Travel the goddess trail with Sacred Places of the Goddesses

by Jamie Rhein on

For those in search of that little extra umph when they travel–the something more that connects them to self or something bigger than they are, sacred place travel can offer a sense of purpose. Traveling with a contemplative eye can move one deeper into an experience.

Here is a book that offers up sacred places to visit with a twist. In Sacred Places of Goddess, 108 Destinations, author Karen Tate, presents the history of goddess worship, the role of the Divine Feminine around the world, the significance of each particular goddess, and how do you get to the places where you can experience their influence. This is part travel guide, part history lesson, part cultural analysis, –and more. Much more.

Whether it’s a sacred, spiritual boost you’re after, or just an unusual way to look at the places you are wandering though, here’s a book to consider.

Tate’s book caught my eye when I was wandering around the West Hollywood Book Festival last September. With spiritual travel showing up on the radar lately, I wanted to point this one out as a fascinating read that presents sites and information you may not come across otherwise.

Divided into sections by continents and countries, the book delves into the archaeological, sociological and historical significance of particular places and their goddess connection. Sites include: grottoes, churches, temples, ruins, particular statues or artwork of note.

Remember Hera, Aphrodite, Athena, Persephone? You’ll hook up with them in Greece. Hera’s Temple, for example, is in the town of Pythagorian. Tate tells you how to get to these goddess oriented spots, as well as, what it’s like to go there.

“As one travels over the blue-green sea from Mykonos toward Delos, the gentle rocking of the boat and the island ahead growing ever closer becomes a trance-like journey taking visitors from the mundane world into the sacred.”

Delos, Tate points out, is referred to in Homer’s, The Odyssey, and is thought to be where Apollo and Artemis were born when Leto, their mother, was hiding from Hera, Zeus’s wife. On Delos, you’ll find a statue of the Greek goddess Isis, in addition to many temples that honor other goddesses.

If Ireland or Italy are in your future, you can also connect with Isis there. In Egypt, visiting Isis sites is a given.

Tate’s book connects the sacred places through their goddess similarities to make clear the relationship these places have with each other. No matter which section of the world you are traveling, there’s a goddess along the path.

Places include the well known to the obscure. For anyone with a hankering to go off the beaten track, here’s an option.

Throughout the book, photos, drawings and maps highlight particular places and artifacts. Tate also offers suggestions on how to maximize sacred place travel experiences and offers her thoughts about how these places fit into the framework of modern times. The current day perceptions towards women are woven throughout. In Tate’s’ view, history has an influence over the present.

For armchair travelers, or anyone interested in delving further into the subject of the goddess–whether from a historical, cultural or spiritual perspective, Sacred Places of Goddess is a read guaranteed to teach you a few things you probably didn’t know.

For travelers, “It’s enough to amplify the spiritual wanderlust of even the most ardent sojourner.” –Yoga Journal.

Check out this write-up in The Goddess Pages for an in depth review.

Look for a “Talking Travel with Karen Tate” post in the near future.

The Jesus Trail

by Jamie Rhein on

Here is a bit of low impact tourism that can provide you with some exercise, a history lesson–and a walk similar to one that Jesus might have made.

Instead of hopping on a bus to be taken to certain holy sites to see places where Jesus did his ministry, there is a walking option.

This go-at-you-own-pace trip is along a 40-mile path that brings you to sites like: Nazareth where Jesus grew up as a boy; the Arab village of Kana–where Jesus turned water into wine; the sea of Galilee, Mount of Beatitudes where it is thought Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount; and to the location where it’s said that Jesus turned two fish and five loaves of bread into enough food for the multitudes.

There are sites important to Islam as well.

According to Laurie Copans who took the trip, it has appeal, partly because of the interactive quality. Listening to birds, feeling the breeze, and experiencing the topography adds meditative and reflective elements to the travle experience.

As one of the people interviewed for the article said, “The more intimate you become with the land, the more intimate the land becomes to you–the smells, the feel, the hills.”

The tricky aspect of this trail is that it’s not marked. Here are your options for doing the trip without getting lost.

  • Hire a tour guide
  • Download a Global Positioning System that coordinates with Jesustrail.com, or
  • Pick up a Map–but with the trail not marked, I say hire a tour guide.

For more details and contact information about how to follow the Jesus Trail, read Copan’s article. The photo is of Galilee from Mount Beatitudes by hoysameg on Flickr.

Stick, Stone and Bone: Good karma in New York City

by Jamie Rhein on

Yesterday, when I was typing away on the post on “Bizarre Foods,” the Bolivia edition, I heard a voice say my brother’s name followed by “Christopher Street” on my answering machine. I bounded downstairs. “Hello?” I half expected a telemarketer.

Heather at Stick, Stone & Bone, was calling to let someone know that my brother had left his wallet behind. My phone number was in it. Since I live in Columbus, Ohio and my brother lives in Manhattan, I thought this was above and beyond excellent customer service. “Would you let him know we have it?” Heather wanted to know. My phone number was the only one she saw, therefore I got the call.

Turns out, Stick, Stone and Bone is one of those shops in a brownstone building that has loads of anything spiritually geared. Statues, jewelry, crystals, amulets, whatever you need for a safe journey, I bet you can find here. Just ask. The staff is among the most helpful. We already know that if you leave something behind, they’ll do what they can to reunite you with your baggage. Airlines take note. It’s good karma. It’s also a reminder to make sure there is someone’s name and phone number in your belongings.

Christopher Street is one of my favorites in the West Village. Along with Stick, Stone and Bone there are shops and eateries for browsing, perfect for a spring afternoon. One of my most favorite Letterman episodes was when the show was taped in the middle of the night and Amy Sedaris, David Sedaris’s sister gave a tour of the neighborhood (she lives here) at 2 a.m.

