8. Me Adrift

8.

Me Adrift

I have only been outside of the United States before to make short touristic trips to Mexico and Japan.

On those excursions my time was always limited by obligations.

Now I have cast adrift from the possessions, relationships that demand attention--and Elizabeth is dead.

My friends are giving their positive energy and perhaps I can even use the negative energy my enemies throw my way to my advantage.

I have been backpacking in the mountains of Hawaii and feel physically fit.

My knowledge of foreign languages is pretty slim, but I have confidence in my Self and I want to see what the world is really like before my stay in this body is over.

...

7 Ceremony of Protection

7.


Ceremony of Protection

What comes to me in that hotel room is a personal ceremony for protection, which is as deep as I can get.

No game.

For me it’s a “life or death” serious thing.

I call upon Power--Thoth, Xaman, Mercury—the Guides, for protection if it is a part of The Plan. I form the mental image of a pyramid blazing with white light inside a circle of protection. I place ceremonial food and drink at the points of the compass and wait for good vibrations.

I concentrate and expand.

...

6. My Earthprobe Begins

6. My Earthprobe Begins

The flow takes me from Honolulu, Hawaii to Los Angeles, California, to the nearby town of Buena Adventura where my parents live.

The only message from Hawaii I receive is the one quoted above telling of ee’s death in a plane crash at sea. I was invited to go on that ill-fated journey, but instead began my “earthprobe”. I am left in this body, almost unwillingly, to continue whatever work I must accomplish.

Elizabeth had great energy and, since her physical vehicle was destroyed so abruptly, I feel she is linked into what my body has to offer—perhaps refuge, strength and warmth. She was not free to travel with me as a physical entity, but perhaps now in the spirit she can somehow share the perceptions of my senses. It is good to have a few good friends along.

With my good parent’s blessing I leave Buena Adventura. The flow carries me to San Diego and I prepare to cross the border into Mexico.

Alone in a cheap California border hotel room I think it out...

...

5 Airplane Crash

Anubis

5. Airplane Crash

“Four Feared Dead in Light Plane Crash”

“Upulu Point, Hawaii: Debris of a light plane that crashed Friday night while carrying four persons from Honolulu to Hilo was found yesterday off the North Kohala coastline.

Coast Guard authorities said the plane apparently hit the water with great impact and no survivors were expected to be found.”

“Dear Tom, This is a difficult letter for me to write, so I’m going to keep it short. I thought you should and would like to know about Elizabeth’s fatal plane crash…I don’t have the specific date but it occurred before Christmas a few days after you left.”


gone

the cold, white moon
the blue candle
becomes a waterfall
and life ahead
looks empty
as a desert road

you left
too soon

thru the black casement
peach trees bloom
under gray cloud forest
mountains roll
in the icy pool
children play

I think of you light
years of time
and space away


But when I close my eyes in sleep, my magical friend often meets me smiling. I feel her warm in my arms. We talk and laugh. Once, in a dream, I said, “But you are dead.” She smiled, “Oh, yes. I’ve been dead some time now.” We both laughed. But when I wake I’m lonely.

...

4 Shifting Tenses

Four Piece Plastic Tetrahedron Puzzle

4. Shifting Tenses

On my last night there was a party in the Waikiki Beach apartment of a friend for aloha. My closest friends—a handful—wished me good luck and bid farewell in their own best ways.

Elizabeth gave me a tetrahedron puzzle— a pyramid—to carry "for her" around the world. (The tetrahedron is the shape of the carbon molecule—sometimes called “the building block of the universe”.)

To her (and MY) great surprise, I solved the puzzle in seconds.

Along with the gift puzzle was this poem:

shifting tenses

by ee (Elizabeth English) 18 December 1972

i am just so overwhelmed
by the past tense of you
that all my being flips into the future
with the speed of light
i am jarred by the contrast

for
i
am
only
now

...

3 Zen Choice

Zen Choice

The day before I left Hawaii, I went by to see Toshi at the Cosmic Computer he had built out of bamboo and scrap wood on the front lawn of the University of Hawaii.

