A journey can become a sacred thing:
Make sure, before you go,
To take the time
To bless your going forth,
To free your heart of ballast
So that the compass of your soul
Might direct you toward
The territories of spirit
Where you will discover
More of your hidden life,
And the urgencies
That deserve to claim you.
~John O’Donohue
Dear Springhouse community,
I hope this letter finds you well as we enter the mid-summer months that bring the heat of the sun, the bounty from the Earth, adventures and trips, and time spent with those we love. We have a lot to celebrate this July, including the success of our one and only Give Local fundraiser. With your support, we were able to raise more than the $175,000 we had hoped for. To say we are grateful is an understatement. Thank you.
At Springhouse, we experience each learning year as a journey. Being fully immersed in that journey over the course of the year and reflecting on the journey over the summer is very important to us. Each summer we celebrate where we flourished, and seek to better understand where we did not. This summer, we have been spending time building our team of seven, as three of our cherished long-time staff members moved on to other endeavors. We are learning from our teens about what worked and what did not this past year, and we reflect on the information our families have shared with Springhouse facilitators and mentors. We also talk a lot about the impact we have on our local and global community and ask ourselves, in what ways have we positively affected the people in our community and beyond? What would the trees or the river say about the actions of Springhouse? We reflect on these questions, and more, as we design for the year ahead.
As much as taking, and reflecting upon the collective journey is important to us, it is equally important for us to take journeys of our own. Some of us head to visit family and friends, while others spend time with the Earth going on fishing trips or taking a solo wilderness vigil. One is beginning a new educational journey, heading on pilgrimage across the sea, while another returns to her quiet refuge on Fishers Island Sound. The cultivation of personhood is part of our design and it is important to us as the Springhouse team to live that design. One of the ways we cultivate personhood is by going on pilgrimages, sacred journeys of our own. These personal journeys make our team that much stronger.
This summer I have been reflecting on what makes a journey sacred; what makes a journey more of a pilgrimage. I have been doing that by taking my own pilgrimage this summer, hearing the stories from the staff who journey to far away places within and without, and also by reading about and studying the power of pilgrimage. I have returned to my Celtic and mystical roots in my reading; discovering a set of old Irish tales called the Immrama, and through the words of the Christian mystic I relate most to, Teresa of Avila. Specifically, I have been reading the story of the Voyage of Bran, the journey of St. Brendan from the perspective of adventurer and contemporary author Tim Severin, and through the study edition of The Interior Castle by St. Teresa.
In the Voyage of Bran, to sum up it way too succinctly, a king hears singing from the Otherworld, and it overcomes him. He takes a journey with a group of men, and is changed by the experience. So much so, that returning to the world he was once in became impossible. The same goes for Teresa of Avila. She woke up to a power greater than herself, and that power took her on a journey she could not help but follow. This included a great deal of pain, ecstasy, and the founding of a community amidst great resistance. St. Brendan and Tim Severin were changed by the voyages they took with their spiritual companions. These adventures are not just trips. They are journeys that bring the journeyer closer to what is true in them. This makes these journeys a pilgrimage; a sacred and meaningful adventure. This kind of journey causes us to grow closer to the power of life.
If you have read my newsletters from the past, you know that I have had major wake up calls that have led me on powerful journeys–waking up from addiction very young, to surviving a life-threatening illness at a very young age. My grand pilgrimage began 35 years ago and continues to this day. There have been many smaller, yet powerful pilgrimages along the way. The call to the journey is just the beginning; it was for me, and for all of the people I mentioned above. To say yes to the sacred journey, and stay the course amidst distractions and difficulties (especially in a world or culture headed in a different direction), is not for the faint of heart. It is difficult at times, but it is not impossible.
With an accepting community and trusted guidance, and a personal commitment to the journey, pilgrimage becomes possible. King Bran went with his men, St. Teresa went with her sisters, Tim Severin had a crew, and I have journeyed with many communities and mentors along the way, including the Springhouse community. I can still remember the journey I took when I was 23, a couple of years after getting sober and committing to a life of recovery. I traveled the U.S. with a friend for four months, flipping a penny and following the signs. Heads we go North. Tails we go South. Following the bread crumbs as we went. A particular moment on that journey has not left me–sitting in the desert canyonlands of Utah, watching a purple sunset. I felt a deep sense of belonging in that moment, and reflecting on that moment over the years has only deepened that sense of belonging for me.
The kind of journey I am talking about here includes immersion in the journey experience, reflection on the experience, and new steps to be taken from what has been learned from the experience. Whether it is our collective learning journey each year at Springhouse, or my 4-month trip following a penny across the U.S., the meaning comes from not only having the experience, but reflecting on that experience, and learning from it. This is what makes the journey sacred and transformative. This thread of intention is what makes it a pilgrimage. To close this letter, I want to share a meaningful and magical journey we took as the Springhouse community back in 2018.
The staff was sitting in the school, engaged in the process I mentioned above, reflecting on the past year and designing for the next. In that meeting, I said something like, “I think we will be sailing next year.” We live in the middle of the mountains, many miles away from the sea, with no significant sailing experience on our team. So when the staff looked at me strangely, I understood. We took note of my comment and moved on. Five weeks later, a sailor walked through the door of our little school, in our one stop-light town, and said something like, “Hello. I am a sailor. I want to build boats with teens and I want to do it in a school like this.” Pure magic.
I asked him how much the project would cost and we got to work raising the funds for it. This sailor stayed with us the whole year as we built a 22-foot sailboat, sang sea shanties, and in May 2018, we sailed the boat on our school trip to the Chesapeake Bay. It was epic, and if you want to catch a deeper glimpse of that journey, you can here in a film created by our friends at Radford University at the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning.
The journey of building and sailing a 22-foot sailboat continues to teach us. We are amazed by the magic of this project’s emergence. We are even more amazed that we actually built this boat with the leadership of our serendipitous sailor friend and sailed it across the bay. That amazement keeps us close to the boat, even as it sits in minor disrepair right now in our barn at the school. Just last week the staff talked once again about reviving it, with the help of some of our alumni, one of whom is a sailor now and lives on a sailboat. I look forward to wherever the revival of this boat we call the Wanderer will take us next. There is always more to learn and discover.
May the North Star of our deepest questions, visions, and callings lead us home to a sense of wonder that this world definitely needs more of, and may we all find our way to places to practice taking better care of that wonder, toward the vision of a thriving world for all.
Gratefully and with love,
Jenny
