It doesn't look like much in the photo, but I remember taking the picture through joyful tears that welled up as I hiked this stretch in Virginia.

“Pilgrimage: 1. a journey, especially a long one, made to some sacred place as an act of religious devotion; 2. any long journey, esp. one undertaken as a quest or act of devotion.”

Yesterday I wrote that one of the great benefits of long distance hiking, for me, was that the process of hiking reset my life priorities.

In essence, my hike realigned my soul with Spirit’s intentions for me and my life, so I'm just refusing to play by anyone else's rules going forward.

Though I didn’t think of it as a pilgrimage at the time, hiking 1,800 miles over six months, including time on the trail and time off to heal injuries, truly was an act of spiritual devotion.

It transformed me, and I wasn't even trying that hard.

Now that I know long distance hiking will be an ongoing thing for me I plan to try harder in a transformational sense.

I intend to hike like a pilgrim from the moment I lace up my trail runners, sling my pack onto my back and follow the trail into a sacred forest.

I believe true happiness and fulfillment come from knowing at a soul level that we're more than just bodies trying to get by till we die, stressed out about money and "to do" lists and political shenanigans.

What's real isn't this incarnation of me, in this body at this moment in time.

What's real is the ineffable thing animates this incarnation of me--spirit, soul, the Divine spark that lives in me, through me and through all living things.

Not that I'm there, yet.

At true happiness and fulfillment, I mean. If only I were all blissed out and floating through life like Tinkerbell.

But I want to be.

And long distance hiking is a great tool for going within and connecting to the spark, getting closer to the Divine.

Especially if I remember to bring more consciousness to the act of pilgrimage and remember to walk with this new awareness of hiking's transformational power.