Becoming aware is a process, and the transformative steps take place all during our lives. To be aware, or “Woke” as it is known from the Civil Rights era, is a noble space. One that every living being is entitled to and has the right to be.

We are all born in this space, and then life gives us families and social settings that turn us either away or toward Divine Love. On this planet, the majority of us experience the turning away in our childhoods, and so our lives echo footsteps of those before us, and our own past lives, and we either reach for that first-born state or not.

And so on my own life journey, in late 2004 when I returned to live in my hometown of Columbia, South Carolina after a long and travel-filled absence, I chose to embark on a pilgrimage. The pilgrimage was one that evolved over a period of seven years, and was definitely an intuitively-led one as the route did not exist anywhere that I could find.

Water was the first vision. After doing a search on the internet for springs in South Carolina, I found one serendipitously named “Healing Springs”, and since it was only an hour’s drive from me, invited my Mom and brother to take the trip one afternoon in the heat-filled, humid month of July. We planned a picnic there and thank goodness for the lovely, tall shade trees at the edge of the creek that flowed next to the cool, clear, artesian springs.

From that moment on, the path of my pilgrimage flowed from one sacred site to another. Many of these sites I had never visited, and I had grown up and lived over 25 years in my home state before embarking on a 20-year span of living in other states and countries.

Along the way of this new pilgrimage, I kept a journal of notes and this continued to grow until I reached my final site in May 2012 and began putting my first book together – “Mystical South Carolina: A Pilgrimage to Joy”. The time to publish would have to wait another seven years until I hired a book designer in May 2019, and signed the agreement on the anniversary of my Mom’s birthday. She would have been 84.

Another auspicious date occurred along the way, as my book’s launch date, October 20 in my hometown, was my own birthday weekend. A magical pair of bookends to start and complete this book journey.

So the stars were in alignment at last for the Mystical to come forth, and help others find their way, too. Water, labyrinths, angels, fairies, sacred geometry, ley lines, vortices, sacred sound, the Divine Feminine and Mother Earth; all combined and intertwined at intervals in Divine Order and with Grace. It feels good to have this journey in print and be able to share it with the world.

In those final five months when I was getting ready to launch my debut Indie book, I was blessed to find a most amazing cartographer named Peter Champoux who prepares special maps. With his incredible help, my book was now complete, for with his wisdom and skills there is now a way to link my own pilgrimage with helping humanity to partner with and heal our Mother Earth and ourselves through the “Congaree Rings” found on this spiritual journey.

So, are you ready to find out this ancient secret hidden in plain view, within the landscape of South Carolina? To go within, and “Into the Mystical”, please visit here:

Mystical South Carolina: A Pilgrimage to Joy

 

Featured image, “Reflections on Black Creek, Kalmia Gardens”, part of the Healing Spirit Art © Collection of positive, inspirational, life-affirming fine art photography, writing and music 🎶 by Teri Leigh Teed.