He made the sprawling machine to prove his theory that all numbers are a closed system of relationships. The idea of infinity is therefore an illusion, he believes.

Toshi has lived on a dollar a day for the last year so that he can concentrate on his Cosmic Computer. I contributed one of the dollars so he said I owned one day’s work. I offered another dollar but he said he would wait for another business partner when the next day came.

Tied to the tallest bamboo pole of Toshi’s cosmic computer is an American flag “because this is the only country in the world which would allow me to do this”, he said.

Toshi said Zen is choosing a thing to do and then devoting oneself to it.

The Cosmic Computer is his Zen thing; earthprobe is mine.

...

2 earthprobe treklog begins

Earthprobe

Childhood’s blankness everywhere everything unknown
dreams sky father earth mother
any horizon better than none.

Just a little heavy than stone, I try to fill the low places, only splashing up when I must--but I am Water Ambassador sent to explore the arid and empty the high and the far.

Combine creature of element and flow I carry earth wherever I go.


DEDICATED to my heart-friend, mom and pop, the friends along the way who gave me love, the enemies who gave me definition and The Flow, without which none of this would be.

If I left my heart I’d die
so I’m taking my heart
and saying goodbye.

Detach and go
cell in the stream
fish in the flow.
A thousand worlds wait…

let go, let go.

And when everything fits into one backpack and all shore obligations have been settled, I am free.

...

1 Earthprobe Prologue

Earthprobe


PROLOGUE: Spring, 2004

Roseville, California:

When I was a young man, the US Navy took me to Hawaii for duty at the little navy radio station at Laulualei, Oahu.

I liked the beauty and atmosphere of the islands so much that upon discharge eighteen months later I stayed on, attending the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

To earn a living, I played music in nightclubs—the drummer in a rock and roll band—and then when I graduated, got into teaching and newspaper work.

For a short time I was the editor of The Hawaii Herald, a small English language weekly newspaper for second and third generation Japanese Americans. As such I wrote stories about the Japanese community in Hawaii and was always on the lookout for interesting material.

Driving toward Waikiki on Kalakaua Avenue one afternoon I spotted a Japanese man in a strange costume walking down the sidewalk. I parked my car and asked if I could photograph him and hear the reason for his dress.

He said I was welcome to a photograph and explained that he was a monk from a large monastery in Japan and the straw hat, the straw cape, walking stick and the straw sandals he wore were the traditional pilgrimage costume of a traveler of his brotherhood. He had been sent by his monastery to walk around the world to see how things really were and then to come back and report his findings to his fellows. Honolulu was his last stop before returning to Japan.

I wrote this story up and published it with his photograph in The Herald.

This occurred during the Viet Nam war era and as a newspaperman I knew very well that propaganda from all sides of every political issue made it impossible to discover the truth about anything that was going on in the world.

I thought it was a marvelous idea to walk out and see for myself what the world was like since the slow pace of walking would insure direct contact with everything.

I had already decided that living boldly, in what I thought of as a “mythic” way, was the best way for me to live, so after a couple of years of preparation I quit my teaching job at the University of Hawaii to make a slow exploration around the planet—not walking every step of the way, but taking my time and staying on the ground as much as possible.

I had no monastery to support me and no monk’s fellowship to report my findings back to, but I thought I could more or less support myself along the way and tell about what I found in a published account for interested readers.

The following is my report of that long ago “earth probe”.

Tomasito, 2009


...

28 Conclusion

On the Way. (Tomasito photo)

28

Conclusion

The above short and light-hearted winter holiday pilgrimage from Kolbermoor to Altotting was undertaken during some spare time I had in Germany as I was waiting for some documents that would allow me to return to Russia.

This solo walk was delightfully worthwhile to me, though I do not count it as a serious pilgrimage.

As you have probably noticed, I was far too interested in the curious and inspiring sights and sounds of the countryside to totally immerse myself body and soul in the peculiar state of consciousness induced by the sustained and concentrated chanting of the Jesus Prayer or any other mantra—as I have said, this dedicated spiritual work must perhaps be primary. Everything should vanish leaving the pilgrim present only as prayer.

