Conversations on the meaning and purpose of sacred travel for gays and lesbians, with "queer sacred travel experts." Discusses many well-known sacred sites such as those found in Peru, Egypt, Tibet, Hawaii, etc.

Pilgrimage...a transformative journey to a sacred center. It calls for a journey to a holy site associated with gods, saints, or heroes, or to a natural setting imbued with spiritual power, or to a revered temple to seek counsel. To people the world over, pilgrimage is a spiritual exercise, an act of devotion to find a source of healing, or even to perform a penance. Always, it is a journey of risk and renewal. For a journey without challenge has no meaning; one without purpose has no soul.
-- Phil Cousineau, The Art of Pilgrimage

I love to travel. Place me on a plane toward just about any destination and I am a happy man.

Even though I am a frequent traveler, each time I look out of an airplane window I am still awed and humbled by the raw, dramatic, and sometimes painfully fragile beauty of our planet. I am deeply moved both by our home's expansiveness and by its smallness, when contrasted to the mind-boggling, unimaginable scope of the universe. I am touched by Earth's delicateness, its changing moods, its intricate interconnectedness.

Places like Maui's magical Road to Hana; California's breathtakingly rugged Pacific Coast Highway; the crystalline waters of the Caribbean; the other-worldly rock formations of Southern Utah and Sedona; the majestic grandeur of the Grand Canyon; the palpable enchantment of Santa Fe and Northern New Mexico; and many others, have carved indelible images in my mind and soul.

I also love road trips. Distance driving, which I occasionally do alone for business, provides me with a respite from the pressing phone calls, frequent faxes and exigent emails of everyday life. It gives me precious time to think, to ponder, to relax, to reassess my life.

For me travel is associated with freedom. My first airplane trip at age ten was to escape the tyranny of Castro's Communist Cuba. Spain, our transitional destination as my family awaited permission to proceed to the U.S., represented a brand new world of supermarkets, comic books, potato chips, and other countless treasures I'd only read about or imagined. Filled with indescribable, uncontainable excitement, it represented the promise of choice and a life of liberty.

Travel expands our horizons, literally as well as figuratively. It offers us the opportunity to learn about ourselves and discover who we are. Generally, we cannot accomplish that in a vacuum, and must do it in relationship to others and to our world. Travel exposes us to wildly diverse places and exotic locales, to people with different and sometimes strange (to us) customs. By expanding our view of humanity, how we live, what makes us tick, we expand our view of ourselves. Travel intensifies this mirroring effect, and helps us clarify who we are. It allows us to discover not just new places, but new things about ourselves. It teaches us to welcome difference, and to embrace the mutability and impermanence of life.

So, in attempt to get to the deeper aspects of travel, its spiritual significance, if you will, I recently consulted several experts on this matter. Our conversations focused on travel in general, and on pilgrimages to sacred sites.

Spiritual Benefits of Travel

People travel for a myriad of reasons, from business related travel to visiting family and friends, for fun and relaxation, for exploration, to escape the dreariness of our lives or a particularly stressing situation. We also travel for religious and spiritual reasons: to experience a pilgrimage of some sort or to expand our perception of ourselves.

In 1993 David Frechter founded Spirit Journeys to create ways for the gay community to come together to explore arenas of spirituality, self-discovery, and community-building. Based in Asheville, North Carolina, the company offers a variety of weekend workshops, retreats, and international pilgrimages to sacred sites. Frechter is passionate about travel, which he feels is "one of the highest forms of education," because of the expanding effect it has as it exposes us to a wide variety of cultures and habits. "From my own perspective," says Frechter, "even before I got into this esoteric, spiritually-based travel, what drew me to travel was the quest for seeing things differently. Our culture exists in a certain way. Through travel we can experience people with different day-to-day practices, belief systems, and attitudes, different ways of doing the most mundane things."

In that sense, travel tends to make us more tolerant of diversity, which Frechter believes is an integral part of what is going on in the gay community. "We are constantly looking for greater awareness and acceptance of diversity, honoring different ways of doing things." Travel also makes one appreciative, he adds, "I come home and feel a lot of gratitude for the freedom and the quality of life I have in this country." Frechter further describes the profound effect travel has on him: "Sometimes I come back from a trip and realize that I'm fundamentally not the same. I might be at my desk pushing paper but something has shifted quantomly. That is why I'm probably a junkie for travel, to have more of those experiences which allow me to question who I am, why I'm here, what I need to do next."

