Author: Jana

  • walking, in winter


    a park, in winter, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

    Yesterday was the first day since I’ve been in Denver that it was warm enough for a long stroll outside. So I found a park and went a-wandering with camera in hand. It felt so good to be in connection with the natural world again. After a few days indoors I’m so hungry to walk with plants and rocks and trees.

    Soon, I will be blogging about all I’ve learned and experienced during this trip. But right now I’m still trying to make sense of it, to continue living in the moment of new & unfamiliar spaces. Sometimes it takes so much work to be open that it’s hard to even put chronology and perspective on all the happenings of each day. The intensity eclipses the meaning of each individual moment. For now. Until I have the time to sift through my memories and write.

  • follow…

    My travels have kept me so busy this past week, I’ve rarely had time to sit down and write a blogpost. However, I’m tweeting regularly from the road, so feel free to follow me to keep up on my latest adventures.

    Today, for example, will undoubtedly be my most interesting archival/research experience ever…so you’ll want to stay tuned! :)

  • the view


    Picture above is the sun setting over the Rocky Mountains, as seen from the 38th floor of a Denver hotel.

    Part of my “trip reading” during the Western History Association Conference is The Best American Essays 2009. I realized that I just had to buy it when I saw that Mary Oliver was this year’s editor.

    A favorite quote from her Introduction that applies to blogwriting as well as more traditional forms of the essay:

    We speak a good deal these days of the loss of community, and many of us feel that we have lost therefore something very precious. Essays can move us back into this not-quite-lost realm. Tackling a hundred subjects, in a hundred different styles, they are like letters from a stranger that you cannot bear to throw away. They haunt you; they strengthen you.

    Perhaps I’ve been so busy contemplating the world of the ‘not-quite lost’ that I’ve had my head in the clouds for most of this last week. Somewhat literally, of course, as I’ve been staying in high-rise hotels for the duration of the conference, but also in that twice I’ve found myself lost and wandering around Denver city streets. How I can still get lost even with the aid of googlemaps is beyond me. But maybe there are only so many weighty thoughts that can occupy my brain at any given time….

  • how many tattered fragments…


    Cape Cod, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

    “The soul is a process, not a thing: therefore you cannot put it in a box (or a book) and close the lid. It will crawl out and keep changing…I keep trying to recapture myself at different periods of my life and it is impossible because even as I write, I change. Both the passage of time and the process of writing change me. And though I try to skewer bits of reality with the point of my pen, inevitably memory fails me, words fail me, and the picture is fragmentary and false. Worse still, this falsehood will be seen by the reader as the literal truth and only I will realize how many discrepancies and holes and sins of omission I have committed, how many tattered fragments masquerade as the tapestry entire.”
    ~Erica Jong, How to Save Your Own Life

  • I simply go on drifting…


    Cape Cod hydrangea in the morning, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

    An excerpt from Mary Oliver’s “What is There Beyond Knowing”

    What I know
    I could put into a pack

    as if it were bread and cheese, and carry it
    on one shoulder,

    important and honorable, but so small!
    While everything else continues, unexplained

    and unexplainable. How wonderful it is
    to follow a thought quietly

    to its logical end.
    I have done this a few times.

    But mostly I just stand in the dark field,
    in the middle of the world, breathing

    in and out. Life so far doesn’t have any other name
    but breath and light, wind and rain.

    If there’s a temple, I haven’t found it yet.
    I simply go on drifting, in the heaven of the grass and the weeds.

  • stepping stones…


    Cape Cod, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

    About a year ago I applied for membership in my local Quaker Meeting. Joining a Quaker Meeting is not like joining a religion like Mormonism–there’s not a proscribed set of rituals involved in the process and it’s largely a local matter.

    My reasons for joining were numerous, but they boiled down to something very simple…it just felt right. Every time I considered the choice, I felt full of joy and light. I tried to talk myself out of it several times. There was no compelling reason for me to join–there was no barrier to my participating fully in the community as an ‘attender’ rather than as a member. But I also wanted to be true to the leading that I’d felt to join, especially when doing so produced such a strong feeling of satisfaction.

    To join I wrote a simple letter to the clerk of our Meeting, explaining to her why I felt compelled to seek membership. Some important points in that letter included my desire to take on the identity of a Quaker, my family’s support in my doing so, and my acknowledgement that this choice might not sit well with my Mormon leaders. I expressed a desire to maintain a dual religious identity, knowing that both traditions are deeply important to me. Then the clerk, along with the Ministry & Oversight Committee, put together a group of women to serve on my membership committee. I met with them and discussed my feelings about seeking membership. It was a delightful experience and I felt such deep peace with this decision.