Except for short flashes, this, for me, extraordinary state did not occur during my walk to Altotting. I remained a pilgrim, and never became a prayer.
Of course, people such as the fictitious story-sharing pilgrims of Chaucer’s narrative could not be considered real pilgrims of the spiritual sort either—though they may gain much from their journey.
Perhaps real pilgrimage will never be written about under the strictly disciplined conditions I expect are required. A real pilgrim couldn’t carry a camera because the conscious search for photographic images would probably interfere with being a prayer. Then making a story of what happens—the inner dialogue that a writer often carries on with his muse as he puts his experiences into words—that also might be a counterproductive activity for a real pilgrim.
Also I had money enough to spend every night in a nice bed and breakfast or hotel—and I could buy food or anything else I needed on the way, so I never had to depend on being provided for from the mysterious spiritual world. I was not totally dependent, as I have been during other pilgrimages—and that seems to me to make a great difference.

Even the fact that I speak some German and was not travelling in a country where the people speak what is to me an unknown tongue made me feel less dependent on the spirit.
But I can conceive of a spiritually self-realized pilgrim who can carry a camera and keep a diary—a pilgrim who could even use a credit card to pay for meals and hotel expenses during a time limited pilgrimage but who nevertheless embodies his prayer (mantra).

I am presently not that pilgrim, but as they say, I’m not finished yet
And so, after a few days in the pilgrimage town of Altotting, I walked to the town’s railway station, caught the afternoon train back to Rosenheim, transferred to the local Kolbermoor car and in an hour or two was relating these adventures to my friends.

Tomasito, 2009

Written from May 2000 in San Diego, California to December, 2002 in Merced, California

...

27 Maria Helped

27.

“Maria Helped”

The two little books that started me off—that changed me from a traveler to a pilgrim were: The Way of the Pilgrim and The Pilgrim Continues His Way written by an unknown Russian a couple of hundred years ago.

You can sometimes find these two short narratives bound together as one volume in a used bookstore. They helped me.

Another book I recommend is by a middle aged American woman, who, following some “inner voice”, set out from Los Angeles across the United States by foot, without money, backpack or change of clothing, to make a pilgrimage for peace.

Assuming the name “Peace Pilgrim”, she walked all day every day, meditating on peace and talking about peace with everyone she met. She did not eat until she was offered food and had no shelter until shelter was offered. She would not reveal her pre- pilgrimage identity, which she said was unimportant. She persisted in this foolish, even insane behavior for many years, visiting every one of the fifty United States, including Hawaii and Alaska, which she visited after receiving gift airplane tickets from helpful souls, since she would accept no money. She spoke, when asked, on the radio and on TV, to organizations and to individuals, always on the subject of peace.

When she was killed in an automobile accident on her way to a speaking engagement, her admirers (she would tolerate no “disciples”) collected her sayings and published them in book form.

The book is distributed free internationally and I hope you will find it and read it some day. It is inspiring to me: PEACE PILGRIM, Her Life and Work in Her Own Words, 1982, Ocean Tree Books, PO Box 1295, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA 87504.

You might also enjoy Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, a book by Annie Dillard, which is currently available in many American bookstores.. Her meditative thoughts, generated by simple everyday events and told in a gentle, perceptive way, may enhance your pilgrimage as it has mine.

Annie’s pilgrimage was not a walk to a “holy place”, but to that holy place within where patience, solitude, silence, keen observation and a receptive spirit may bring realization.

Most certainly, to the holy, every place is a holy place; every tree a holy tree and every drop of water, holy water.

All of life seems equally holy and perhaps there is nothing holier in the entire universe than your own sacred consciousness reading these words.

Tomasito, 2009


...

26. Choice of Crosses

Pilgrimage Chapel, Altotting, Germany. (Tomasito photo)

26

.

