From pillow to pavement pilgrimage.
When I wake early and know that any further sleep will elude me, I allow myself to drift off in to London and seek out a pilgrimage to wander through my mind.
In that point between sleep and fully awaken, I can get a strong sense of the journeys taken and the foot steps of those that have walked the routes before. See the layers of the energetic footprints that have been placed on the land and discern my own from within those that fall with heavy tread or determined progress or mindful pace.
We all walk in some form and while we walk we all are allowing thoughts to pass through our conscious and unconscious mind; to seek answers to questions that have eluded us and to find our own sense of truth.
Lying in the warmth of my bed I can see the path choices. I can allow to appear my four most common walked routes, one of which will give me what I need to know today. From those that give me insights into my own sovereignty, through my playfulness, to my boundaries and my passions. Each of these London routes play a different version of the same tune of truth but I can hear it and I can listen to it with a different ear depending on my needs.
As I allow them to run through my head I can focus on the root of each of them. How does it feel to ground myself in their familiarity today? Do I need the energy of the Tower of London, how does it feel for me and in its own self? Maybe it’s the Globe that would give me a lift and joy or the London Stone and its strong heart centre.
Each of these shine a lamp that provide that original point of focus, something that I can attach my own unique line of light to, that will hold me in the root of my intention while I walk through the city guided by conscious conversations within my self. Whilst I will follow the seven stages linked to the chakras points of my own landscape temple, I like to step outside the walk on at least one occasion.
Normally between the root and the sacral centres I’ll stop and feel the journeys I have made previously on my own or with groups and then let my imagination slip back by seven generations of those who walked the paths before and take a moment to welcome in the next seven generations that will walk after me.
I stand at the balance point of so much and so many layers of time and test, that to understand this continues my work in terms of building on the intentions of the past and the future and see them walking with me, in parallel today. What I do not only gives life energy to myself but impacts on that which has come before and that which has yet to materialise but walks with us none the less.
When we walk with all of this we should know that they also walk with us. Like our positive prayers that we send out and that come back to us, those that walk with us add in their own prayers that enhance the walk we do. Like attracts like and intention meets intention at its highest potential.
Places of prayer and ceremony create a focused intent that hangs in the framework of the place, then the City of London, with all the historic and future pilgrimage routes, creates the same energetic pattern and heightened potential to hear our own truth. The land can only communicate in truth, with itself and with all that live upon it. Connect to this, one way is through pilgrimage, then all you can receive and by natural law, all you can give, is truth.
The joy of all of this is that these routes all exist in close proximity, within one built space and yet give me, in each of themselves, a completely different way to access truth and offer in whatever way I need, a sense of transformation. Not always in a big life changing punch but always and assured that whatever the intention I set that the truth will be appear and the transformation will occur and it will be what I need if I choose to see it and allow it.
Like those places of prayer and ceremony that holds the energetic imprint of intentions set over time, the city holds the levels of foot steps of walking or our connection to land in a focused and concentrated manner along the lines of streets held by the buildings old and new. These lines of walking, though often shifting in course, link strong centres and provide a chain of focused energy that holds a city together in health and true function.
Our gift to that city is to strengthen those links with our steps and our clear intentions. For it is not only the walking that gives back, the steps of light we add to those before us, but the work we choose to do in our connection. That work can still be meaningful whether we can walk the city today, tomorrow or from the depths of a warm bed. Pilgrimage is open to all whatever our capability, our knowledge or location. Our intention is always heard.
From my bed and my new day morning I access this within the marriage of my heart and mind. With a route selected either through an intuitive sense of right or a random need to remember. I can set myself an intent and begin to float along the pre ordained path from one energy centre to another. Picking up what I require, letting go of what no longer serves and balance all the gifts with my consciousness and presence even as today, from a far, that tends the land itself and strengthens the bonds that support the complex city to be its best expression of itself.
Trust is one of the key components of pilgrimage. That trust is part of the connection, part of what is heard by the land from those that walk and part of what is echoed back. I am constantly reminded of this, that with my clear intention and my true energetic self, transformation will take place.
Transformation is what we all need and while it is often couched in terms of the significant. I am always drawn to notice the small and that it is an ever moving and evolving force, a need for the every day as well as the every life. Pilgrimage has also never been more important in how we begin to weave our growth and changes that we are presently experiencing, into our vision of what we truly want as an individual and as part of a bio community.
We are needed by London and all urban centres and we are all capable of receiving truth from the urban landscape as much as any alternative, who ever we are and with what ever we have to offer. Any landscape can only speak in truth and only offer truth. Seeking this within ourselves through conscious walking, shapes the futures we create, the pasts of others and those that follow, all working in one continuum.
Jeremy Rye runs regular pilgrimages through out the year. Details of next events can be found on:
Insta: @dragon_walks
Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/jeremy-rye-31055883021
Jeremy Rye 