    As a public acknowledgment of my decision, the Orange County Friends held a ‘Welcoming Meeting’ for me yesterday, which was an outdoor inter-generational potluck of Friends & friends. The Meeting presented me with a copy of Mothers of Feminism: The Story of Quaker Women in America, which I can’t wait to read (and what a great match for my interest in American feminism!)! Frankly, I was rather embarrassed to be the center of attention at this event, but also felt such happiness at celebrating this occasion with so many people that cared for me and my spiritual journey.

    Officially becoming a Quaker changes very little about who I am, but it is one more important stepping stone on the path of my pilgrim-life. More than I can express with words, I appreciate all of you who are supporting me–either virtually or in “real-life”–as I make my way on this journey.

    John took some great pics of my party.

  • pilgrim classic: flying mountain

    Originally published on 10/23/2007:


    IMG_4499, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

    Tonite I watched an interview of housewife-turned-Buddhist-nun Pema Chodron with some friends. Chodron spoke about many common Buddhist concepts, with her own unique spin on the issues of pain and suffering and the goal to be ‘fully awake.’

    For me, the most provocative quotation from the program was this one:

    “We are all capable of becoming fundamentalists because we get addicted to other people’s wrongness.”

    She spoke at length about how this addiction, or ‘getting hooked’ as she calls it, sets off a chain reaction of suffering. By removing ourselves from the addictive cycle we can have more peace and compassion.

    I love that idea. I am certainly guilty of being addicted to other people’s wrongness just as I am guilty of being addicted to my own rightness. I recognize that this is a very rigid way to live, but it is so human…sigh.

    What I really want…to see the divine in each person I meet and not to feel anger and self-righteousness when someone believes differently than I do. So I will keep trying….

    Note: the picture above is of some Buddhist carvings on the “Flying Mountain” at the Lingyin Temple in Hangzhou, China. The day I visited the temple nearly two years ago it was rainy and cold, the ground so slippery underfoot that it was difficult to walk around the temple and monastery. Yet there were still dozens of worshipers lighting huge bundles of incense outside of the temple and saying their prayers. I was impressed by the devotion of the adherents. That day I also felt very homesick for my family back in the states. At the foot of the Buddha I said prayers for their continued safety and felt great comfort.

  • today


    Cape Cod rose in the morning with dew, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

    When I was a young girl I had a diary that said, on the front cover:
    “Today is the first day of the rest of your life…”

    And today, I am truly feeling that way.

  • skeptical

    Mr. Deity has done it again…(FYI for those new to Mr. Deity: “Lucy” is Lucifer)

  • a penny for you


    collander by morning light, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

    If you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days.
    ~Annie Dillard, “Seeing,” Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

    This still-life image is one I snapped in Brooke’s lovely home. The morning light made every angle of her kitchen beautiful.


    Previous posts about simplicity.

  • a few more steps for this pilgrim soul…


    Cape Cod, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

    Picture above is one of the lonely lanes I wandered while in Cape Cod–it led down to a beach inlet where I enjoyed browsing the flats and snapping pictures.

    I will admit that I wasn’t always entirely comfortable on my rambles. The lanes were often isolated and forested. I didn’t know what was lurking in the shade. I never saw other pedestrians and seldom any vehicles on the road. I was alone.

    Some days I find that solitude brings a sense of confidence–I love doing things by myself and not having dependencies on others. But some days I crave knowing that others are close by. And today is one of those days. I’m feeling insecure and desire validation. Most likely this stems from a realization of how misunderstood my life is to others–especially those who don’t understand an intentional choice of small footprint living, who don’t understand that I am a gypsy at heart and I would far rather have experiences (or kittens) than fancy stuff. “Things” bring me very little joy. I am a person who likes to pack light and keep it simple. In addition, I don’t get much satisfaction from being so focused on the future that I can’t enjoy today. Thoughts of eternal consequences are so remote. Instead, I’m present in this very day and this very moment. I am as easily delighted by a spiderweb as by a sweet strawberry from my garden. And they are both the face of the divine to me.

    So I’m in the process now, of making choices that may alienate me from friends who can’t understand my heart and my soul. Who don’t understand why my authenticity can be more important than my certainty. It’s hard for me to do this–I don’t like black and white choices. I’m more comfortable with zones of gray (and brown and vermilion and azure-blue). I want pictures and poetry and sunshine. I want the waves crashing so loudly around me that I can forget those who just don’t understand me anymore.

  • water, water, everywhere…


    sitting in the water, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

    This morning I opted for cross-training and did a session at the gym rather than paddling in the Back Bay or going for a swim. But all day I’ve had this ‘unfinished’ feeling. And I just realized, after watching the trailer for this outrigger film that I’m just hungry for the open water, for the thrill and the fear of it. For diving deep and moving freely.

    Bench pressing just isn’t going to do it for me anymore, I suppose…

    Pic above of me in Walden Pond last week. I was giddy with the pleasure of swimming around in such a gorgeous body of water! Kudos to ECS for snapping a few pics of me while I swam & played. :)