The Choice of Crosses

.
There is a stack old crosses by the entrance of the covered porch, which encircles the little pilgrim’s chapel in the middle of Altotting.

The crosses are made of wood, squared and joined, and come in all sizes, from little things a foot long and weighing a few ounces to big ones maybe five feet long weighing maybe twenty pounds.

They are there for pilgrims like me to chose and carry as we make a counterclockwise circuit around the octagonal chapel under the protective porch.

This custom may perhaps be traced to the “Take up your cross and follow Me.” remark made by Jesus in one of the gospels. Somebody took it literally a few centuries ago and it is still more than poetry here.

What to do?

After all these years, and all the ludicrous things I have done, pride is still a problem for me.

What will people think if I should pick up one of these handy pilgrim’s crosses and walk around the chapel? There goes another fool!

I simply watch for two days; but the third day, at dawn before the crowds arrive, I select a small cross and follow (not too closely) a young woman slowly circumambulating the old building.

The paving stones underfoot are worn smooth by centuries of curious, hopeful, faithful pilgrim’s feet, while surrounding the walking pilgrim above and on every side on pillars, walls and ceiling of the porch are fastened testimonial folk art paintings celebrating hundreds of examples of miraculous intervention in human affairs: “Maria helped”, they say, with illustrations of farmers trapped under wagons, houses on fire, sick children—all the hopeless situations of life where miraculous involvement seems to be the only possible solution. Some of these pictures are centuries old others are fresh and new.

During the my first time around I decide that the cross I picked up is too small for me and the next circuit I exchange it for a large one more my size, then I pace slowly around––once for Andrew and Steve, once for the family, friends and memories, once for life and hope and once for love—

Then the organ begins to play in the chapel so I enter the garishly decorated sanctuary with the other pilgrims where, beyond the candles and the shining gold leaf, as always in my terrible heart, the Great Mystery is pulsing.

Tomasito, 2009


...

25. Three Nails

Pilgrim at Three Nails Hotel

25.

Three Nails

I find the little town crowded with Christmastime pilgrims, but there is a small cozy cell-like room for me in “The Three Nails” pilgrim's hotel with a down comforter on the bed and a hand carved cross on the wall.

There are several beautiful old churches in Altotting all bustling with Christmas activity and the little pilgrimage chapel that has been the site of countless miraculous events for centuries is filled with people of all sorts—but there are no other foreigners here to experience this I think but me.

Nightfall comes early in Mid-December and the grassy town square soon fills with expectant festive people of all ages. Excitement is in the air--something good is going to happen.

There is a bright flourish of trumpets from above and the upper balcony windows of the town hall facing the square are suddenly thrown open to reveal costumed musicians, a choir singing carols, children dressed as angels and Saint Nicholas himself in splendid white bishop’s robes with crook and miter.

The scene is so exquisite for this poor New Mexican pilgrim that he is filled to overflowing with gratitude for the privilege of probably being the lone American witness of this incredible loveliness.

Later, when the good pretend saint walks through the Christmas market pavilions that have been erected in the town square, I follow at a respectful distance enjoying his blessing of the children, townspeople and pilgrims perhaps more than any of the hundreds gathered there.

I decide that I will stop here in this perfect little Christmas town for the remaining few days of my pilgrimage time.

Tomasito, 2009


...

24 Altotting

24.

Altotting

It is afternoon when I walk into Altotting.

To me, all Bavarian villages are beautiful but even in this land of chocolate box towns Altotting is precious.

In the center of town are several gorgeous old churches and attractive hotels devoted to caring for the material needs of the thousands of pilgrims of all sorts that converge on this holy place.

I had no idea that Altotting was so famous or so awfully pretty.

But it is not far enough from Kolbermoor for me to call it the ultimate goal of my pilgrimage.

I am still too fresh—too alert, too curious about the countryside—too rested and too well fed. The walking has not been long enough, monotonous enough, tiring enough for long enough to wear me down so that I am finally forced to concentrate fully on the Prayer of the Heart— but it has been a wonderful, peaceful walk.

