On leaving Nigeria for England, I missed the countless hours I spent in forests and woods in Benin. I despaired of being able to assimilate elsewhere the experience of enigmatic but potent energies that marked the numinous centres of those natural spaces.
The Osun forest in Osogbo is world famous and I have been there a number of times. Sadly, the character of the forest as an abode of strange but energizing powers that can reshape your relationship with reality, as I had come to expect from Susanne Wenger's and Ulli Beier's books on the forest, was not emphasized by its custodians in my visits to the place more than than ten years ago.
I could not see trees or groves that called to me with a power that is too compelling for one to deny that one is in the presence of something unaccounted for in books on plant biology. That perhaps some of these trees are conscious and that they certainly radiate a force that shines with the intensity of clear steel. Perhaps such trees are not prominent in the areas of the forest accessible to the public.
It was in Benin, the place where such knowledge has been carefully guarded for centuries through sacred groves and forests across the city and its outskirts that are taboo to cut or at times, even enter without the permission of the palace of the Oba of Benin, that I first encountered such wonders of nature.
Imagine then, finding oneself in those English cities where such trees are not easy to find. They are there but one might have to work harder to find them them than one would in a place like Benin where urban planning has integrated them into the landscape for many years. I discovered one such grove in a park in park in Finchley, London( Victoria Park?) a grove that looks like a place where witches have their meetings invisible to other people, in the dark energy coruscating within the atmosphere of the grove.
My salvation, though has been in churches. I have long stopped going to church but some churches in Cambridge and nearby Histon have welcomed me with their fantastic silence, rich with an invisible music, nourishing and pointing to something beyond the senses but compelling to the self. Key among these are the electric silence of St. Bene't's church, a small church where worship has been performed for a thousand years, 'the oldest surviving building in Cambridge', the silent music of the Baptist church in Histon that seems to expand the roof of the church into a dome that opens into infinity, and the Pembroke College Chapel, with its palpable sense of cloistered serenity within expansive space.
I go to these places regularly, at times daily, for meditation and mass in the morning at St. Bene'ts, to rest after the day's work at the Pembroke College chapel and in between work to the Baptist church. These are my own daily pilgrimages, taken in locations round the corner.
I intend to develop a similar program of visits over longer periods to the pre-historic pagan sites of Avebury and Glastonbury where I have been and experienced another variant of the sense of the other that is yet deeply enriching of the human self.
Related : In search of sacred spaces : Artist, professor say special places, public events can radiate auras bordering on religious
thanks
toyin
------------ Forwarded message ----------
From: David Green <David2.Green@uwe.ac.uk>
Date: Wed, Apr 3, 2013 at 5:12 PM
Subject: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Attached is a final CFP for a special session on Pilgrimage and Pilgrims: Journeys, Destinations, and Meanings,
To: ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC@jiscmail.ac.uk
Here is a final CFP for a special session on Attached is a final CFP for a special session on Pilgrimage and Pilgrims: Journeys, Destinations, and Meanings, which will take place at the International Conference on Tourism (ICOT 2013) – Trends, Impacts and Policies on Sustainable Tourism Development (5th - 8th June 2013, in Limassol, Cyprus).
In order to complement the regular program with emerging topics of particular interest, the ICOT 2013 Conference will include a Special Session on "Pilgrimage and Pilgrims: Journeys, Destinations, Meanings".
Tourism that is motivated by faith and spirituality is on the rise. Pilgrimage is one of the oldest and most basic forms of population mobility known to human society, and its political, social, cultural and economic implications have always been, and continue to be, substantial. But today, pilgrimage is defined differently, as a traditional religious or modern secular journey. The phenomenon is currently experiencing resurgence throughout the world, as longstanding shrines act as magnets to those in search of spiritual fulfillment.
This special session aims to focus on the foreseeable future of religious, civil and secular pilgrimage and other forms of spiritual journeys. The emphasis will be on both sites (e.g. sacred sites, memorials, monuments) and human activities (e.g. pilgrimage, devotion, and visitation). The session offers the opportunity to elaborate on these issues in an interdisciplinary way, by bringing together researchers who share an interest in pilgrimage (broadly defined) but come from different fields of study, such as geography, anthropology, sociology, psychology, management and economic related fields.
The discussion is open to researches from all backgrounds, and the aim is to present research which is both case study oriented and theoretical. The special session will seek papers that attempt to address the following key issues, including (but not limited to) the following themes:
- The tourism – pilgrimage academic debate
- The commodification of faith-based travel
- The use of modern technology in faith-based travel experiences
- Managing pilgrimage sites: International, National, Regional and Local
- Touristification of pilgrimage sites
- Dark tourism experiences
- The nexus between Pilgrimage and Heritage Tourism
- The relevance of New Age tourism to the "Old Age" pilgrimage product
- Secular and civil pilgrimage
The special session is organized by Dr. Amos S. Ron, Department of Tourism & Hotel Management, Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee and Department of Tourism & Leisure Studies, Ashkelon Academic College, Israel and Dr. Noga Collins-Kreiner, Department of Geography and Environmental Studies and the Center for Tourism, Pilgrimage & Recreation Research, University of Haifa, Israel.
