Adventures of the Soul

I’ve been pondering the idea of creative pilgrimages.

A pilgrimage is a journey or search of moral or spiritual significance. Typically, it is a journey to a shrine or other location of importance to a person’s beliefs and faith, although sometimes it can be a metaphorical journey into someone’s own beliefs.

As a writer and a person of faith, can I separate the spiritual and creative? Who we are is so complex that trying to separate the parts only fractures our soul. My writing is a calling, a purpose, a message, a desire to express or tell a story, and at times, it’s as if God is flowing through me into the words on the page.

In some way it’s as if I’m a conduit through which the Great Creator’s creativity enters the world. This goes for all creative types painters, artists, craftspeople, poets, musicians, songwriters, sculptors and so on. We hear people talk about the Muse as if it’s a spirit that inspires and takes over.  Whatever your beliefs about God, there is undeniably a spiritual aspect to creativity in humans.

No matter how secular it may appear, writing is actually a spiritual tool. We undertake it solo, and, not to be too facile with puns, it is worth noting that that word does have the world “soul” embedded in it. Moving alone onto the page, we often find ourselves companioned by higher forces, by a stream of insights and inspirations that seem somehow “other” than our routine thinking. Julia Cameron The Artist’s Way Every Day

Oxford

One way I tap into this is to go on pilgrimages to the homes and landscapes of great writers and soak up the vibes. I’ve walked the paths of L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables, I’ve stood at the junction of two paths in the yellow wood in Robert Frost’s Vermont and strolled through the fields of daffodils in Wordsworth’s Lake District. I’ve wondered the streets of London, Paris, Rome, Florence, New York and Rome seeking out the cafes, homes and haunts of authors of old. I’ve written in these places, inspired by the knowledge that these great ones have written there before. I’m not in their league and may never be, but the creative spirit in me seeks out inspiration and it’s often found on these pilgrimages—adventures of the soul.

Lake District

Physical pilgrimages are nothing compared to the pilgrimages of the soul. As we search for meaning and understanding in life, I’ve found that searching within myself for answers only goes so far. The real adventure begins when I explore the God who is bigger than all of us, who is beyond our understanding and who inspires the creative drives within us. It’s all interconnected, and this is where the adventure of the soul begins.

Robert Frost Country

#365adventure is a book lover’s year of adventures. Adventures in travel, friendship, family, soul, heart and, of course, book stores!