When I remember that my plan was to walk the 200 kilometers to Straubing, I feel kind of guilty to be so fascinated by this place so soon in my travels.

Tomasito 2009


...

23. Anton Bauer

23.

Anton Bauer

The next day I am again up early and walking. I soon come to another “closed for the season” luxurious Bavarian-style hotel beside the country road.

Knowing how German tourists love to ramble, the hotel people have thoughtfully erected an outdoor signboard map showing the hiking trails in the vicinity.

I chose a path that goes in the general direction of Altotting and appears to pass through some woods skirting what will undoubtedly be a small, pleasant pond.

I soon cross some rolling grassy hills when I try walking the nicely maintained pedestrian path, and on top of one of these hills, under a picturesque tree, lies a low stone monument, which reads:

Remember in prayer
Anton Bauer

Killed by Lightning
Near Hemhof,
Germany

22 June 1874

Which accident took place about a hundred and fifty years ago.

How many people have passed this way, seen this stone and remembered Anton Bauer in prayer since 22 June 1874? And what sort of effect have the prayers of these passers-by had on Anton?

I once asked my brother, who is a minister of the Lutheran faith, exactly how he prayed for those people in his congregation who ask for his prayers and he said that he published their names in his church’s weekly bulletin.

Isn’t this request for the prayers of strangers walking through a field sort of like putting the request in the church bulletin—and engraving it on stone!

Does the passer-by’s prayer actually help the soul of the dead person who is prayed for in some way? Or does the prayer do more for the pray-er than for the pray-ee?

I don’t know, Anton, but here’s my memorial prayer, for what it is worth--perhaps somebody will do the same for me some day—though what good will it do me or them I don’t know.

And you, dear reader—now that you have read about Anton’s memorial request—what will you do about Herr Bauer?

Tomasito, 2009


...

22. Powers

22.

Grocery Store and B + B

Pilgrims need bread too so I go into a village grocery store and chose some supplies.

I am waiting at the checkout counter when a display of canned goods stacked nearby suddenly collapses onto the floor.

There is no doubt in my mind that somehow I have caused the neatly piled cans to tumble though I certainly did not intend to do it. I have not touched them—I am not even very near them…but I am absolutely certain that somehow I am responsible.

The same evening, I discover an open bed and breakfast hotel in the next village. The manager gives me a key to my upstairs bedroom but when I go upstairs alone and click my room’s light switch, every light in the hotel goes out.

The manager finds that the electric current has somehow shorted out and soon gets the lights on again, but I have an uncanny feeling again that it is my fault.

Well, I have read somewhere that sometimes persons on a spiritual path may open psychic doors to certain uncanny skills like bringing rain or walking on water, which they sometimes use to benefit themselves or others but it seems typical of my own bassackward learning style that, if I am accidentally getting such powers in a very limited way I not only do not know how to use them constructively, but that the powers themselves will be more or less goofy jokes.

Or more likely these occurrences are simply instances of megalomaniac paranoid thinking.

tomasito 2009


...

21. War Memorial

Tomasito photo

21

War Memorial

I walk through a silent, frozen village. There is a gray stone monument. I translate:

“To the fallen heroes
of 1870, 1918, 1945.
From fear,
hunger and war
protect us,
O lord.”

It is almost inconceivable to me that less than a single lifetime ago a furious war raged across this serene countryscape.

Sudden death, monstrous cruelty, hideous sounds, starvation, loss of all security or stability which scarred this land and this folk in ways that none who have not experienced such chaos can understand.

The carnage provoked by such leaders as Napoleon, Kaiser Wilhelm and Hitler provide poignant reasons why the field crosses I have passed may have such significance for the people…

Beyond the village, I carry my walking stick like a rifle and, humming old American civil war tunes such as the cheerful “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again” and it’s gloomy sequel: “Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye”, I madly march in the mad footsteps of my mad brothers of all the past ages of gone but not forgotten madmen.

And yet, perhaps even the very maddest and most horrible of these savage actions are, in the very, very long run, holy—bringing into being some now unknown but ultimate good.

