Goddess pilgrims as tourists: inscribing the body through sacred travel.

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Goddess pilgrims as tourists: inscribing the body through sacred travel.

Kathryn Rountree *

INTRODUCTION

Two years ago I received a letter written by a friend during her travels in Turkey. (1) The first paragraph read:

I feel so privileged to be travelling around, and especially being here in Turkey. What an amazing country! It is so big and has so many treasures. The visit to the Anatolian Civilisation Museum yesterday was wonderful. I had such an ache to hold some of the old goddesses in my hands, to feel their magic and love them gently. Their round bodies -- big breasts, bellies and buttocks -- speak of the journey of women's lives. I was enraptured and wished that you were here with me. You really must plan a visit here, and to Egypt too.

I begin by quoting this letter because it was written by the kind of pilgrim-tourist who is the focus of this paper and it poignantly reveals something of the emotional intensity and religious meaning of this experience for her. It further provides an opening to a discussion about sacred travel in relation to religious and feminist identity and embodiment. Specifically, I wish to suggest that this and similar accounts illustrate that such journeys contribute to a radical reinscription of the female body by exposing women to alternative representations of the feminine and by providing contexts in which the feminine can be re-imagined and re-experienced through symbolic activity and ritual. The body as a site for analysis has recently received a great deal of attention from feminist and other scholars within the social sciences, however a discourse centred on the body has yet to develop within the literature on pilgrimage. (2) As Morinis (1992:17) says, "we are yet to investigate the broad range of psychosomati c sensations that accompany sacred journeys and are often the most significant aspects of pilgrimage in the view of participants themselves." This paper aims to make a contribution to such a discussion.

The friend I quoted above is one of several hundred thousand women in the Western world who belong to the Goddess movement, (3) and one of a growing number of these women who, along with other Pagans, are visiting a huge range of sites in Europe and elsewhere which are connected, they say, with ancient Goddess worship. Stonehenge, Avebury, Glastonbury, Delphi, Knossos, Agrigento, Ephesus, Catalhoyuk, Luxor, Karnak and Malta are just a few of the favourite destinations. Visits to ancient temple sites and monuments, stone circles, churches, (4) tombs, sacred wells, caves, mountains and other natural features are combined with lecture presentations, visits to museums and ritual. Contemporary 'local culture' and the pleasures of local landscapes are also relished: elements of ethnic tourism, environmental tourism and historical tourism (Graburn 1989:31-32) are integral to these pilgrimages. They are undertaken by individuals or small groups of friends who organize their own travel itineraries, and by groups who e lect to join a Goddess package tour organized by a tour operator who herself usually is deeply involved in the Goddess movement.

The phenomenon of the modern Pagan pilgrimage, of which journeys to 'Goddess sites' form one component, brings the Western tradition of pilgrimage full circle. In classical times pilgrimages to consult the oracle at Delphi, to celebrate the Great Panathenaea festival at the Parthenon, to pay homage to Artemis, Zeus and Aphrodite respectivel...

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