A Circular Pilgrimage - Sarah Sargent

I was walking in a circular pilgrimage of silent despair. Round and round I went in the lightly crimson waters of the fountain. It was meant to be healing water, holy water, by whatever tradition the seeker wanted. Some found it to be lodged in Christianity, others in Avalonian and Arthurian legend, others in other misty legends from long ago. Did it matter what the seeker thought of the pool?

The pool was set up for those just like me. A barefoot entrant, wading encouraged, silence mandated. As if it needed saying, polite signs hung about the edges of the enclosure, reminding people that this was a place of meditation. A silent place of meditation.

My shoes and socks were pushed back discretely on a bench. It was a chilly winter day, and I walked barefoot in the icy water with my winter jacket zipped high up to my neck, as far as it could reach. The sting of the cold water soon receded as my feet became numb. And I walked. I walked with my head down, chanting softly under my breath, a mantra of hope meant to drive away the despair. I walked clockwise, hearing the swish of water over my feet, the occasional call of a winter bird who seemed to share in the same depths of despair as myself. If I thought that the wading and walking and chanting in the crimson water would lift the heavy weight I carried, I was wrong. I was cold. I walked. I walked because I did not know what else to do and there was something comforting in being numb. I felt mesmerized by the numbness, the cold, the nothingness around me.

Then a harsh male voice cut through my reverie.  What was I doing, he demanded. How long the man had been standing on the edge of the pool, watching me, I could not say. His question seemed to suggest he had watched me do more than a few laps of the pool.

I pulled my head up to look at him, startled, annoyed. I was doing nothing wrong by walking in the pool. That is what it was there for. That is what the signs all around indicated. As well as the indication for silence. What was I doing, he demanded again, his wife fluttering near his elbow like a disturbed bird, whispering to him to be quiet, to leave me alone. I shrugged and went back to walking, intending to ignore him and return to my sanctuary of numbness.

I walked another lap, passing the man on the edge again. He was looking at my socks and shoes, and then at me. Why was I walking, he demanded again, and this time I could hear confusion and pain in his voice.

Was he a pilgrim like me? A seeker for some relief, some answer, something to sweep away unbearable pain and loss?

I paused. I met his eyes. “It is a healing pool.” I explained. “The waters are meant to be healing, and this pool is set up for those who wish to wade, to walk barefoot, and experience it directly. In whatever way they wish.”

His next question caught me off guard. Didn’t walking in the waters profane them? Pollute them? Desecrate them? And that seemed to be the reason for the spark of hostility that seemed to radiate from him. His thought that I was polluting the pure holy waters.

“No.” I said, gesturing to the signs all around us. “This is what it is for. If you wish.” He looked at the signs and then back at me.

“Does it work?” he said.

“I don’t know.” I replied. “I have to have hope. I have to have faith. I will never know if I do not put my feet in the waters and try.  I do not think the healing benefits of the pool are rationed out according to one belief system or another.” I added, forestalling the next question that was clearly on his mind.

“Oh.” He said. “Oh.” And his tone was softer, and the accusatory note in his voice was gone. There was only soft sadness and pain in his eyes, no longer clouded under a guise of distrust and anger.

I would like to say that the man removed his shoes and socks and came wading. I would like to say that my walking and circling brought an immediate result other than blessed numbness.

But these did not happen. Rather the man, his wife still fluttering like a nervous winter bird at his side, walked away, quietly, with no further questions to me. I went back to my head down, circling, feeling the water swish over my feet, hearing again only the restive sound of the distant winter bird.

I stepped carefully from the pool, drying my wet feet with my socks, sliding my feet back into my shoes. Was my pilgrimage complete? What had been achieved? How soon would I know? The uncertainty weighed on me. It was, indeed, the core of the pain. I looked towards the exit, where the man and his wife had gone. I wondered if I had somehow lightened the load he had carried, by stopping to answer his demanding queries, the ones that broke the rules and the silence.

In time, I would return to the healing waters. I would walk again, seeking more solace. A pilgrimage is never complete, is it? You can return again and again on the same path with new insight or new pain. Is the story of the pilgrimage also about the people you speak with along the way? The man had brought me something beyond an interruption—an awareness of others seeking, others unsure. I at least had had the faith to step into the waters, cold as they were, and walk. That was something. That was a literal step more than he had taken. And although my path remains uncertain, I think that I can offer an answer to a seeker, even as I seek my own. Such is the spiral of a circular pilgrimage. Never-ending. Always there. Always hope.

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Sarah Sargent is a writer of creative nonfiction and poetry. She explores human emotion and connection in her writing. She also writes a new blog on nature connection with aspects of science and spirituality.