Angeles Arrien

The Art of Daily Pilgrimage

"The wandering French Essayist Jacques Reda reminds himself before he leaves his Paris apartment every Sunday morning for his long strolls around the city to see one new thing. this is quite a challenge, but as someone dedicated to seeing something new in the old, he has learned to notice what others ignore.

To see this way is to move closer to the secret heart of the world. It is an indirect movement, represented throughout the world as a spiral, the symbol of the life-force itself at the crossroads of time and space.

The practice of soulful travel is to discover the overlapping point between history and everyday life, the way to find the essence of every place every day: in the markets, small chapels, out of the way parks, craft shops. Curiosity about the extraordinary in the ordinary moves the heart of the traveler intent on seeing behind the veil of tourism."

--Phil Cousineau, from the "Art of Pilgrimage" p. 108

 

Practices:

1. For the month of March, practice new ways of seeing in your relationships, work, and knowable environment.
2. There are many things that we see, that we choose not to see. Also, there are things that we see and want them to be different than they are. Few people are willing to see things as they are. Opening to "seeing with curiosity" allows us to see what is there, with freash eyes. Notice in your life where you are unwilling to see things as they are, or are only wanting to see them in a certain way. Where are you seeing with curiosity by accepting what is there, without making more or less of it? One of the great definitions of a miracle, is that a miracle is a shift in perception; which is actually seeing with curiosity, as Cousineau has described in this month's Reflection.

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