The Importance of a Spiritual Journey

Sometimes during your travels, you find a place that feels like home.  It’s the place that you make a point of revisiting several times a year just because while you’re there, it seems to recharge your batteries more than any other place.  In truth, recharging the self is usually the primary reason for taking a vacation to begin with.  However, a spiritual journey is not the same thing as taking a vacation.  I learned this truth recently.  I took my grandchildren on the semi-annual jaunt to Kerrville but this time, it was more than just a vacation.

My trip to Kerrville came approximately a week after my trip to Colorado.  The trip to Colorado was amazing and a welcome change. I learned some things on that trip that didn’t manifest until the trip to Kerrville.  The trip was the last big one I intended to make until I returned to the real world with a full time job and a college class schedule on top.   I knew it when I left.  I just didn’t understand it’s importance until it came time to make the journey home.


You see I consider Kerrville my spiritual home.  It’s the place that I go to over and over again because I was born there and when I go there, it seems to boost my spirit and refill my soul like no other place on this planet. I breathe a sigh of relief every time I pass the road to Enchanted Rock and start taking that drive into Fredericksburg.  I know I’m almost home.  Then, when that city limit sign comes into view, that relief comes flooding in and it’s like this valley’s energy comes to greet me and escort me in to my hotel.  Yes, I know I’m waxing a bit melodramatic and a bit on spiritual side but that’s the point of this particular journey. My soul came out of the end of my 18 year career with my employer a lot bruised and in need of the TLC that only my spiritual home seems to be able to provide.


My grandchildren love to travel to Kerrville with me.  We stay about four days and while we’re there, we cram into our days as much sightseeing as we can manage. For them, it’s a normal vacation.  Fun to be had and at the end of the day, it’s head to our favorite hotel’s indoor pool for some swimming.  They don’t know that while they’re swimming, I am savoring the time where my feet are on home turf and soaking it up. They don’t know that while we’re eating dinner at Billy Gene’s, I am drinking up the view of the Guadalupe and savoring the energy of the river as it flows past the big bay windows. They don’t know while we’re taking a peek at Stonehenge II that my heart is just having a grand ole time just being in Ingram again. (I could just sit there and meditate in the middle of that ring for hours if I ever got the opportunity. I have yet to ever visit this town solo so meditating is out for now.)

This past trip, I found a gem hidden in plain sight. I have not been interested in this place before now because I don’t share their religion.  However, after visting the Coming King Sculpture Prayer Garden, I discovered that you don’t have to be a Christian to appreciate this place.  The hallmark of this garden is a cross statue that is almost 78’ tall.  However, scattered across the grounds are other sculptures that share a Christian story of their own. There are rocks and markers available that you can write your prayer request on and then put them in the garden.  We visited this place twice.  Once in the heat of the day and then again, the morning of our departure.

My heart was hurting.  I didn’t want to go back to my physical home.  I wasn’t ready to leave the energy of my spiritual home so my grandchildren and I returned to the hilltop garden and I placed a stone with a silent, unspoken request written there.  I took the time stand in this garden and root myself in the energy of the place before I said farewell and took us back home to reality.


This then is the importance of taking a spiritual journey to the places that fill our heart and soul.  It’s about more than a vacation.  It’s about time spent nourishing the soul.  In our stressful modern-day world, we have forgotten to take the time to nourish ourselves. While in Colorado, my hostess helped with some of the questions I had in my mind.  She was an amazing person with an open heart that was willing to share her experiences with me.  While I was in Kerrville, the seeds that were planted in Colorado sprang to life and helped me to see that the life I had built wasn’t the life I deserved and wasn’t the life that I wanted for myself.  It was time to make some needed changes about more than just who my employer was.  Sometimes our spiritual journeys are the ones that mean the most and serve as the catalyst for change.


I still struggle with how to make those changes but with time and effort, I think I can make a go of it.  In the meantime, I will carry that wonderful energy of my spiritual journey with me.  I try not to lose sight of it but I know, that some time soon, I will return again to that place where my heart calls home and get a refill.  Until then, I just have to keep on keeping on.


Many blessings,

Lisa