Pilgrimage for COP26

Blog #1 for the Pilgrimage for COP26

On Sunday 17^th October I will embark on the Pilgrimage for COP26 with a group of like-minded others. We will assemble in Dunbar for a celebration of Natalie Taylor’s the Keeper of the Soils, a speech from Alastair McIntosh (author of Poacher’s Pilgrimage), and other activities organised by North Lights Arts.

On 29^th October, all being well, we will walk into Glasgow after travelling parts of the John Muir Way and St Ninian’s Way, on foot, in a collective effort. We will make “A walk and a learning journey … to reflect on the climate and ecological crisis in anticipation of the COP26.”

Our route visits

• Dunbar
• North Berwick
• Aberlady
• Portobello
• Edinburgh (where we will stay on Saturday and Sunday)
• South Queensferry
• Bo’ness
• Falkirk
• Kirkintilloch
• Glasgow

taking in coastal, cycle, urban, industrial, canal and river paths.

Many of you will know that I enjoy walking secular pilgrimage, that the act of stepping out each day with a simple pack on my back satisfies something vital in me. Walking sequential trails which connect town to country to village to city, whether the Camino de Santiago in Spain, the Via Sacra in Austria or the St Magnus Way in Orkney, is a way to reflect on, process and enliven my regular life.

This pilgrimage differs specifically from any of the others I have done before because it will be done in community. I am a solitary walker and I value my privacy highly, even though I do meet people along the path and enjoy their company at times. This COP26 pilgrimage, however, is a group activity. It invites people to walk together for a few hours, several days or the whole, and to be a part of a growing conversation about the many facets of the climate emergency in the light of the international meeting of world leaders at the beginning of November in Glasgow. We will discuss, think about, and inevitably come up with questions, maybe even solutions (practical or ideal) in the face of the situation we find ourselves in. Whatever happens we will be able to support each other in our feelings – grief, frustration, anger, hopelessness – in the face of what is happening to our beautiful world right now.

My focus for the pilgrimage is on the link between grief and walking, something that arises over and over, not just for me but for others as well (see the book Marram by Leonie Charlton for example). My enquiry will build on my previous writing (Working with Death and Loss in Shiatsu Practice’ (Singing Dragon 2020) and articles/blogs) and the Shiatsu client work I have been engaged in over the past 30 years, as well as my own personal rambles.

I will continue to collect a feather a day, usually the first I come across, as these long-time symbols of freedom and transcendence and their common use in ritual are often connected with the feelings we have when we are grieving or bereaved. It remains to be seen what the feathers will be used for or come to represent in the context of this pilgrimage.

If you would like to join us for some or all of this walk. Please read about it here and sign up here. You will be most welcome.