What is walkabout?

Walkabout is a straight-forward and simple concept that goes straight to the core of what I do.  When you go on walkabout, you leave everything that holds you down and keeps you from making forward progress in the world behind in search of something new and better.  This can be done in a literal sense -- walking out the front door and spending the next eight or ten hours simply walking through the neighborhood and beyond -- or it can be far more metaphorical.  I am a true supporter of the idea in both senses.  Sometimes, you just have to go on walkabout.

I'm currently 26 years old, and for the better part of the last decade, I have held beliefs that can be best described as druidic in nature and hybridized Celtic in origin.  I suppose that could be viewed as the first time that I entertained the notion of a walkabout.  I was raised in a heavily Catholic environment, with all of the spiritual and emotional baggage that comes with it.  My mother was never heavily religious, so I was spared the full brunt of the church, but my father's side of the family is fairly devout in varying degrees (though I wouldn't call them hard-liners).  However, the first nine years of my education were spent in a Catholic elementary school, where Religion was a daily class period and there was a scheduled in-school mass at least once a month (not to mention confession before the holidays).  Suffice to say, that wasn't "my religion".  It didn't click, it never really made me bow down in belief.  The attitudes of the nuns and the generally disingenuous way that the priests gave their sermons made it clear to me that what they were preaching, wasn't what I was interested in.

So shortly after leaving that environment, I started to drop the baggage.  The significance of the holidays was the first to go, followed by the general sense of obligation to feel "wrong" for doing things that are part of basic human nature.  We're animals -- pure and simple.  If some creator god made us as animals with base instincts and needs and desires, then why should we deny those desires (within reason, of course).  It occurred to me at a very young age that most of what organized religion was preaching was all about social control, and I didn't want that kind of leash around my neck.  My little journey took me through dalliances with atheism (too nihilistic for me, not enough science exists to back it up just yet), Satanism (LaVey had some good points: why should we deny the self?  But ultimately, too much Id here, not enough moderation), and a glancing look at Wicca (dime-store New Age consumerism in my book at the time, though I've gained some new-found respect for it recently).  Ultimately, I came to the logical conclusion based on my heritage.

Coming from a family that is Irish on my mother's side and Scottish on my father's, I've always been drawn to that Celtic heritage, so that's where I started my search.  Just about immediately, I was drawn to the stories about the Celtic gods and goddesses of Ireland, the Tuatha de Danu, and the image presented by one goddess in particular: The Morrigan.  There's a sense of balance to the Morrigan that I find appealing for three reasons: the duality of being a fertility goddess and a death goddess, the war-goddess aspect, and the primal reaction that I have due to her association with the raven in Irish tradition.  At that shallow level that I began at, it made sense for me to find a deity that simply resonated with me on a surface level to term my patron -- regardless of why I was doing it.  Ultimately, however, it has proven to be a far better match than I had ever expected, and as my journey into my own spirituality has continued, the bond that I feel toward the concept of the Morrigan has only grown stronger (personal evolution and modern minds being what they are, I've since included some Norse and middle-eastern elements as well, but more on that later).

Walkabout has been a recurring theme in my life since then.  Whenever stress becomes too much for me, I can just grab my coat and head out the door to let the sidewalks and trails be my comforting shoulder.  Whenever I run into a problem with someone that simply cannot be solved, for one reason or another, I have no problem with dropping that baggage and walking on without it.  Some might call the ease of how I shed that baggage cold and callous, but I see it in a different light: it truly is a healing act.  When someone is being sickened by an infection, they aren't considered cold for taking medicine to get rid of it.  This is no different.  Walkabout is just another form of spiritual and mental healing, and can be a wonderful experience if you do it for the right reasons.  It's all about the journey, and that journey is life: If you never step through that door and begin the journey, you will always remain exactly where you are.


Simply put, walkabout is a way of life.