The Pilgrim

By Sally Dukes

My memoir, drummer lady (launch date March 17, 2026), is about my pilgrimage to search out my fact. Many people confuse the journey with the pilgrimage. The journey implies a set plan, a starting, a concrete objective, an outward vacation spot. The pilgrim is pushed by a power from inside, probably not even recognizable, but so compelling that one can not flip away. The ember burns deep. It results in locations for consciously unknown causes, but the pilgrim follows.

It was not till I started to collate my writing, that I spotted the decision was all the time the identical, solely the context was completely different, the horizons lay far past my consciousness. Having had a near-death expertise as a toddler, I used to be drawn to recovering the numinous, that clear gentle on the finish of the lengthy, darkish tunnel, the violet swirling vitality area of affection, and the stillness, the silence, the sacred quietude. 

I had a number of sightings alongside the way in which; nevertheless, it was not till I used to be meditating one night that I skilled a violet swirl of vitality enter the meditation corridor by way of a closed-glass window and shimmer its approach alongside the wall out of my line of sight. I acknowledged the presence; it was from the opposite facet. I understood it to be a calling. However to the place was unclear.

My first cease was India. Within the metropolis of Varanasi, the Hindus come to die alongside the banks of the river Ganges. This has all the time been and stays a sacred resting spot. It’s right here the place upon loss of life, it’s believed that one receives salvation. Right here, the cycle of life and loss of life will not be hidden from view. Though the grieving widow’s wail shatters any sense of calm alongside the smoke-filled banks, loss of life on this sacred shore is seen as an occasion to be celebrated.

Since childhood, I’ve all the time been drawn to the Taj Mahal. I used to open the centerfold of the World Guide Encyclopedia to the alluring image of this stately mausoleum. Magical and mystical, I longed to see it in particular person. On the day of my arrival in Agra, I used to be surprised to silence, as I stared at what I thought of to be some of the lovely sights I had but to behold. On that exact day, at that exact hour, there was a crew performing upkeep on one of many exterior partitions. As a bit of soppy, pure marble tumbled to the bottom and glistened within the solar, I ran to retrieve. It was a present, an indication. I may now maintain a small piece of this sacred house created by Shah Jahan for his beloved Mumtaz Mahal. Love in life and love in loss of life intertwined as one and symbolized, concretized in stone.

Pilgrims typically abandon themselves to comply with an instinctual urgency not essentially a rational choice. Meditating in a forest monastery on the outskirts of Rangoon, Burma got here from a calling deeply buried. It was private. I used to be drawn by the necessity to create a secure house to replicate, to go looking inside. 90 days of silence. 90 days of Buddhist observe. What higher method to recuperate the numinous? 

Upon arriving, taking my vows, and unpacking my only a few belongings, I puzzled how I acquired there and why. The primary evening, hungry and alone, I sobbed into my makeshift pillow. Day after day, week after week, and month after month, I left myself no selection however to comply with protocol: meditate, meditate, meditate. By the trials of observe, I acquired no nearer to discovering but recovering the numinous. I really seemingly slipped farther from my fact. The unbelievable lesson discovered from this solitary time didn’t reveal itself till a lot later in life. The pilgrim knew, I didn’t.

My curiosity in Western psychology took the pilgrim to Zurich. Alone, I puzzled why I had left a loving home with a roaring fireplace stoked in a stone fire, to stroll chilly, cobbled streets in an all-grey metropolis. The drive was from inside. The pilgrim was in the hunt for wholeness, therapeutic. Her fact, the numinous. As fall folded into winter, the items started to coalesce. The pilgrim knew finest.

Whenever you head out as a pilgrim, with belief in your pocket, you’ll return all of the wiser. With sights on a distant realizing, the pilgrim meandered by way of darkness led solely by her north star. Travels to New York, life in Hawaii, graduate college in California, parenting, most cancers, these grew to become the footfalls of her life. These stay the small steps that led me again to myself, again to the conclusion that in trying to find my fact, I solely needed to cease lengthy sufficient to look inside.

The pilgrim’s last resting place: Greece. Because the Meltemi wind blows in laborious by way of my backyard and the large cypress bushes dance to the rhythm of the summer season gusts, they sample the time-worn patio in solar and shadow, gentle and darkish, life and loss of life. And on this motion, this quite simple act of nature, it’s apparent that one can not exist with out the opposite.

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Sally Dukes is revealed within the Journal of Sandplay Remedy (volumes II, III, IX) and has spoken nationally as an educator and psychotherapist. A profitable enterprise proprietor and dedicated healer, Sally expanded her profession by way of tutorial pursuits in psychology and contemplative observe. Her research deepened her understanding of the mythos that may unconsciously shadow one’s persona. As a psychotherapist, she paid cautious consideration to her shopper’s narrative, witnessing their ache, their pleasure and, in flip, grew to become their unbiased mirror. As an educator, she taught center college college students to offer voice to their rising selves. As an impartial editor, she helped writers to higher align their messaging with their coronary heart.

True therapeutic doesn’t are available in a capsule or a prescription. It comes when our tales are heard, and our humanity acknowledged and honored. Sally Dukes believes within the energy of narrative as medication. Her memoir “drummer lady” (March 17, 2026) is her narrative, her fact. Study extra about Sally and her work at: www.sallydukes.com