Seek the Sacred With Us

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. The challenge of the trail will invoke the path of Suffering that, when endured, breaks us open to the Joy of new 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 six virtual monthly gatherings where we can reconnect and encourage one another.

Clearwater Transformational Trekking will Seek the Sacred across a landscape once embroiled in war, but that has since become a path of peace and an invitation of friendship to the nations. The Walk of Peace trail loosely follows the Soča River from the Alps to the Adriatic Sea along the borders of Italy and Slovenia. It connects over 300 World War 1 monuments in honor of the conflict that raged here in what became known as the Isonzo Front.

As we follow in the footsteps of the soldiers, we will see how events from over a century ago still shape our world even now. This is a great mirror for reflecting on how our own past events may still be shaping our lives today. Along the way, we will also see how the land and the people have found healing and chosen peace, and perhaps we will find the inspiration to choose the same.

Join us as we set out to Seek the Sacred across this landscape of deep wounds and fierce healing.

We are in the beginning stages of planning this Seek the Sacred Trek. If you are interested in learning more, please contact Todd Holcomb at todd@clearwatertrekking.com.