Steve Zikman walked out of a successful career as an attorney and left his home in Canada to answer the stubborn call of a lifelong wanderlust. His leap of trust resulted, after years of wandering the world and living abroad, in the publication of his first book, The Power of Travel, and a promising new life as a writer, speaker, consultant and seminar leader. "I have witnessed the nature and extent of travel's positive power," Zikman writes, "the magnitude of its enriching and revitalizing capabilities. Beyond its refreshing and revitalizing qualities, travel has the unmatched capacity to be a wellspring of self-discovery and personal growth, a path to ourselves....Travel affords us the occasion to look both outward and inward, to enlighten our mind and transform our soul."

Michael Schaelling is in charge of creating the first Gay Outward Bound outdoor adventure courses. The Outward Bound courses are designed to challenge each individual to find what lies at their centers, to test their inner and outer strength, and to open the door for spiritual and mental growth. Schaelling believes that traveling, either outside or inside oneself, is ultimately a quest for self-discovery and self-identification. "Answering the question -- Who am I -- ' usually begins by answering the question of -- Who am I not -- ' Journeying outside or inside oneself can serve to answer those questions."

Gay Travel

As gay men, do we have an extraordinary propensity for travel? Because, for the most part, we are free from the responsibilities of raising families (although we are doing so in increasing numbers), common sense would seem to dictate that we have more free time and disposable income to spend on traveling.

According to Billy Kolber-Stuart, editor of Out & About, a publication specializing in gay and lesbian travel, dependable statistics to support this theory do not exist; anecdotal evidence, however, indicates that this in fact the case. "Certainly, the fact that gay people are less likely to have children makes them more able to travel, and to take advantage of off-peal travel opportunities," says Kolber-Stuart.

Jim Curtan, a longtime gay spiritual activist, is coordinating a retreat for gay men on the island on Crete. Curtan agrees that, in general, gays do have more freedom to travel. "We've been a migratory, exiled people. It is now time to shift our focus from traveling away from, in other words, traveling from places of oppression where we could not freely express ourselves. We've done that. Now it's time to travel toward, to places that empower us, not just places that will receive us." With an ambitious theme of "Claiming Our Prophetic Destiny," the International Gay Spirit Retreat, which takes place from March 31 to April 7, 2000, will strive to do just that. "This magical island is the perfect place to enhance the transformative experience of moving from a defensive political agenda of survival to a powerful and liberating celebration of our spiritual calling as gay men," concludes Curtan.

Indeed, many gay and lesbian people seem to demonstrate an inherent openness and acceptance of diversity. Feelings of alienation, and our intrinsic status as outsiders, have a tendency to deepen us and make us more sensitive to the plight of others. This openness and tolerance toward differences may result in a willingness and even an eagerness to explore and know more about other cultures and people who exist outside the "normal" boundaries. Consequently, we are also more willing to take chances, because our lives have consisted of a progressive series of risks as we commit to come out as who we really are, in spite of the consequences.

Zikman, however, questions whether it is true that gay people have more of a travel bug than others. "I have traveled a lot, and I have met few gay men traveling. I would particularly challenge gay men to travel independently, as opposed to in a group. There are so many treasures to discover out there; traveling alone is a real opportunity to strengthen your confidence and understand more about yourself."

Sacred Sites

A sacred place is one where the earth's voice can be heard more clearly.
-- The Sacred Landscape

All over the world there are sacred places, places of power which have been the destination of countless pilgrims. People are drawn to these places for a wide variety of reasons: some because of a dream or vision; others because of a book they read or movie they saw; still others because of the reputation these natural shrines have as places of magic, healing, and transformation. These ancient sacred sites have been revered throughout history as places of power and inspiration. Among them are Stonehenge and Glastonbury in England; the pyramids in Egypt; Machu Pichu in Peru; Lhasa, and other sites in Tibet; Ayers Rock in Australia; the Yucatan in Mexico; Crete and other sites in Greece; Sedona in Arizona; the Hawaiian Islands, Mt. Shasta in California. Some are simply geographical settings while others have been marked with architectural structures.

According to David Frechter, theories abound about these sacred sites. "Some people," he says, "have equated the sacred sites on the planet to the acupuncture meridians of the human body. In the same way that we have distinct, energetic acupuncture points in our body, according to this theory, so does the earth body." Often structures were built to capture or harness the particular energy of a given site, the same way that an acupuncturist will place a needle in a particular place in the body to elicit a particular energetic response.

