Joe Geraldo’s Pilgrimage

Back in pre-Magellan Philippines, it was believed that God was present everywhere – residing in trees, mountains, rivers, and in everywhere nature thrives the Spirit was there. Man only needed to find a cave or forest to find solitude and pray.

Life’s journey is a pilgrimage of sorts. Though not necessarily from a religious concept that flourished from Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sikhism; in macro-perspective, it is about one’s individual growth strung together by these three main elements:

Firstly, the Moral Pilgrimage that revolves around obedience to a higher being or deity as how a faithful follower kneels down to pray every morning. Next is Spatial Pilgrimage where one seeks out to far off shrine or temple to seek atonement or enlightenment. Lastly, the Interior Pilgrimage where one journeys inwards towards his being in a spiritual journey or meditation to find answers to life’s vital questions. But these different pilgrimage settings are deeply enmeshed with one another that in an enlightened state, the pilgrim realizes that a ‘place’ is not physical but a metaphysical state of calmness.

Such pilgrim life is no foreign to Joe Geraldo who saw life’s adversities as a ticket to a better place albeit it was along a tumultuous road. Geraldo’s Pilgrimage is a poignant autobiography of his leaving the familiar comforts and finding himself in stranger place, and eventually arriving at a station he will disembark – for now.

For Geraldo, the beauty of this pilgrimage is not in its arrival but in the means of getting there. He knew that he had to forego of a physical and spiritual baggage to make room for wisdom, happiness, and the bittersweet anticipation of arriving to a new place.

The farther he seeks, the deeper he feels himself within: this is Joe Geraldo’s pilgrimage.