Pilgrim Heart: The Inner Journey Home

by Sarah York, Thomas Moore (Foreword)

In Pilgrim Heart: The Inner Journey Home, we see that pilgrimage is not just a literal journey or simply a spiritual metaphor, but rather an inspiring path toward greater self-understanding. Whether sharing the experience of her own pilgrimages to Nepal, Thailand, and the Celtic island of Iona, Scotland, or recounting the stories of others' spiritual journeys, Sarah York reveals to us how the cultural and physical discomforts of travel can lead to profound personal change. Beyond the going forth that pilgrimage demands, there is also the process of returning more at peace and at home with ourselves. To be a pilgrim means to have our hearts open to the struggle of being human and to allow that struggle to change us, no matter where our lives take us.

Genres: Spirituality

208 pages, Hardcover

First published April 2, 2001

Reviews

[Sasha Wolf · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this as part of my attempts to figure out how to "bring the Camino back home", as people say - i.e. what changes I want to make in my life as a result of the pilgrimage. I hadn't really planned to use books for that - it's really a process that needs time rather than more input - but I came across this while looking for something else, and the chapter titles looked promising. In the end, I should probably have stuck to my gut reaction, because I don't think it did help. I did recognise some of the author's responses: like me, for instance, one of the first things she did on her return was to have a huge clear-out. I didn't need a book to figure that one out, though.

[Jami Gomez · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Unlike mere travel, a pilgrimage is a journey into the landscape of the soul."

"Pilgrimage invites you to travel with your heart, guided toward an inner goal that may be as much in the journey as in the arrival...it does not even require that you have a destination."

[Nathaniel Hansen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Deeply enriching and nourishing.

[Mckinley · Rating 1 out of 5]

Didn't really work for me, a lot of personal notes about quotes, movies and so on threaded into journey/pilgrimage taking stuff from all the places and trying to weave them into this book. Sarah York seems like a nice person just I found her work scattered with nothing new and out of contexts.

[Sadelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a lovely testament to the power of pilgrimage, peppered with the author's personal experience with sacred travels in Asia and Scotland. It was a quick read, for one who is interested in the topic of introspective seeking.