Pilgrimage – 2003

New publisher and editor Peter Anderson has saved the day! Long-time publishers Jack and Marcia Barstow retired last year, offering the magazine at no cost to anyone who would carry on the tradition of “personal reflective writing.” Anderson has moved the operation to Crestone, Colorado where, if this first issue in the journal’s twenty-eighth year is any indication, Pilgrimage will continue to delight and inspire us. According to Anderson, Pilgrimage serves an “eclectic fellowship of readers, writers, poets, naturalists, activists, contemplatives, seekers, adventurers, and other kindred spirits…” On encountering the moving and thoughtful writing here, one certainly wants to be belong to this “widespread community.” About half the pieces in this issue are reprinted from other publications, but many are from independent presses or sources with which readers may not be familiar.

New publisher and editor Peter Anderson has saved the day! Long-time publishers Jack and Marcia Barstow retired last year, offering the magazine at no cost to anyone who would carry on the tradition of “personal reflective writing.” Anderson has moved the operation to Crestone, Colorado where, if this first issue in the journal’s twenty-eighth year is any indication, Pilgrimage will continue to delight and inspire us. According to Anderson, Pilgrimage serves an “eclectic fellowship of readers, writers, poets, naturalists, activists, contemplatives, seekers, adventurers, and other kindred spirits…” On encountering the moving and thoughtful writing here, one certainly wants to be belong to this “widespread community.” About half the pieces in this issue are reprinted from other publications, but many are from independent presses or sources with which readers may not be familiar.

Plan to take your time with this issue because it is truly and profoundly about reflection. Kim Stafford’s lovely essay about his father, poet William Stafford’s idea of “Honorable Work” deserves a gentle, thoughtful read. Nasdijj’s “Baseball,” about being father to a boy with AIDS startles and tears at the heart with its quiet insights (“He forgets I was once a boy, for it’s not a me he knows.”) Nancy Mairs’ complex piece about her correspondence with a death row inmate is something one wants to re-read, there’s so much at stake here. Andrew Lam’s “Can Ghosts Cross the Ocean?” is the sort of short, but intelligent and lyrical reflection that defies categorization and for which it might be hard to find a home, except in a journal precisely like Pilgrimage. And editor Anderson’s “Home, Land, Security: The View from Vulture Gulch” gives me reason to believe that, if writing like this is possible, perhaps the times we live in are not as desperate and dark as they so often seem. [Pilgrimage, Box 696, Crestone, CO 81131. E-mail: [email protected]. Single issue $8. http://www.pilgrimagepress.org/] – SR