Rites of Pilgrimage
The Art of Journeying Toward Belonging
The Rite of Pilgrimage The Art of Journeying Toward Belonging
A two-hour online workshop
Friday, November 20, 2026
12:00-2:00pm PST
$55.00 USD
Facilitated by Mary DeJong
Spiritual Ecologist · Eco-Spiritual Companion · Iona Pilgrimage Guide
What if pilgrimage isn’t about leaving home behind, but about discovering what it means to belong?
For more than 23 years, I have been guiding women on pilgrimage to Iona, Scotland. Over these years, my understanding of pilgrimage has deepened beyond the journey to a sacred destination. I have come to see pilgrimage as a rite of belonging: a way of journeying that draws us into more intimate relationship with Earth, place, community, and the sacred.
Drawing on the Celtic Christian tradition, the archetypal pattern of rites of passage, and the living landscape of Iona, we’ll explore how leaving the familiar can open us to new ways of seeing, receiving, and belonging. We’ll consider what it means to encounter the Earth not as scenery through which we pass, but as a living presence in which we participate—and how the strangers we meet along the way may become unexpected guides.
You don’t need to travel to Iona to begin. This workshop invites you to discover how the pilgrim’s way can shape your relationship with the place you call home.
❋ The Call to Journey: Leaving the FamiliarWhat distinguishes a pilgrimage from ordinary travel? We’ll explore the ancient Celtic Christian practice of peregrinatio—setting out into the unknown in response to a spiritual longing—and the tradition of green martyrdom. What are we called to leave behind? What familiar identities, assumptions, or ways of belonging might need to loosen so that we can encounter the world anew?
❋ Iona as TeacherFor centuries, Iona has drawn pilgrims across the sea in search of encounter with the holy. Yet what if the sacredness of a place is not simply something we travel to find, but something we learn to perceive? Through stories from Iona, we’ll explore an earth-centered understanding of pilgrimage grounded in the mystery of Incarnation: we are Earth people, formed from the ground and animated by breath. Place matters. Matter matters. The land itself can become teacher, companion, and participant in our spiritual lives.
❋ The Rites of PassagePilgrimage follows an ancient pattern of transformation. We depart from the familiar, cross a threshold into uncertainty, and return with something we could not have received without making the journey. We’ll explore these movements as a living map for spiritual change, considering how the threshold experiences of pilgrimage can transform our sense of self, deepen our relationships, and open us to a more rooted form of belonging.
❋ Hospitality to the StrangerIn the Celtic imagination, the stranger may arrive as a sacred presence: a guide, a messenger, or a bearer of unexpected grace. What might change if we met the unfamiliar with curiosity rather than reflexive withdrawal? We’ll explore hospitality as a spiritual practice and consider how encounters with strangers—both human and more-than-human—can become thresholds into relationship. The pilgrim learns not only to receive the gifts of a place, but to welcome the unexpected presences who share the way.
“The purpose of pilgrimage is not to make us long forever for somewhere else. It is to teach us how to inhabit where we are.”
Through the practice of attention, the wisdom of place, and hospitality to the stranger, we discover how the pilgrim’s way can transform our relationship with the places and beings that make up our everyday lives.
“We leave home to discover what home means.”
Pilgrimage invites us beyond the familiar, opening us to new encounters with the sacred, the living Earth, and the deeper meaning of belonging.
What You Will Explore
Together, we’ll explore pilgrimage as a rite of belonging, drawing on the Celtic Christian tradition, the sacred landscape of Iona, and an earth-centered understanding of spiritual transformation. You will:
Discover the call of pilgrimage through the Celtic tradition of peregrinatio and green martyrdom, exploring what it means to leave the familiar and become available to the unknown.
Encounter place as teacher through the story of Iona and a theology of Earth, matter, and Incarnation that recognizes the living world as a participant in our spiritual lives.
Explore the transformative arc of pilgrimage through the movements of Departure, Initiation, and Return, discovering how crossing a threshold can change our way of seeing and belonging.
Reimagine hospitality to the stranger as a spiritual practice, opening to the possibility that unexpected encounters—with other people, the land, and the more-than-human world—may become guides into deeper relationship.
What You Will Receive
You’ll receive a downloadable Rite of Pilgrimage: Practices for the Journey Home PDF, a companion for bringing the wisdom of pilgrimage into your everyday life.
Following the movements of Departure, Initiation, and Return, these simple practices will invite you to cultivate the pilgrim’s attention wherever you are: to notice what you have stopped seeing, to learn from a particular place, and to welcome the unexpected as an invitation to encounter.
You need not travel far to cross a threshold. With attention and receptivity, the places you inhabit every day can become thin places—places where the boundary between the ordinary and the sacred grows permeable, where relationship deepens, and where transformation becomes possible.
The journey continues at home. You’ll be invited to ask:
What am I willing to leave?
What is asking for my attention?
What am I carrying home?
The Rite of Pilgrimage The Art of Journeying Toward Belonging
A two-hour online workshop
Friday, November 20, 2026
12:00-2:00pm PST
$55.00 USD