Talking Travel with Brad Olsen, Sacred Stomper

by Kelly Amabile on

Brad Olsen is the founder of CCC Publishing, the Consortium of Collective Consciousness, based in San Francisco. He is a man who wears many hats — publisher, writer, photographer, producer and artist. He’s also a seasoned world traveler and author of the new book Sacred Places Europe, the latest title in CCC’s series of travel guides focusing on spiritual journeys. Brad researched and wrote the book, and also provided all the photos and maps that appear throughout. Oh yeah, did we mention he dabbles in cartography too?

His strong interests in history, culture, spirituality and humanity have lead Brad down a career path full of creative pursuits and plenty of travel. I caught up with him recently via email for a quick chat about travel, the Sacred Places series and some of his other artistic projects.

How did you first getting started traveling?

It was an innate and insatiable curiosity to see the world in the days of my youth. And with many youthful indiscretions, partying with the opposite sex on the opposite side of the world had its draw.

When did you first begin writing about travel, both personally and professionally?

I started writing my first book World Stompers: A Global Travel Manifesto within the first week of getting my sponsored-visa job to teach English in Kyoto, Japan. That book was in the works for over three years, and has now gone into five editions. When I landed the job, I knew my dream of a self-financed backpacking trip around the world was going to happen. And it did.

Where did you go on that backpacking trip, and for how long did you travel?

I was out of the country for three years solid. I was in Japan for 14 months, Australia for 5 1/2 months, India for 5 months, Indonesia for two, plus Nepal, Thailand, China, Vietnam, Egypt, Israel and a dozen European countries in a month. See my online travelogue Stompers.

How did the idea for the Sacred Places book series first come about?

After a half dozen years publishing travel guides I started looking deeper into the demand of guides and saw an opportunity. From the beginning it was clear I needed to do a whole series on the subject. Besides, during my three-year trip around the world I found myself drawn to sacred places and I had a strong working knowledge coming into the first book.

What are the other titles in the series?

In order, we’ve published: Sacred Places Around the World: 108 Destinations (now in 2nd edition); Sacred Places North America: 108 Destinations (currently being rewritten into a 2nd edition); Sacred Places of Goddess: 108 Destinations (written by Karen Tate) and our latest, Sacred Places Europe: 108 Destinations.

Can you tell us a little bit about the destinations featured in the new Europe book?

It’s a collection of prehistoric megaliths, sacred mountains, pilgrimage destinations, obscure Christian shrines and other lesser-known locales. Some examples: In France, the book features sites like the caves of the Dordogne region and Carnac’s megaliths. In Central Europe, there is Rila Monastery in Bulgaria, Tipova in Moldova and The Visocica Valley Pyramids in Bosnia, to name a few. Special Christian sites pervade the European landscape. There are sections of sacred site listings for Scandinavia, Germany and the Alps, Greece, Italy, Malta, Spain and Portugal too.

One place included in the Great Britain chapter is the assorted monuments around the small village of Avebury, among the most important Neolithic ruins in England. They include Europe’s tallest artificial hill, the skeleton of a monumental stone circle much like Stonehenge, several underground passage chambers, and the remnants of two 1.5-mile (2.4-km) long stone avenues. The Avebury monuments were not just a concentration of elaborate ruins, but also a prehistoric staging ground for seasonal rituals and courting dramas.


Can you share with us a few of your personal favorites from the book?

Like Avebury, the Neolithic sites of Europe really blew me away, both on my first backpack trips across the continent, and during my three-month research trip for the book in 2004. In Holland, the “hunnebeddens” or “giant’s beds” are charming and delightful just like the Dutch people themselves. Ireland is loaded with Neolithic sites like Hill of Tara, Loughcrew and Newgrange.

Why 108 Destinations?

If you were a Hindu or Buddhist, 108 would be one of the most familiar numbers you know. It is sacred for any number of reasons – and fully explained in all my books!

So what was your methodology for choosing the locations you did?

Of course, this is subjective to my own system of qualifying a site. There are some we would all agree upon: Stonehenge, the Scottish stone circle Callanish, Angkor Wat in Cambodia, the Great Pyramids. For the secondary tier, I look for what the locals consider a sacred place, and which locations have the best story to tell. I don’t report on battlefield or holocaust sites, nor haunted houses or anything like that.

Have you visited all of them?

Close to 80 percent.

“Sacred travel” and things like “metaphysical tourism” and “spirituality tours” have been growing in popularity. To what do you attribute this trend?

People are looking for more in their vacations besides sipping mai tais by the pool. Why not venture off the hotel grounds and check out some of these sites? After all, they are the places that define the very best of the civilizations that preceded us.

More and more travelers are booking their vacations with the expressed interest of experiencing the power of a sacred place. Taking a pilgrimage is not a new idea, but this type of trip seems to correspond with a growing trend in seeking spirituality on a more individual or secular level — all while having an enjoyable time on an educational and invigorating vacation!

Will there be another title in the Sacred Places series in the future?

Either Sacred Places Southeast Asia: 108 Destinations or Sacred Places Central America and the Caribbean: 108 Destinations. What do you think? Can we take a poll?

Sure, Brad, here’s a handy poll for readers who want to make their pick:

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So what’s next for you on the travel horizon?

I’m leaving for a camping and music event up at Mount Shasta, California. We are doing a Peace Tour event in the shadow of the holy mount to see if we can activate the consciousness grid. Go to www.peacetour.org to learn more.

Sounds like another sacred destination worth visiting. Good luck Brad, and thanks for chatting with us.