I took a class on Chaucer in college, and the prof taught us to read Middle English, which sounds more like German or Dutch than it does modern English. Chaucer’s most famous work is The Canterbury Tales, which, as you might know, chronicles the journeys of some pilgrims en route to Canterbury.
A “pilgrimage” is a spiritual journey, and in Chaucer’s time, it kind of doubled as a vacation; people didn’t travel like we do, obviously, and so walking to Canterbury or Compostela or whatever “holy” site you could think of wasn’t just about faith, it was also a way to broaden one’s horizons. People still go on pilgrimages, of course, and the term has different connotations in different faiths and cultures.
I’m not, myself, a man of faith; I’m a pretty dogged atheist. But I’m also a humanist (as if you couldn’t tell), and so, if I were to make a pilgrimage, to undertake a journey of greater personal or philosophical significance to me, where would I go? And what enlightenment might await at the end? Hard to say. But the thing about a spiritual journey, to my mind, anyway, is that the journey is at least as important as the destination, because the lessons you learn on the “road” provide the context for what you see at the end. So I could choose the end of a journey, and I could even choose the route, but I can’t choose those lessons, which of course is the point.
Philosophy aside, on Tuesday you get another Promethean update. And so, keeping this discussion of the Pilgrimage in mind, I have two questions for you to answer in the comments:
1) Where would you go on pilgrimage (taking whatever definition of “spiritual” you want)?
2) Would you like to hear, on Tuesday, about Roles, or about milestones?
1) Not certain. Maybe Niagra Falls, just to see nature at its most powerful?
2) Roles, methinks. Milestones don’t seem like something you change all that much.
1) The Gumbo Shop in New Orleans, Louisiana. Take your time and savor it.
2) Roles, please.
Thanks for these engrossing updates, kind sir!
I’m going to New Orleans in April, in fact. 🙂
That should be a very pleasant time of year, and you will eat soooo well.:)
1) Pantanal or the Amazon Forest here in Brazil. I find that is better to undergone Pilgrimages close to nature, it’s clear the soul and mind and helps you see what is really essential away from the myriad traps of modern life and our hectic day to day.
2) Roles. I’ve been waiting eargely for those.
1) Portugal, to learn Portuguese Proper and to get in touch with my heritage.
2) Roles!
1) Lake Baikal. It’s my plan for the next summer.
2) Milestones, I think. Universal milestones, old style milestones, etc.
1)I would go to my old abandoned family home where my father grew up,near the city of Fundao,Portugal.
2)let’s see what all this talk about Roles are all about.
1) I’m a Catholic so would would choose a place of religious significance foremost, either Rome or Lough Derg in Ireland. In a secular context, I’d love to hike the Pacific Crest Trail.
2) Roles please!
1) One could be making a solid argument that I’ve been on a (non-religious) pilgrimage around the Middle East for the last 3 years while I’ve been based out of Abu Dhabi, letting me connect with the roots of human history, and the direction the planet is going.
2) Milestones for sure!
1) As a completely off-the-cuff pull with no longstanding forethought behind it… I guess the Sydney Opera House.
2) Roles.
1) Mars. I hope to die there.
2) Roles please, as I already know what milestones are.
1) The plastic-garbage island in the middle of the pacific. If a pilgrimage is about enlightenment, I think there’s a great deal of enlightenment to be gained from seeing an enduring byproduct of the culture I was born into.
2) Milestones
I studied Old English and Chaucer too and every time I had to speak it I felt like I was doing some sort of fake/mock accent.
1) Go camping in a forest and try not to get bitten by anything (I live in Australia).
2) Milestones please…would like to see how they are implemented now and the processes you use to individualise them for your players.
1) I think I’d go on a literary pilgrimage – go to place that are featured in film and literature, or where important works were made.
2) Roles, please!
I’m with you! A long journey around Europe, I think, visiting various important historical and literary sites. I’d LOVE to visit the Villa Diodati (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Diodati), but unfortunately it’s “luxury apartments” now. 🙁
Also — Roles for me, too!
1) The ruins of Eridu; I’d like to see on of the oldest places of civilisation, of the foundation upon which almost my every understand either comes from or contrasted against. Where people became ‘A people’ rather than a bunch of individuals or scatterd famial tribes and stood for something…
Why yes, I know I may be romanticising it. It’s still important to me.
2) …this is hard, but a pilgrimage is about the journey not the destination. And my understanding of Milestones is that they are the signposts to said destination, the markers one must pass to get there.
So I suppose my vote is for the Roles we play along th way. So another for Roles please.
1-FallenEco beat me to it. Craddle of civilization all the way, maybe we’ll meet there 😉
2-Things ought to change from an edition to the next, but I think I can do without MIlestones for now.
I want to know what Roles are.
Roles, please
Antarctica, to scuba dive beneath the ice.
Roles, please.
1. Washington DC, Paris, or Berlin.
2. Roles!
1) I would never know when I started, which for me would be the point. I’d just set a goal (help someone in a big way or find for example) and then just hike around until I found something that fit.
