pilgrimage

A few years ago, in my series on tradition, I wrote about how tradition always involves not just passive reception of the past, but active and intentional changes: “Tradition is an active process: we receive from the past but inevitably apply it to the needs of the present for the sake of our desired future.” … Continue reading Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

For the trip from Hadrian’s Wall down to Manchester, where I would end my trip, we decided to go via the Lake District, a place whose beauty has inspired anything from the construction of ancient stone circles to the great literature of the likes of Austen, Wordsworth, and Coleridge (which in turn inspired Taylor Swift … Continue reading Take Me to the Lakes

Visiting so many historical places the past couple of years (Rome and Florence in 2023 and Paris in 2024, in addition to the recent trip to the North of England that has inspired this series), it’s been fascinating to see the different approaches communities take to the history around them. On the one extreme, many … Continue reading Legacy

As you’ve probably guessed by now, part of what made my recent travels feel like a pilgrimage — even those parts that didn’t hold religious significance — is the way the feeling of the transcendent followed me around, in all its many guises. We've already looked at the transcendence of numinous or holy places, of … Continue reading The Heavy Hand of Time

I’m a huge ancient history nerd. (I may not quite fit the ‘think about the Roman Empire every day’ meme from a couple years ago, but if you add in Persia, Egypt, Assyria, or Greece, I’m absolutely guilty as charged!) For this reason, I can never get enough of ruins, and Roman ruins are absolutely … Continue reading Borderlands