why sacred? Because, “The point,” as Gary Snyder writes in The Practice of the Wild, “is to make intimate contact with the real world, real self. Sacred refers to that which helps take us out of our little selves into the whole mountains-and-rivers mandala universe.”

Seek the Sacred is a pilgrimage through the four-path Journey of Transformation across an unknown landscape to meet the Other and see ourselves. This trek is designed to give us the opportunity to truly grapple with the Call to Change that is reshaping our lives. Through our encounter with new cultures and new places, we will have the opportunity to see the hidden patterns woven closest to our own hearts, patterns that are ready to change. There, at the edges of our comfort zone, we will learn to walk with our Shadow as our guide to new horizons of possibilities.

Our return home is the beginning of the fourth path, the path of Service. This is the whole point of the journey, to bring home the gift of new possibilities and live them out in service to our families and communities. We will support each other on this fourth path with three virtual monthly gatherings where we can reconnect and encourage one another on the path.