2) Milestones please 🙂
1. I try to treat my whole life as pilgrimage, always looking for things moving my spirituality. So everyday? 😉
2. Roles, of course. I want to see this totally new thing. Also, you wrote they let you stay longer in Refinements, so I’m curious.
1 – Afghanistan, for the sheer breadth of humanity you can experience.
2 – Roles sound good.
1) Rather than travelling to an already decided destination, I think i would rather wander, just to see where my steps lead me.
2) Milestone please.
1) Let’s take a trip to the grand canyon,
2) and let’s talk about roles once there
Your comments about atheism reminds me, it feels like a Prometheans path is entirely about faith. What evidence hath a Promethean that becoming human is possible? or are all “Atheist” or “Agnostic” Prometheans doomed to Centimanus.
1.) hmm… I actually am a Heathen (Norse Pagan)… so.. Pilgrimage to the ancestral home of the vikings, maybe Iceland.
2.) Milestones
What evidence is necessary? It’s not that they believe that they’ll become human, they just *want* to become human (or, at least, not a Promethean anymore) and they’re trying out a variety of methods to do so.
sticking feathers up your butt will not make you a chicken, no matter how bad you want it to. So (and Mathew doesn’t confirm this is entirely true) if there’s no proof of a god for hundreds of years why would you continue to believe god exists on faith? I was simply saying that faithless is a natural progression if there’s no evidence. So if it’s an entirely faith based journey then it’s easy to see that over a long enough period many Promethean would be lost to the refinement of flux and just give up (and perhaps that’s one reason why some do give up).
Prometheans do have evidence, though, in the form of Vitriol, Elpis visions, and growing understanding of humanity. The subjective experience of the Pilgrimage carries with it internal, but still objective, experiences as well.
Azothic memory, mostly, until/unless a Promethean meets a Redeemed Promethean or finds a Ramble that provides a firsthand account.
That said, a Promethean that feels that she needs evidence that completing the Pilgrimage is possible is probably going to do a stint on Lead or Mercury. A Promethean that out-and-out denies it is probably going to end up Tin or, worse, Centimanus.
1) The Les Eclaireurs lighthouse; otherwise known as the lighthouse at the end of the world. Thank Jules Verne.
Assuming HTML works in the comments… Picture of it.
If it doesn’t, here’s the URL http://hobodiaries.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/ushuaia_img_2535.jpg
2) Milestones, without a doubt.
Roles.
And portaging from Point Barrow west to Upsalla. Challenging, but doable.
Out of order: 2: roles
1: Ooooh, this is hard.
I think I’d like to echo FallenEco as well. Once, I went to the Rollright Stones in England, a great site with a circle of standing stones, a monolith, and a fallen dolmen, called the Kings Men, the King Stone, and the Whispering Knights, respectively. While you couldn’t touch the latter two monuments, you could enter the stone circle and touch the stones. My entire family found ourselves winding our way along the inside of the circle, hand on a stone, counter-clockwise, before we realized that there was a path of beaten dirt just under our feet, just inside the circle, from thousands of years of people doing exactly what we were doing just then.
I want to feel that again. I want to feel a connection to history like that. I want to find something ancient and do whatever feels right there.
1) I want to see a truly ancient city, like Rome or Cairo. Let me feel the weight of ages and know that I’m part of a chain of humanity that stretches back farther than I can understand.
2) Roles.
1. I’ve been on pilgrimages that I didn’t know were such until I looked back on where I’d been. Seeing Stonehenge and Mesa Verde made to feel privileged to count myself among humanity, but I think that the greatest pilgrimage I could make would be to a place where I can see all of the planet at one time… I’d make a tabernacle of a vehicle in low Earth orbit!
2. Sure, let’s find out about Roles.
1) My pilgrimage would be to Athens, Greece. I dream of gazing upon the Parthenon with my own two eyes. I wonder whether I would weep, and acknowledge that I probably would.
2) I would like to learn more about Roles.
1) Like many here, I’d love to go to the places of my heritage. Start in Nova Scotia, and wind my way to Ireland, Scotland, and Germany.
But also the Sedlec Ossuary, more commonly known as the Cathedral of Bones.
2) Finally, Roles! Yes please!
1)Toronto. It’s the most multi-cultural city in the world, apparently, so if I want a microcosm on what’s what that seems like the place to start.
2)Milestones. I want to hear about roles, but the markers are too important to put off.
Plus, we got The Tower, and a museum that looks like a giant pointy rock. Oh, and next to that is the Shoe museum.
1. I wish to see the glacier on the Andes before they melt away.
2. Milestones, please.
1) I go to Raelian meditation seminars every year, which are held all over the world typically in a different location every year. So, my whole life is the journey in a way. For specific locations, though? I suppose the Amazon; I stopped using drugs years ago, but ayahuasca to me isn’t the same as a ‘drug’ and it’s the one thing I’d still like to experience
2) Roles. I have a suspicion that roles sort of guide you as to what your milestones might be
1) To experience the Miracle of the Holy Fire at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
To visit the Monks of Mt. Athos.
To see the Hagia Sophia in conquered Constantinople.