Some people believe that these sacred sites attracted pilgrims because of their inherent power, while others assert that it was the accumulated power from all the visitors adding their energy to the place that accounts for their power. In an age where technology has made travel easier and exotic places more accessible, increasing numbers of people report being humbled by the unspeakable beauty and sheer monumentality they encounter in these power places, by the sense of sacredness of sites which have become imbued with the spiritual power, the dreams, desires, prayers, ecstasy, pain, passion, courage, of countless pilgrims.

Frechter believes that ultimately we do not understand the mystery and mystique of these sites. "Possibly it is due to electromagnetic or other form of emanations from the earth. People would go to places like Delphi to receive a gift from the oracle; a lot had to do with the fumes that came from the Earth, sending people into altered, clairvoyant states." Whether it is a tangible physical energy, or an elusive, intangible activity, he adds, "what I do know is that shift happens and clarity happens, and when I'm there my heart opens and I feel a lot more compassion, more appreciation for being alive, for who I am, and for the part I am playing in the greater whole. I know that if I get out of the way just a little bit, and I open myself up, simply by being there with an open mind and an open heart, I feel that the energy and quality of some of these sites can affect and alter our lives. I always come away with a greater sense of fulfillment and of purpose in my life."

"A pilgrimage or quest requires that we leave our home, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually," says Curtan. "We also leave geographically and put ourselves in an unknown place, a place that carries with it an energy of pilgrimage, of initiation, of quest. We step into that energy and we can feel it. On these sacred spaces on sacred earth that has been consecrated for generations, we can reclaim who we are as physical and spiritual beings."

Sedona

According to Carolyn Cobelo, author of 25 Power Places (being released later this year), Sedona, Arizona, is a world-renown power center, whose red rocks and power vortices are legendary. It was honored as sacred land by the Indigenous people which originally inhabited this area, which also features petroglyphs and cave dwellings. Although deeply moved by the beauty of this area (the scenic drive on Highway 89A from Flagstaff is highly recommended) I personally did not feel the powerful energy I had heard so many people talk about. Recently, however, my friend Saci McDonald was taken aback when she was moved to unexpected, inexplicable, and uncontrolled sobbing at an off-the-beaten-path location outside Sedona.

Egypt

Martin Gray's website (http://www.sacredsites.com) is an informative and beautifully-produced source of fascinating information and amazing photography, taken by the author, of sacred sites around the world. Information on the mythology, history, and significance of many sites is provided. Regarding the mystery of Egypt's celebrated monuments, Gray writes that "it is impossible for a civilization of such extraordinary mathematical, philosophical, architectural and artistic capacities (to name but a few of its achievements) to have arisen so suddenly from the extremely crude societies of neolithic Egypt." Also alluded to are theories that the structures such as the Sphynx and its temples, and the pyramids on the Giza plateau, are the "remnants of an ancient Atlantean civilization."

Jim Curtan reports having had phenomenal experiences in Egypt. When he touched the Sphinx, for example, he heard (an inner) voice ask: "What possible excuse do you have not to live a life rooted in gratitude -- " The response was: "None!" While at the King's chamber inside one of the pyramids, with a group led by renowned author Carolyn Myss, he had the opportunity to lie inside a sarcophagus thought to be used for ceremonial initiations: "As I lay in it," said Curtan, "I could feel the energy of the place and its people."

Peru

Gray describes the ruins of Machu Pichu, which were discovered in 1911 by Yale archaeologist Hiram Bingham, as one of the most beautiful and enigmatic ancient sites in the world....Whatever its origins, the Inca turned the site into a small (5 square miles) but extraordinary city. Invisible from below and completely self-contained, surrounded by agricultural terraces sufficient to feed the population, and watered by natural springs, Machu Pichu seems to have been utilized by the Inca as a secret ceremonial city."

David Frechter confides that Peru is one of his favorite sites. "There is this feeling that happens to me at the sacred sites in the Andes, in Machu Pichu as well as other sites in the Sacred Valley. I go there once a year and always something happens to me. And there is always something I learn about myself each time I return there."

Hawaii

There is definite magic -- spiritual magic -- available when we spend time alone in nature. The Hawaiians have a name for that mystical feeling which is so evident on the islands: mana -- spiritual essence or divine energy. While on Maui make sure not to miss the Road to Hana, unquestionably a must-do. Dawn at the Haleakala crater is a deeply moving, other-worldly experience. In Kauai, considered the oldest and "most spiritual" of the islands, Waimea Canyon, described by Mark Twain as the "Grand Canyon of the Pacific," and the Na Pali Coast are simply spectacular.

