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September/October 2006 Featured Stories
Pilgrimages to Mother Earth's Sacred Places

by Robert Scheer

From ancient stone circles and jungle-tangled pyramids to gothic cathedrals and mountain-top shrines, sacred places attract us with a mysterious power. Since the beginning of time, people have been visiting sacred sites for healing, inspiration and guidance. Mainstream western scientists may scoff at suggestions that water from holy wells can cure illnesses or that ancient megaliths can deliver messages from the spirit world, but the concept of powerful places has been known to many cultures for thousands of years.

In ancient Greece, sages built an Earth Goddess shrine at Delphi because of the abundance of plenum, an energy they believed bubbled out of the earth on the slopes of Mount Parnassus. In the Chinese tradition there is a similar life force called chi. Sufis call it baraka and Hindus know it as prana. If this invisible energy seems like a fantasy to you, don’t forget that’s how people felt about radio waves a mere 100 years ago. Maybe in the 21st century, Earth energies will be verified by scientists. But even without official endorsement, we can still enjoy visiting places of power.

The oldest known pilgrimage site is Mount Kailash in Tibet, which has been a holy travel destination for an incomprehensible 15,000 years. Walking the 32-mile trail around Kailash takes about three days, at altitudes as high as 18,000 feet. Buddhists say the ritual circumambulation erases the sins of one lifetime, and 108 times around the mountain will enable you to reach Nirvana.

The first Christian pilgrim was Helena, the mother of the emperor of Constantine. She toured the Holy Land in 326 c.e. and identified (not necessarily accurately) many of the sites associated with Jesus. By the Middle Ages, when Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales, pilgrims who couldn’t manage the long voyage to Jerusalem could still do penance or seek cures by visiting shrines devoted to the various saints. The Benedictine monastery in Montserrat, Spain attracted 50,000 pilgrims per year during the Middle Ages, and today it draws about 60,000 visitors, eager to see the image of the Virgin Mary said to have been carved by Saint Luke.

North Americans don’t have to go overseas to find places known for miracles. In Chimayó, New Mexico, 2,000 believers congregate each Good Friday, and 300,000 pilgrims come every year to the adobe chapel at El Santuario de Chimayo. In a small room at the back of the chapel is a hole in the floor through which people scoop out sand, said to have curative properties. Known as the “Room of Miracles,” the walls of the room are lined with hundreds of letters and pictures from visitors thankful for the healing they say they received.

Canada’s Lac Saint Anne draws nearly 40,000 visitors to its annual summer pilgrimage to pray, sing and seek comfort. Although no actual miracles have been reported at the lake, participants describe feeling more calm and content, with their spirits renewed. Visitors to many sacred places come away feeling inspired, with a greater sense of purpose. For millennia it was customary for Native American youth to go on vision quests to powerful places. After receiving instructions from a shaman, medicine man or wise woman, young people would go alone to mountains, canyons, caves or other sites where they would await visitations from the spirits. Rock paintings with images of spirit visions can still be found along the Stein River valley near Lillooet, British Columbia, a popular destination for hikers from Vancouver.

Much more unusual sacred places are fogous (FOO-goos.) These curious stone tunnels are unique to Cornwall, in the southwestern tip of England. Some people who go into fogous experience headaches, dizziness, messages from spirit guides or a distorted sense of space. One artist sketching inside Carn Euny fogou suddenly became aware she was being watched by an Iron-age woman. A visitor who tried to enter Boleigh fogou said she found her path blocked by boulders which do not exist.

One of the strangest first-hand reports about a sacred place took place in the Peruvian Andes. Andrea, who is a healer based in Olympia, Wash., was walking across the main plaza of Machu Picchu when a large spacecraft-like object materialized in front of her. An extraterrestrial being emerged from the silver ship and sent her a telepathic message of profound, unconditional love. Neither Andrea’s husband nor the other members of her group saw what she did, but they agree the experience had a profound impact on her. Now a Reiki Grand Master, she describes her life as divided into two parts: before and after Peru.

