When I travel I like to find little rituals that other people have created. The arranged sea shells draped with seaweed, feathers pinned into hollow spaces in tree bark, a spiral of leaves held in place by stones on a forest trail. These say to me someone was in this place, and took a moment, and made a gift of their effort to the Holy that lives in all of nature.
Sometimes the little ritual comes home with the traveler and becomes a memory of summer found feathers against a rain streaked window. Maybe they become quiet under the dust of winter inattention, or maybe they become an altar to what stays bright and warm in the heart.
When I travel I like to make little rituals that feed the places I stay or pass through, asking that these alien spirits of place receive my small gift in the name of the spirits of place I had to leave behind.
The water carries the blessing of sage to all water.
A little ritual can also be the footprint of a larger ceremony, left for the sun after the moon has been honored.
Some little travel rituals grow in scale and presence until they become a symbol, an emblem for a way of being, a way of making a journey to the oracle.
