Solvitur ambulando. It is solved by walking.

It comes down to this: Solvitur ambulando. It is solved by walking. It is the emerging tension that results from the growing cracks of the shell of the status quo, which causes us to awaken to ourselves in the first place, that subsequently requires an exit, a departure from what we were taught within culture, society, and institutions. A threshold crossing emerges and forms with distinct clarity; here is a line we now know must be crossed, a line that reveals that there is more on the other side that will initiate a process of transformational becoming.

When we choose to respond to the Longing and the Call to leave the familiar behind in search of answers found in far-away places or even the more wilder edges of our lives, we are deploying our soul to interact and intervene with the surrounding environment-plants and people alike, the result of which is an energizing and heightened awareness of ourselves, of Others and the Spirit amidst it all. We are crossing into liminal lands, the territory of the inner-soul journey that demands an exterior embodiment of shifting sands of the inner soul-scape.

It comes down to this: Solvitur ambulando. It is solved by walking.

This kind of invited alertness requires us to depart, to leave and to walk (and walk away before we can walk back), to become intimate with the path upon which we tread, and others with whom we share it. The path that leads to the pilgrimage destination is critical for this process; for along this road, with no vehicular/insular walls to tune us out, we must tune in to the measured mode that invites contact, conversation and company. The structures we use to define who we are in ordinary life become irrelevant. Pilgrim space has no regard for class, race, or social/economic standing. There are no more random run-ins with strangers; there are no more lucky or misfortunate moments. 

In sacred travel when the pilgrim mood is awakened and engaged, every experience is potent and portends a deeper meaning; every contact attests to some greater plan. No encounter is without sacred significance. 

There are signs everywhere, if only we learn how to read them. Peculiar people turn into much-needed messengers.  The natural world speaks with candid revelation and simply profundity. This is a path transformed into grace; it is now a place where souls are nourished and renewed. With every step upon the pilgrim's path, that which has become cracked and undone begins to solvitur. Illumination and integration begin their great soul work.