The unspeakable acts of heartless leaders like Hitler, Napoleon, Kaiser Wilhelm—all the insane plotting, marching, waiting and killing by their too willing followers--are perhaps, when perfectly understood, only concealed coded communications in the impeccable and mysterious timing of Divine Purpose.

Oh, let it be.

Tomasito, 2009

...

20 Prayer

(Tomasito photo)

20.

Prayer

When I am on pilgrimage, do I “pray” during such mundane lunch breaks?

Prayer is certainly an embarrassingly old-fashioned concept.

Lots of people hate the very sound of the word the notion seems so unfamiliar or so phoney to them—and sometimes in my life it has sounded false to me also though I was raised among “believers”.

Well, I don’t know. For me sometimes “prayer” is words and sometimes it is silence and sometimes it is not so much “praying” as allowing oneself to be “prayed” by whatever “God” is—and there is more than enough mystery there to keep a contemplative soul busy for several lifetimes.

My pilgrimming colleague Peace Pilgrim once said, “Prayer is a concentration of positive thoughts.” and for my kind of pilgrimage of course, the Jesus prayer or some other traditional prayer is the literal environment for every breath.

For some, pilgrimage is a way to atone for past sins, but for me pilgrimage does not cancel out the sins of a lifetime but does provide a certain austerity and occasion to think about their cause and effect.

These wayside field crosses are gentle, periodic reminders for me of who I am, and what I am, have been and will be.

I really don’t know what these field crosses mean to the people who erect and care for them, but they seem purposely designed to inspire a pilgrim like me—and you never see them on the autobahns because high speed driving is not the best time to meditate, though it may be a very good time to pray!

There still may be something to say for being a spiritual athlete after all since “The Way” is said to be narrow, difficult and hard to find––and the crowds probably still miss it, even with the benefits of mass communication and global advertising— since there are, as yet, no package tours to the “kingdom of heaven”––to the chagrin of hoteliers, tour operators and travel writers!

I don’t say that I have found it—that narrow and difficult way. I am just reporting my experience with one traditional way of spiritual development which the old-timers recommend.

I want to report my experience to you but I also know that the way to be a real pilgrim is not to go gather information, return home and tell what happened--since that IS the job of a travel writer.

No, you don’t go on pilgrimage to “show and tell”—you go to go.

Walking, walking, one foot in front of the other, toward the goal…

Tomasito, 2009


...

19 Field Crosses

A Typical Field Cross. (Tomasito photo)

19

Field crosses

The woods are utterly silent.

I walk until I am ready to pause and then I enjoy a snack of bread, honey and water sitting on one of the benches which is provided for the tired walker in Germany—even in off the beaten track places like this forest.

The bench is placed under a field cross, one of the thousands that are scattered over this extraordinary province. I often pause at these field crosses, sometimes to slip off my pack and stretch a bit, sometimes just to lean on my staff and contemplate.

I like these field crosses and don’t view them in a sectarian way at all though they are unquestionably Christian in their history and their symbolic content. To me they seem to be rather beyond dogma—perhaps they are one way a spiritual and humble folk express their faith and their hope in the final goodness of the mystery of life.

Field crosses are often large—more than eight feet tall including the shingled roof which shelters the inlaid crucifix from the worst of the weather—and they are often decorated with ornamental plants, freshly gathered flowers, or sometimes, a burning votive candle.

They are visited, and visited often, by the rural people who erect and maintain them.

The figure of Christ crucified is usually made of painted plaster or sometimes beautifully carved wood and I have never seen one of them desecrated or spoiled by graffiti, though I have heard sadly that some which were sited closer to cities have been vandalized.

For some, these field crosses are superstitious nonsense, but I love them.

Tomasito, 2009


...

18 Whatever is--is OK

In the Dunklewald. (Tomasito photo)

18.

Whatever is--is OK.

I believe it is possible to develop a sensitivity or discrimination, which helps distinguish necessary information from superfluous and I have learned to trust my intuition, which I sometimes call my guardian angel, implicitly.

