There can be no pilgrimage without proper shoes

My pilgrimage shoes leaving home
My pilgrimage shoes in Oslo

One last UK post

Couldn't resist posting a picture of this place. Our B&B hostess highly recommended a local place in Whitcombe on the Moor for dinner. She called ahead to make reservations, gave us directions and when we arrived we found it was called the RUGGLEstone Inn. Couldn't resist taking a picture (and taking account). I wonder if it has anything to do with OUR Ruggleses. (sounding very LOTR here - which is entirely appropriate. All of Devon and Dartmoor evoke the Shire and surrrounds)

What can these stones be?

A little surprise for Max that I can't contain any longer.

Steph and I spent a day walking around Tintagel - 1st stop Merlin's Cave below the cliff to gather rune stones for Max. A promise fulfilled. Here they are, Max - waiting to be carved and cast: I expect only the most glorious divinations to result.

Tintagel was remarkable and has all the elements one would expect from a place of power. Very dramatic - even in a ruined state. I don't know how, why or for what the site was chosen, but clearly the place hums with a deep energy. I can only imagine that it's been considered a place of power since its first discovery.

The ruins are only reachable via long climbs up steep and precarious stairs cut into the cliffside - yet there were tons of people willing to make the climb.

Catching up to myself

I have the feeling that this blog is never going to quite catch up to me until I'm in Boston - but that's a good thing. For now, though I'm in Oslo and there are still photos from the UK that need posting. So, I'll back up a bit even though that was then and this is now.

The first are from Totnes, Devon where my ancestor John Chapin was born in the 16th century. The photos are of the interior of the Church of St Mary's, parts of which date from the mid-15th century and stood in the middle of the old town centre. Standing in the church, I was struck by the thought that my ancestors may well have stood on the same space and looked on the same view.

I feel something here, but I'm not entirely sure what. I am unprepared for experiencing the UK as an ancestral place - though I remember the first time I came to Devon: I had a strong sense of familiarity and home. It felt like a place I could easily stay.

Dartmoor

Meant to walk to Merrivale Stone site, but Steph an I couldn't see 5 feet in front of ourselves. Still, I can't help but feel I've had the real Dartmoor experience. Wild, otherworldy, austere and very, very beautiful.

NORWAY!

I've just landed in Oslo and am sitting in the café of the MS Innvik (across the Oslo Fjord from the New Oslo Opera House). I'll be staying here and exploring Oslo for the next few days before going to Larvik. But for now, I'm overwhelmed and a bit tired after a long day's travel - so, I promise...tomorrow, I'll post more and add some juicy photos.

There and back again

The last month or so has been filled with an intensity that demands recording. I’ve gone through a number of rapid-fire, almost metamorphic changes. At the first, I felt filled with fears and sadness: intent on what I was leaving, fearful of what I’ll fail to find. My journey seemed ill-conceived and filled with irony. My search is always for deep, unshakable connection, yet my deepest connection – the only truly unshakable connection I’ve ever felt - is to Max who, in order to find how and where I belong , I’m leaving behind. It made no sense and yet it seemed somehow related to this stage of my role as his mother: I am driven to forge these ancestral connections, not only for myself, but for him: to tie him to his ancestry in such a way that he never has to feel the uncertainty I’ve felt – or to question how, where and to whom he belongs.

Interestingly, I addressed my fears and sadness somewhat by speaking of them to some of my friends and family. With this journey, I have felt driven to be absolutely transparent about the stages I pass through and have felt adamantly that I don’t want to hide behind any sense of glib bravado. That bravado is (traditionally) what has kept others at a distance from me and has, in fact, even kept me at a distance from myself. So, if I want to be understood and accepted in my totality, then that’s what I have to show. The result has been an outpouring of tenderness, protectiveness, support, encouragement and appreciation that makes my heart glad. It's all gone a long way to alleviate my fear - certainly my fears regarding how others will relate to my journey. Which is not to say I am without fear - I'm actually terrified - mostly of myself and how I'll handle keeping myself from hiding away in my hotel room - but I'm simultaneously exhilarated: as always, what's out there to be discovered is so much more compelling than the fear.

And now the last week has been remarkable: Almost constantly I’ve spent time with family and friends – lunching, talking, shopping, watching movies. Everyone seems to want to touch base with me and I have felt the full support and love of this community of wonderful people – my tribe. There seems a genuine excitement expressed – on my behalf – about what I might find and what I might bring back with me. There’s a real sense of my going off to gather and return. Max and Ebbie have taken to calling my journey “there and back again” as in The Lord of the Rings.

I can’t help but compare this experience to past adventures and to remark on a stark difference. So often in the past, my friends seemed to feel that when I headed off on one of my searches for self, it was a rejection of them and what I was leaving behind. They seemed to expect that my search was bound to lead me further and further away. I recognised that their response was to some degree self-protective, but was never able to understand what prompted it: I always knew, though, that I played some big part in the misfiring of messages – that somehow I wasn’t expressing my intentions well enough – hiding behind the bravado, perhaps – so that the folks I left behind were never quite sure how I felt, why I was going, what I was looking for and how I felt about leaving them behind.

Part of the difference between those experiences and now must be the result of the clarity I feel about why I’m going and what I hope to find. As well, I think it has a lot to do with the fact that a large part of my current intention is to share this experience as viscerally, honestly and completely as I can – to say it all, to reveal as much as I know myself to anyone who cares to listen. It really is all and the best I have to give.The process already has brought some new, though long-awaited clarity – and my physical journey hasn’t even yet begun. It’s become clearer and clearer to me, too – that THIS is home. And I honour my beloved Australian tribe. My family: Magnificent Max, tender Ebbie, gentle Nathan; my soul sisters and brothers: visionary Chris, oracular Katie, honourable Emir, joyful Kate, inspired (and inspiring) Josie, deep and thoughtful Phil, fellow seeker Sharon. I love you all and I’ll be back soon with stories to tell.