Tibet

Lhasa is considered "the sacred city of Tibetan Buddhism," according to Gray, and the Jokhang temple, "a massive building consisting of three floors and an open roof all filled with chapels and chambers, is the most venerated and visited shrine in all of Tibet....Because the temple has never been controlled by any one particular sect of Tibetan Buddhism it attracts adherents of all the sects."

David Frechter reports having been "transported to an indescribable state of timelessness" as he witnessed a group of Tibetan monks undergoing their ritual prostrations, blowing their 8-foot horns, and drumming. "I was deeply touched by their expressions of devotion, and had this sense of familiarity, of connection to these people. It was tremendously overwhelming, a type of sensory overwhelm, with the colors, the sounds, and the tons of incense they were burning. It was a sense of being in a time-warp."

Mexico

Among the sacred sites found in Mexico are Palenque, thought to be one most beautiful of the Mayan cities and archaeological sites in the world, and Chichen Itza, one of the first social centers of the Mayan people when they first inhabited the Yucatan peninsula. Others include The Pyramid of the Magician, in Uxmal, also in the Yucatan; and Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl, two great sacred mountains southeast of Mexico City, where the old Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan used to be.

Judith Bluestone Polich has done extensive work with don Miguel Ruiz, a Mayan nagual or shaman, some of it in the pyramids of Teotihuac -- n, near Mexico City. "The first time we went up to the top of the Pyramid of the Sun, I had an experience that I can only describe as transformative and amazing, one that took me a long time to reconcile with my belief systems. I was sitting there on top while don Miguel worked with a young nagual, one of his young apprentices. I looked at them and I could not believe what I saw: their hands were made of light, galaxies of swirling light. Immediately my mind came in and said, "No. You did not see that. That did not happen." Yet when I looked back I saw it again; their hands were made of light. It took me a long time, lots of other journeys, the pursuit of various spiritual systems, and the study of physics to reconcile what I saw that day. I have come to understand that what I saw that day is human beings as we really are: we truly are made of light. We are made, as is everything in the universe, of nothing but galaxies of swirling light."

The Sacred Earth

Despite the allure and increasing popularity of travel to power places, some people have questions not so much about the legitimacy of these sites, but more around the hype and commercialism which can develop around them. Their basic viewpoint is that the whole earth, not just certain parts of it, is sacred.

Charles Fletcher started Wilderness Spirit Adventures in1989 when he took a group of HIV-positive gay men from Boulder, Colorado on a vision quest. Since then he has taken many groups on trips to the canyon lands in Utah, the mountains of Colorado, and the Florida Everglades. His eight-day retreats often include a 4-day/3-night solo experience. While he believes that there are power places, he prefers not "getting hung-up on the marketing strategies of tours. Sure, I believe Stonehenge and Machu Pichu to be sacred sites, but also, one side of a tree might be a power place, versus the other side. To me, there is power to be found in any place. I don't take groups to the more popular sites because we need privacy for the intense work that we do. Instead, I'll find a remote canyon and spend days finding its power spots. Any place has power; it's a matter of stepping into it and finding it in an intuitive way."

Zikman agrees. "I sometimes have a little bit of a problem about the power places phenomenon. I think everybody has their own spiritual sites and they are not necessarily the pyramids or the Machu Pichus. You can have your own special site in Griffith Park (in Los Angeles), or it could be your own patch of grass somewhere that you like to go to because it gives you peace. My own spiritual place is South Africa, where, from the moment I arrived, I felt a connection. That's how I define a sacred site: where you feel a connection to."

Judith Bluestone Polich, lesbian author of Return of the Children of Light, a book about Mayan and Incan prophecies for the new millennium, agrees that you can "deepen your sense of the sacred through your own intent, working with a special place in your own back yard or a natural setting that you go to for sanctuary." Having said that, however, she observes that there is a long history of people having extraordinary experiences at sacred sites. "Lots of people have done research trying to figure out why they hold a special energy, but, ultimately, we don't know exactly why. One way to think about these sacred sites is that they are often places where many people have worshiped, prayed, and held a sacred energy. So when we bring something sacred within ourselves as a gift to these places, the energy that is there can come into resonance with our energy body. When that occurs, wonderful, magical things can happen."