Though it may be only my imagination, it seems to me that some of the people that I meet when I am on pilgrimage, like these two farmers, offer me exactly the aid I need at exactly the right time.

Mist hangs over the rolling hills, blurring the sharply defined periphery of a dark forest above me. The day is still young. The farm road, which I have been directed to follow, curves uphill away from the village church. At the top of the hill there is a view of the sparkling green valley before I plunge into the gloomy woods. New snow sparkles on the black needles of the evergreens. The dirt road underfoot is frozen rock-solid. Tall grasses, silver with ice, fill the clearings.

I am extremely happy to be alive and feel that I am now “in God’s time”, as Mother Theresa of Calcutta put it, where everything is easy.

Even the long uphill hike and my shoulders, sore from the unaccustomed backpack, seem right. I would like to feel like this always.

I have learned while on pilgrimage to be relaxed––to accept whatever occurs as being for my long-term good. My mind is alert, my body is completely engaged, and I am psychologically very tranquil—for one thing, the Jesus prayer is going deep inside me, and for another I have trained myself, through practice, not to waste too much time in worry. What evil can possibly take place when I am in "God’s pocket"? I am entirely content.

I don’t try to control anything or to make anything happen. For this pilgrim at this time—whatever is, is OK.

Tomasito, 2009


...

17. Which Way?

Bavarian Farmers. (Tomasito photo)

17.

Which way?

Walking, walking—the busy highway leading out of town has a smoothly paved footpath beside it, then the highway narrows and becomes a quiet country lane. As usual in Bavaria, the urgency of traffic ends at the village boundary and the lane and footpath leads leisurely through green hills and pastures. I can choose my own tranquil pace.

The day has become warm. Walking is very pleasant.

I soon approach a crossroads where I must decide which path to take.

A village church is nearby. Like the pilgrims in Herman Hesse’s novel Journey to the East, I try to pause at all places held sacred by the local people to show respect for their spiritual search, so I go into the very old, silent, inspiring house of worship for a tranquil moment’s meditation.

Then I simply stand and wait between the church and the typical farm buildings beside the church.

And here is another technique of pilgrimage, which experience has taught me: If you don’t know what to do next—don’t do anything. Expect the guidance you need to materialize and it will. This procedure may not work for you, but it always works for me, so I advocate it—perhaps if you practice the method it will begin to work for you.

Two men, dressed in the characteristic costume of rustic Bavarian farmers, soon come out of a barn and greet me sociably. When I explain to them, in halting German, that I am an American making a walking pilgrimage to Straubing they are delighted and when I ask them about the best route they are eager to help.

I unfold the highway map my Kolbermoor friends loaned me for the journey and the farmers (after going back into the building for eyeglasses) examine the paper with scientific interest.

Then they carefully fold the map again, explaining that it is just a highway map after all, and begin to outline a more appropriate walking tour for me. They suggest a route across the fields and through the forests and hamlets to the old town of Altotting, which, they assure me, is just as holy a pilgrimage place as Straubing ever was—and which is right on the way to Straubing anyway!

They pool their memories for an itinerary and do not consult any map at all. Their suggested route will take me through the magical-sounding villages of Hemhof, Pelham, Gachensolden and Hoslewang, Obing and Hienberg, Tacherting, Gauching and will terminate in Altotting. They promise I will be on footpaths or country lanes the entire way, then they pose for a snapshot and I continue my journey, which now leads toward Hemhof.

Tomasito, 2009


...

16. Pilgrimage Rewards

16


Pilgrimage Rewards

I walk through the pretty village of Schlossberg.

There is a schloss (castle) here of course, which is quite commonplace in this part of the world since almost every village has its castle and its church, its social hierarchy and its history, and perhaps its bone-deep conservatism and its fear of the stranger—its complacent, satisfied status quo implied by each precise brick and mossy curbstone.

“If there must be change here,” the whole environment seems to say, “let each change be carefully weighed before being implemented.”

