A Woman’s Path

How difficult it can be to talk about what is spiritual. We experience moments of “connection” to a “higher power”; times of “communion” with what we sometimes call our “soul.” Yet the language we use doesn’t come close to capturing the depth of the experiences themselves. Almost by definition, what takes place in the spiritual realm eludes description.

The stories in this collection nevertheless attempt to initiate a conversation, at least, about those elusive moments—in the context of travel. In some ways, one could say that all journeys are spiritual; by its very nature, journeying involves a leap of faith. We climb onto a train, strap ourselves into an airplane seat, or step onto a winding path with the fullest of hopes—and yet knowing nothing for certain about where the venture might actually lead us.

Perhaps that leap of faith is what makes our spiritual center so accessible when we travel. In the act of moving from one place to another, somehow a space is created where, if we’re lucky, a moment of clarity alights on us and offers a window into our natures, and the nature of everything around us. Travel to distant places has a way of opening a path inward, to possibility—to memory, even. After a while, the physical experience of travel somehow becomes less significant than the inner transformations we undergo: when, by moving through space, bumping up against strangeness and being changed by it, we somehow become more of who we are meant to be.

Ancient philosophers and contemporary mystics alike have proposed that we are conceived in the womb with a deep knowledge of everything, of all the secrets and mysteries of the universe, and that life is a process of “remembering”: As we live and learn, we reconnect with knowledge that we already have; it is as if we simply draw back a veil so that we can see and understand it all anew. The stories in this volume have convinced my coeditors and me that the act of travel is a potent way indeed of calling forth that inner knowledge. To relearn what we already know on the deepest level; to wake up to it and allow it to change us. Such is the power of the spiritual journey.

But for women, the path of that journey takes on yet another dimension. Many of our childhood experiences of spirituality revolved around the sacred male image found in the Judeo-Christian tradition—which, implicitly and explicitly, often excluded us as females. Yet we know that other religions reject that focus on a wholly male God: Native American, Hindu, and African traditions are rich with imagery of female deities, and archaeological evidence has pointed to long traditions of Goddess worship in ancient cultures all over the world.

The collection of essays that follows attempts to provide a forum in which, through our unique experiences as women, we might begin to find ways to reclaim, honor, and celebrate our spiritual power and wisdom: to explore what might be called the sacred feminine. You will read here of many kinds of women’s excursions of the spirit—some in the context of faiths like Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism, while others venture into the realms of Goddess spirituality, shamanism, and African and Native American traditions. Still, many of these essays describe journeys that have less to do with worship than with explorations of inner spiritual strength, or even of deep connections to the spirit of particular places.

We begin and end with stories set along the classic pilgrim’s trail, in which the traveler undertakes a spiritual quest by walking many weeks or months along a well-worn path. The first of these, Abigail Seymour’s “Go Beyond!” takes place along Spain’s Camino de Santiago that dates back to the Middle Ages; the last, Kelly Winters’s “Trusting the Trail,” occurs on the Appalachian Trail that runs 2,000 miles, from Georgia to Maine. Both lead the traveler to a kind of introspection and reckoning with herself and her beliefs that is nothing short of transformative.

But there are other ways of connecting to one’s spirit than by setting out on a walking pilgrimage. Some of the women in these stories partake of the religious rites and rituals of wholly foreign cultures, such as Emily Zuzik does in “Going Without at Ramadan.” Some women, like Sue Bender in “Sweat Lodge,” do it by venturing into darkness, metaphorically and literally, in order to touch their own luminous centers. Some use travel as a way of healing physical and emotional wounds, or to test and push their inner strengths and limits, as Linda Ellerbee does in “No Shit! There I Was…”. Others, like Maya Angelou in “Return to Keta,” travel to foreign lands that they find strangely familiar, and where they encounter ancestors—or past lives—long forgotten by the conscious mind. And still others, like Jill Jepson in “Cave Temple of the Goddess,” embark on their journeys as skeptical pilgrims—only to return with a new kind of faith.

What all of these journeys share, however, is their ability to convey the power of feminine spiritual transformation—of its possibilities and direction, of its contingencies and freedom, of its poetry and joy. And although this book cannot provide any fixed direction—markers for other cartographers of the spirit, it is our hope that the stories here will serve as gentle spurs for those who desire to embark on such a journey for themselves.

—Lucy McCauley

Introduction

PART ONE: AWAKENING

Go Beyond! — Abigail Seymour
Spain

Knocking on Heaven’s Door — Anne Lamott
USA

Awakening the Stone — Kim Chernin
Ireland

Mother to the World — Cherilyn Parsons
India

Jam Bah Doo Nah? — Susana Herrera
Cameroon

Renewing the Sun — Emily Hiestand
Greece

The Way Back — Tehila Lieberman
New York City

Return to Keta — Maya Angelou
Ghana

No Shit! There I Was… — Linda Ellerbee
Colorado

PART TWO: WAYS OF JOURNEYING

The Masseur — Linda Watanabe McFerrin
Sweden

Cave Temple of the Goddess — Jill Jepson
India

Going Without at Ramadan — Emily Zuzik
Morocco

El Maestro’s Magic Water — Kelly Booth
Peru

Sweat Lodge — Sue Bender
California

The Way of Tea — Amy G. Carlson
Japan

Initiation — Kim Chernin
Israel

In Ronda — Lucy McCauley
Spain

Encounter in the Sea — Diane Ackerman
The Bahamas

PART THREE: TRANSFORMING THE SELF

Train Ride to Wisdom — Natalie Goldberg
New Mexico

AWOL in Aquitaine — Lorena Cassady
France

The Sadhu from Texas — Anne Cushman
India/USA

Enchantment — Margaret Paul Stark
Washington

Stag Dance — Brenda Peterson
California

The Door to Joy — Irma Zaleski
Poland

The Sound of Healing — Kim Tinsley
Morocco

PART FOUR: WALKING THE SHADOW SIDE

Prayer for the Wounded World — Joan Halifax
California

The Desert — Laura Harger
Niger

Home for the Dying — Carol Stigger
Jamaica

Maenid Furies — Lucy Rees
Europe/Wales

Fire and Holy Water — Peggy Payne
India

A Bed Like a Vessel — Kuki Gallmann
Africa

PART FIVE: EMERGING INTO THE LIGHT

Trusting the Trail — Kelly Winters
Appalachian Trail

Lucy McCauley is the editor of Women in the Wild and Travelers’ Tales Spain. Her writing has appeared in such publications as the Atlantic Monthly, Los Angeles Times, Harvard Review, Fast Company, and several Travelers’ Tales books. She is a freelance writer, editor, and a member of the International Womens Writing Guild. She lives in Texas.

Amy G. Carlson is the coeditor of Travelers’ Tales Japan and The Gift of Birds. She has been an English teacher, snow plower, house builder, world traveler, gardener, seminary student, church lady, mountain climber, and poet. She lives with her husband Reed in Washington State.

Jennifer Leo’s “Chinese Like Me” appeared in A Woman’s Passion for Travel. She has also contributed to The Adventure of Food. She lives in San Francisco.