A Woman's Path: Women's Best Spiritual Travel Writing (Travelers' Tales Guides) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1932361006 ISBN 13: 9781932361001

Publisher: Travelers' Tales, 2003

Synopsis

A Woman’s Path presents inspiring stories of spiritual growth and awakening, written by some of the world’s finest women writers. From New Mexico to Niger, Israel to Ireland, India to Chechnya, the wide range of stories in this enthralling collection touch on common themes—letting go, opening up, finding an inner peace. Through these tales, we see again and again the grand and subtle ways that travel awakens us, nudging important questions to the surface, directing us to view life from new angles. And while many of these stories take place while on the road, for others the change of location is purely inward—a new frame of mind, an opening of the heart, a shift in the soul.

About this title

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Excerpted from A Woman's Path: Women's Best Spiritual Travel Writing. Edited by Lucy McCauley, Amy G. Carlson and Jennifer Leo. Copyright (c) 2000. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. A WOMAN'S PATH: AN INTRODUCTION (Lucy McCauley)

How difficult it is to talk about what is spiritual. We experience moments of "connection" to a "higher power"; times of "communion" with what we can only 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 centers 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 archeological 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 spirits 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 does Linda Ellerbee 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 directions, of its contingency 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.

From Library Journal

The "Travelers' Tales" series continues to excel in informative and exciting writing, taking readers on adventurous armchair journeys. In addition to focusing on food, humor, countries, etc., the collection contains numerous titles written solely from a female perspective. Joining the shelves with Gutsy Women, A Women's World, and Women in the Wild, to name a few, this book is a sensitive exploration of women's lives that have been unexpectedly and spiritually touched by travel experiences. From over 30 narratives, readers develop a bond with writers who share intimate and moving experiences from their lives. Through such activities as kayaking, trekking, solo journeys, and urban exploration these women discover independence, peace, and better self-understanding. The reader will vicariously journey on a pilgrimage in Spain, observe a sense of enlightenment in India, and be introduced to a wandering yogi. Heavily supported with enjoyable sidebars, a trademark of "Travelers' Tales" books, this work is highly recommended for its significant and unique approach to the sharing of women's travels.
-Jo-Anne Mary Benson, Ontario, Canada
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Travelers' Tales
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1932361006
• ISBN 13: 9781932361001
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288
• Editor: McCauley Lucy, Carlson Amy Greimann, Leo Jennifer L.