Sedona, Ariz. has been a pilgrimage destination since prehistoric times. Not only the local Hopi and Navajo, but natives from as far as Canada and Central America would journey there for healing and learning long before Europeans invaded North America. Sedona’s dramatically-shaped red sandstone rocks are said to emit powerful energy partly because of their high concentration of magnetic iron. Sandstone is also rich in quartz, the mineral from which computer chips are made. Added to these geological forces is the human factor. Sedona was settled by aboriginals from the four sacred directions: Apache from the East, the ancestors of the Hopi from the South, Yavapai from the West and Athabascans from the North. This seems to be the way with many pilgrimage sites. They were first identified as places of natural Earth energy. In time, the land was developed by adding monoliths, stone circles, shrines, cathedrals and other sacred monuments. Over the centuries, as people gathered to celebrate or worship at the places, they added their own human energies, which continue to accumulate and mingle with Earth energies.

Martin Gray, author of Places of Peace & Power: Teachings from a Pilgrim’s Journey, visited over 600 sacred sites in more than 40 countries during a 12-year period, traveling mostly by bicycle. Gray lists 32 categories of sacred spaces, including mountains, bodies of water, forests, labyrinths, oracular caves, birthplaces and death places of saints, places chosen by animals, places chosen by geomancy and places where UFOs have been seen.

Paul Devereux takes a more clinical approach. The author of Places of Power: Measuring the Secret Energies of Ancient Sites, he was one of the organizers of England’s Dragon Project. Using scientific diagnostic tools, the project measured radiation and magnetic fields at several megalithic sites in the British Isles. They found abnormally high radiation levels in many Cornish fogous. Devereux says this radiation is what sends some visitors into non-ordinary mental states. But measuring instruments can’t explain every mystery. For example, in the Preseli hills of Wales, where the bluestones of Stonehenge were quarried, is a mountain-top site called Carn Ingli. Devereux took compass measurements there and discovered wild deviations. In one spot his compass needle pointed due south. He mentioned these observations to a colleague, who replied that he had gone to Carn Ingli with two friends, and all of them witnessed a vivid rainbow in the sky overhead–during the dark of night.

For every bizarre story you hear about unusual happenings at sacred places, there are thousands of disappointed souls who go on pilgrimages hoping for miracles that never happen. One reason why so many pilgrimages fizzle out may be lack of preparation. Native American youth would spend weeks or months getting ready for their vision quests. They’d study, pray, fast, chant and sometimes use hallucinogenic herbs to encourage their visions. Also, in earlier times travel to sacred sites required great sacrifices. In Chaucer’s day, most pilgrims to Canterbury went there on foot.

Without going overboard, there are several practical steps you can take to make your pilgrimage experience more meaningful. First, do your homework. Learn about the history and folklore associated with a place. One of the reasons I was moved to tears in Canterbury Cathedral is probably because I had first read Becket. Next, approach sacred places with humility. Instead of barging into a stone circle, stop outside and ask the genus loci for permission before you enter. Know your reason for going. If some entity were to ask “Why have you come here?” how would you answer? Open your mind and heart to the spirit of a place. Meditate, or at least take time to absorb whatever energies might be there.

Dr. Jean Shinoda Bolen, author of Crossing to Avalon and Goddesses in Everywoman, recommends that visitors go to sacred sites “with an attitude like the Fool in the Tarot deck. You have to suspend your own critical attitude which usually prevents you from acting foolish and be free to do whatever you are moved to do, whether it be picking up a certain stone, singing, doing a ritual, walking around in a certain way or lying on the ground.” Openness to synchronicity is also important. Joseph Campbell once met a woman in Chicago who was going to Greece to discover the spirit of the Goddess. After she showed him her elaborate, highly-detailed itinerary, Campbell said, “Dear lady, I sincerely hope that all does not go as planned.” He explained, “Unless you leave room for serendipity, how can the divine enter in? The beginning of the adventure of finding yourself is to lose your way.”

Self-discovery is, of course, the ultimate goal of any spiritual pursuit. In the end, all spiritual roads lead to the same destination, an idea beautifully summarized by T.S. Eliot in his Four Quartets:

“And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”

Robert Scheer is a travel writer who specializes in spiritual adventures at sacred places, and editor of the New Age Travel website www.newagetravel.com. Email him at powertrips@canada.com. Article provided by Sacred Earth Journeys, a Vancouver, Canada company specializing in travel to sacred places worldwide. Visit www.sacredearthjourneys.ca, email Helen@sacredearthjourneys.ca or phone (604) 874-7922. Photographs courtesy of SacredSites.com