Pilgrims

When one hears the term “pilgrim” images of Thanksgiving usually pop into the brain, complete with blunderbuss, turkey, corn, square shoes with buckles and a tall black hat. The background setting is always autumn.

In reality the word pilgrim means “circling” in may cultures. For example, in Tibet the term means, “To turn around the place,” and the word in Muslim connotation, hajj, is the journey to Mecca that every Muslim is required to make in his or her lifetime. In this instance it is an old Semitic word meaning “to go around in a circle.”

Early Christians embarked on pilgrimages to Jerusalem to view scenes of the Passion of the Christ. Even after Jerusalem had been occupied by the Saracens freedom of the pilgrimage was built into treaties and the task of protecting pilgrims gave rise to the medieval military orders, such as the Knights Templar.

Pilgrims, then, were always thought of as noble travelers and given safe passage through lands in their path and were accorded respect and hospitality by the occupants. One of the most dreaded tribes in the American Southwest was the Yaqui Apache. In their land was a mesa thought o be a holy place by all the adjoining civilizations. And as fierce and protective of their land as they were the Apache warriors stood back and let anyone up to the mesas who was following a Vision Quest. For this was their rendition of a pilgrimage.

A pilgrimage does not have to be so austere. Everyday people make small pilgrimages to their own version of “holy” places whether it be a journey to a spiritual place or to Graceland.