Abstracts of no more than 350 words should be submitted electronically by April 30th, 2013 to Dr. Amos S. Ron at: amosron@gmail.com or to Dr. Noga Collins-Kreiner at: nogack@geo.haifa.ac.il.
Papers presented at the special session will be considered for publication in a special issue of the International Journal of Tourism Policy (http://www.inderscience.com/browse/index.php?journalCODE=ijtp) published by Inderscience, or as an edited book.
For further enquiries regarding conference fees and program, recommended accommodation, maps/instructions, and registration forms, please visit the following website:
http://www.iatour.net/icot2013/article.php?cat=20
Looking forward to meeting you in Limassol, Cyprus.Amos & Noga
Amos S. Ron, Ph.D.
Senior Lecturer
Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee, Israel
Department of Tourism & Hotel Managemet
Office: Tel.: +972-4-665-3604; Fax: +972-4-665-3764
Ashkelon Academic College, Ashkelon, Israel
Head, Department of Tourism and Leisure Studies
Room 202-B; Tel. +972-8-6789413
Cell.: +972-54-492-2582; Home Fax: +972-2-999-2757
Personal Website: http://ash-college.academia.edu/AmosSRon
, which will take place at the International Conference on Tourism (ICOT 2013) – Trends, Impacts and Policies on Sustainable Tourism Development (5th - 8th June 2013, in Limassol, Cyprus).
In order to complement the regular program with emerging topics of particular interest, the ICOT 2013 Conference will include a Special Session on "Pilgrimage and Pilgrims: Journeys, Destinations, Meanings".
Tourism that is motivated by faith and spirituality is on the rise. Pilgrimage is one of the oldest and most basic forms of population mobility known to human society, and its political, social, cultural and economic implications have always been, and continue to be, substantial. But today, pilgrimage is defined differently, as a traditional religious or modern secular journey. The phenomenon is currently experiencing resurgence throughout the world, as longstanding shrines act as magnets to those in search of spiritual fulfillment.
This special session aims to focus on the foreseeable future of religious, civil and secular pilgrimage and other forms of spiritual journeys. The emphasis will be on both sites (e.g. sacred sites, memorials, monuments) and human activities (e.g. pilgrimage, devotion, and visitation). The session offers the opportunity to elaborate on these issues in an interdisciplinary way, by bringing together researchers who share an interest in pilgrimage (broadly defined) but come from different fields of study, such as geography, anthropology, sociology, psychology, management and economic related fields.
The discussion is open to researches from all backgrounds, and the aim is to present research which is both case study oriented and theoretical. The special session will seek papers that attempt to address the following key issues, including (but not limited to) the following themes:
- The tourism – pilgrimage academic debate
- The commodification of faith-based travel
- The use of modern technology in faith-based travel experiences
- Managing pilgrimage sites: International, National, Regional and Local
- Touristification of pilgrimage sites
- Dark tourism experiences
- The nexus between Pilgrimage and Heritage Tourism
- The relevance of New Age tourism to the "Old Age" pilgrimage product
- Secular and civil pilgrimage
The special session is organized by Dr. Amos S. Ron, Department of Tourism & Hotel Management, Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee and Department of Tourism & Leisure Studies, Ashkelon Academic College, Israel and Dr. Noga Collins-Kreiner, Department of Geography and Environmental Studies and the Center for Tourism, Pilgrimage & Recreation Research, University of Haifa, Israel.
Abstracts of no more than 350 words should be submitted electronically by April 30th, 2013 to Dr. Amos S. Ron at: amosron@gmail.com or to Dr. Noga Collins-Kreiner at: nogack@geo.haifa.ac.il.
Papers presented at the special session will be considered for publication in a special issue of the International Journal of Tourism Policy (http://www.inderscience.com/browse/index.php?journalCODE=ijtp) published by Inderscience, or as an edited book.
For further enquiries regarding conference fees and program, recommended accommodation, maps/instructions, and registration forms, please visit the following website:
http://www.iatour.net/icot2013/article.php?cat=20
Looking forward to meeting you in Limassol, Cyprus.Amos & Noga
Amos S. Ron, Ph.D.
Senior Lecturer
Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee, Israel
Department of Tourism & Hotel Managemet
Office: Tel.: +972-4-665-3604; Fax: +972-4-665-3764
Ashkelon Academic College, Ashkelon, Israel
Head, Department of Tourism and Leisure Studies
Room 202-B; Tel. +972-8-6789413
Cell.: +972-54-492-2582; Home Fax: +972-2-999-2757
Personal Website: http://ash-college.academia.edu/AmosSRon
CompcrosComparative Cognitive Processes and Systems"Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"
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Compcros
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