Journeys In Search Of Ourselves. Secular Pilgrimage With Victoria Preston

What does pilgrimage mean when you don’t adhere to a particular religious tradition? Can we find ever find ourselves when we travel, or will we be forever searching? Victoria Preston has roamed far and wide in her 30 years advising corporate and government clients around the world. She is an associate fellow at the King’s Centre for Strategic Communications, and her latest book is We Are Pilgrims: Journeys in Search of Ourselves. Show notes * What is secular pilgrimage? * The animal urge to move, particularly in the spring * Balancing solitude and traveling with others * Places that resonate through the ages * Does the search for art and beauty create the desire for pilgrimage? * Being ‘hefted’ or rooted to a place and the meaning of home * Can we ever find ourselves on journeys? * Recommended travel books You can find Victoria Preston at WhyPilgrim.com My book, Pilgrimage, Lessons Learned from Solo Walking Three Ancient Ways, is out now. Transcript of the interview Jo Frances Penn: Victoria Preston has roamed far and wide in her 30 years advising corporate and government clients around the world. She is an associate fellow at the King’s Centre for Strategic Communications, and her latest book is We Are Pilgrims: Journeys in Search of Ourselves. Welcome, Victoria. Victoria Preston: Thank you so much for having me. It’s a joy. Jo Frances Penn: Let’s start with the definition. How do you define pilgrimage, particularly as someone who doesn’t belong to a specific faith? Victoria Preston: Personally, I define it as a journey with a personal driving purpose, to a place of shared meaning. I really went round and round the houses on this when I started researching my book. I think this idea of a place of shared meaning helped me focus down. Of course, people say, ‘We go on our annual pilgrimage to Oxford Street to do Christmas shopping,’ and I thought, ‘No, I’m definitely not writing about that.’ That’s not a thing. Actually, when I was working in the London Library on the book, I had a place that I liked to sit every day and I could look into Mason’s Yard and I could see people coming on walking tours of London, to a nightclub that had once hosted, I think, Jimi Hendrix or somebody like that. I thought, yes, well maybe they feel themselves to be on a pilgrimage, but I’m not writing about that either. So, for me, that helped me to narrow down what I was thinking about and hoping to write about. And it was really about intention and about places meaning. Jo Frances Penn: Actually, you mentioned the London Library. I wrote three novels in the London Library. Isn’t it a wonderful place to work? Victoria Preston: I adore it and I miss it so much right now. I can’t tell you, I miss everything about it, the people, the book stacks, the staff, everything. Jo Frances Penn: Yes. It really is serendipity in the stack. I remember it well. I wanted to ask you, the book has got so much in and one of the things I thought about at the moment, so the early crocuses and the snowdrops that were emerging here in the UK, and spring is coming and you note this animal urge to move, which I just thought was brilliant because I feel that, the moment kind of going crazy in this lockdown. How have you experienced this ‘animal urge to move’? Victoria Preston: When I was younger, I had what you would recognize as itchy feet. I had a really, really terrible desire to get going, and most strongly in spring. Chaucer really understood that.