Excerpt from The Way of Stars and Stones - Thoughts on a pilgrimage

I definitely wasn’t looking for a religious experience. My spiritual quest was to experience a level of commitment to something so great, so important, that any fear, inhibition or shame faded in significance. I wanted to pledge myself to something that would take me out of myself and place me on a level far beyond my ken. I wanted to be transported to a spiritual plane where the pettiness and detail of a mundane life had no import and where the true sense of life, love, friendship and courage would become clear.

In my frequent travels across the globe, I have always envied the faithful their blind resolve in the face of a staring world – be it the believers who, in airports, stop off in a side room to kneel down towards Mecca; or the orthodox Jew, with his prayer shawl draped over his shoulders, standing by the porthole of the plane door, rocking his silent prayer to his God; or the New Ager standing naked in the field, arms outstretched, greeting the ever-reliable sun at dawn. In Japan I’ve looked with longing at the white-clad funny-hatted men and women who walk the route of the 88
Buddhist temples of Shikoku. Even in Memphis, in the United States, it was not with scorn or ridicule that I watched the long lines of people who patiently and silently inched their way forward to the open doors of Elvis Presley’s home, Graceland; I watched with something approaching awe and admiration. And then, of course, I have been deeply moved by the thousands of pilgrims who cycle, walk or ride on horseback on their way to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

Now, subconsciously, I sensed that this altered state of being I was yearning for was exactly what I’d seen in the faces of pilgrims at the airport, in the lines at Graceland – and on the Way of St James.

I did not need drugs, or alcohol, or an evangelist preacher to take me to that level. What I did need was total commitment – something I realised even before I started to research the requirements and demands of such a pilgrimage. This was not something I could do on a whim. It wouldn’t count that I had often taken on exciting challenges and demanding adventures on no more than a sudden impulse, nor that I’d always achieved what I set out to do, sometimes courtesy of pure good fortune. But, without total commitment even I could quite possibly fail. This time, this challenge was to demand more than ever before.
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