Advice for the Conscious Traveler

Be open. If you see something, pay attention. Listen for instructions.
-- The Sacred Landscape

In his book, The Art of Pilgrimage, Phil Cousineau laments the travel experiences of some of his friends, one of whom, for example, spent three days leaning against the impressive stone formations in Stonehenge only to report disappointedly that he had "felt nothing."Another man whom the author met while hiking the Samaria Gorge in Crete reported having visited most of the "world's monuments," but confessed having remained basically "unimpressed." Cousineau concludes that the problem is not so much in the sites, "as it is in the sighting, the way we see. It's not simply in the images that lured us there and let us down, as in the imagining that is required of us....With the roads to the exalted places we all want to visit more crowded than ever, we look more and more, but see less and less....All we need do is reimagine the way we travel. If we truly want to know the secret of soulfoul travel, we need to believe that there is something sacred waiting to be discovered in virtually every journey."

What practical advice can be offered to the person wishing to approach the travel experience with consciousness and intention, so as to extract from it all the potential benefits it has to offer --

According to Frechter, it is important to go without preconceived ideas. "What I try to do is simply center myself, quiet myself enough -- just to be still and feel."

Zikman's suggestion is to go to the sites at off hours: "Give yourself enough time to get in touch with the rhythms of the day," he adds. "Go in the morning, greet the day at sunrise. Be there for the sunset. At the middle of the day you'll find a gazillion tourists. Get up early, get out of that bed; be there to see the site at dawn. Then go back the second day. The first day will be a sort of primal reaction. On the second, you can take it in much more, be calmer about it."

Bryan Zerr and Jeff Salzman are co-facilitators of "Awakening Your Spiritual Heart,"a personal exploration retreat focused on meditation practice, which is offered several times a year through Spirit Journeys. He warns people, however, that the experience can be "incredibly powerful," and reports witnessing people taken on a "spiritual roller coaster" at these sites for which they are unprepared. "The average tourist often finds himself going through a lot of emotional, psychological, and spiritual processing, that, if ignored or pushed away by too much -- sightseeing' or partying, can turn his vacation into a lot of upheaval. One of the intentions of our work is to facilitate integration by creating a balanced experience." He recommends taking time for deep reflection and listening to one's own inner guidance.

Finally, as with so many other life situations, the intention we set for a journey is of critical importance. We approach the journey with consciousness and awareness. Learning to just BE is important. The temptation is often to fill our precious holiday with a flurry of activity from dawn until bedtime. Conscious travel involves stopping the madness of our everyday lives and just being, whether that is people-watching at a Parisian sidewalk caf -- , or taking in a sunset on a deserted Hawaiian beach. It means simply being in the moment, with no plans, no agendas, no deadlines. It implies an openness to the unexpected, paying attention, being alert to the synchronicity, magic, and miracles life constantly offers, if only we will notice.

Sacred travel entails a willingness to take risks; it requires getting off the couch, out of the Internet's virtual existence, and into the real world. It means continually stretching beyond comfortable ways of being, breaking old and tired patterns of behavior, jumping out of the grooves or ruts which routine and boredom have carved in our lives. It is at that expanding frontier where growth happens, and where we really connect with life.

So, as you set off on your journey, open your heart, your mind, your eyes, your ears, all of your senses. Appreciate the palette of colors and hues, the cacophony of sounds, the varied smells and intricate textures, the veritable banquet of sensual delights which travel (and life) offer. Surrender to the wanderlust of your heart, for the heart is an adventurer.

Sacred sites are sacred because our response to them is sacred. There is a resonance between the sacred within and the sacred without. The sacred is within our hearts. It is ours whenever and wherever we are. This is the teaching these sites have to offer us. -- the redemption of our sanctity. Visit sacred sites, yes. Bathe in their resonance. Inspire the divine. But never forget where lives the holiest power of all.
-- Peter Russell

Contact info

QQuests
Charles Fletcher
303-444-1476
charles@nmci.com

Gay Outward Bound Adventures
Michael Schaelling
Mschaelling@att.net
305-761-6761

Spirit Journeys
David Frechter
800-490-3684
spiritjourneys@worldnet.att.net
http://www.spiritjourneys.com

Other references

Martin Gray
http://www.sacredsites.com

The Art of Pilgrimage Phil Cousineau
(Conari Press, Berkeley, CA, 1998)

The Power of Travel Steve Zikman
(Tarcher/Putnam, New York, 1999)
http://www.poweroftravel.com

Return of the Children of Light
Judith Bluestone Polich
(Linkage Publications, Santa Fe, NM, 1999)
http://www.web-of-light.com

The Sacred Landscape Fredric Lehrman
(Celestial Arts, Berkeley, CA, 1988)

info@SoulfulPower.us