So--does my pilgrimage walk represent a challenge to the inhabitants of Schlossberg? Or a danger? Do they see even a little freedom as a dangerous thing?

I think not.

I believe the local folk approve of a foreigner’s sincere feet tracing out the old pilgrim’s paths, and I have never felt anything but welcome here. I respect and honor their old ways—I am here to learn what I can, or teach if I have anything worth teaching—and this is my situation wherever I am.

For this pilgrim, the irksome complexities of organized religion seem to be only trifling cerebral exercises when my body is in motion, I am repeating the pilgrim’s prayer and my heart is open.

Who knows what one believes anyway--when the very meanings of words and creeds are in constant flux—when one understands everything differently today than one did yesterday and when one is sure that as one lives, more will be revealed--and who knows, with all the translations, revisions and changes of the years, what the writers of the ancient creeds really meant?

For me today, this prayer and this walking are the only certainty.

The tradition of pilgrimage, as I have said, is accepted in this land as a spiritual resource and most of the country people do not doubt the value of pilgrimage-- though not all use it as a way.

But the exact rewards of pilgrimage (if any) must remain a mystery.

Tomasito, 2009


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15 The River's Flow

15

Continuing my way I soon arrive at the Rosenheim River Museum--an outdoor collection of artifacts from the historic past of this part of the Inn River.

There's a fifty-foot flat-bottomed riverboat loaded with antique wooden barrels, some antique machines and several peculiar ballast stones scattered meaningfully about.

The people of Rosenheim take pride in their town’s history and I like it too!

The Inn River, flowing briskly northward at this point, will join the Danube in a hundred or so kilometers. It has been a highway of commerce and culture for centuries and as I wander along it's its banks, I feel myself a particle in the historic flow.

Soon I cross the river on the wide concrete sidewalk of a car-strangled bridge.

The only other pedestrian in sight is a distant young woman pushing a baby carriage.

Pausing for the traffic light at the end of the bridge, I examine the blank, hypnotized expressions on the faces of the drivers and passengers in their temporarily stalled vehicles— their daily “rat-race” seems to have canceled their life-energy leaving them quite empty––such a sad contrast from the human face of the young cyclist on the park bench.

Regretfully, just like you, I am also sometimes a particle in this flow—one of the blank millions driving to work—sharing their familiar mostly pointless pilgrimage through life.

Tomasito, 2009


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14. The Bicyclist

Pilgrim's Equipment, (Tomasito photo)

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The Bicyclist

I am following the agreeably groomed public walking path beside the river when I see a bicycle rider resting on one of the convenient benches facing the water.

I am struck by the appearance of this man.

He is not wearing the almost mandatory German cyclist’s uniform: sport shoes, black spandex shorts, colorful nylon jacket and racing cap. Instead he is dressed in the costume of a Bavarian peasant—and his bike is not the glittering racing machine so common here, but a haphazard collection of what seem to be used bike parts skilfully combined to make a practical riding contraption. He is a young man with a full, brown beard and bright, lively eyes—obviously a free man—one of the very few I have seen lately.

The very fact that he is idle-- sitting on this park bench so early on this frosty morning and not peddling along going somewhere frantically speaks well of him to me.

He seems radiant, alive, alert, and keen and he seems to view me—oddly dressed foreigner that I must appear to him to be––with broad good humor.

It takes a lot of courage for a young man in this land of driven perfectionists to sit alone smiling on a park bench so early in the morning.

It’s practically a criminal offence! Why isn’t he off working or on his way to a university or busily doing some important job?

We grin at each other as if we are accomplices in a conspiracy.

As a pilgrim, I too am temporarily free of the normal constraints of routine existence—we smile in recognition of each other’s rare status: at this moment we are both free men. (Kyrie Jesu Christe eleson mas!)

Is it possible to feel this free and this wonderful even when one is living one’s usual humdrum, routine life? Is this feeling of freedom the “holy place” which is the pilgrim’s true goal? Then let me always stand in this holy place!

Tomasito, 2009


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