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More about this trip-
In July 2023, join Professors Amy Hollywood and Stephanie Paulsell of Harvard Divinity School and Vanessa Zoltan, co-host of Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, in Amherst, Massachusetts for a sacred walking pilgrimage centered on Emily Dickinson and her poetry. We will spend time walking in the beautiful Amherst and Holyoke woods, reflecting on Dickinson’s poetry and asking ourselves: what is the purpose of our solitude?
Emily Dickson’s relationship with solitude and obscurity is a fascinating and complex one, a quirk of her specific historical moment: as a well-born white woman, she was important enough to educate, but she was never expected to matter beyond her present moment. Much of her life is invisible to us, not because it lacked richness or substance, but because it took place in domestic spaces where historical record keeping was sparse, or within relationships that were neither legally nor socially recognized. But, in both the content of her poems and her conscious efforts to organize and preserve them, Dickinson’s investment in literary immortality is apparent.
Approaching her poems as sacred texts, we will reflect on how the tension between self-containment and worldly significance embodied by Emily Dickinson connects to our lives today. We will consider the work we do for ourselves alone, the work we do to secure notoriety, and whether each suits the space to which we’ve ascribed it. We will also meditate on which parts of our lives, and those of others, should be more visible to the world, and which parts less–how sharing recharges us and how it isolates us.
Each day will include shared meals and walks, and most days will feature either a museum visit or a visit from an outside expert intent on illuminating Dickinson’s work and life. We will have time and space for writing, reflection, reading, and silence as well as ancient reading practices like lectio divina, PaRDes, and, of course, florilegia.
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We will be walking up to 12 miles each day, sometimes on hilly terrain. We won’t be rushing but we expect to be tired at the end of each day.
Shared or private rooms are available.
People who have attended another Common Ground pilgrimage will receive a 5% discount on the cost of the trip
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us at commonground@notsorryproductions.com
Trip Faculty
Vanessa Zoltan
Logistics Coordinator (she/her)
Vanessa is the CEO of Not Sorry. She is on three of our podcasts: Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, The Real Question, and Hot & Bothered. She founded Common Ground Pilgrimages in order to travel with brilliant faculty to beautiful places and talk about books with amazing pilgrims. A neat trick she pulled off! She is also the author of the book, Praying with Jane Eyre.
A proud California girl, currently living in MA with her gorgeous blended family, Vanessa was trained as a non-denominational chaplain at Harvard Divinity School. Her Romance novelist pseudonym, if she ever publishes a Romance novel, will be Lorelai Mason.
Vanessa is working as logistics on this trip.
Amy Hollywood
Faculty (she/her)
Amy Hollywood has taught at the Harvard Divinity School since 2005. She is the author of several books: The Soul as Virgin Wife: Mechthild of Magdeburg, Marguerite Porete, and Meister Eckhart (University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), which received the Otto Grundler Prize for the best book in medieval studies from the International Congress of Medieval Studies; Sensible Ecstasy: Mysticism, Sexual Difference, and the Demands of History, and Acute Melancholia and Other Essays. She is also the co-editor, with Patricia Beckman, of The Cambridge Companion to Christian Mysticism.
Amy is working as faculty on this trip.
Stephanie Paulsell
Chaplain (she/her)
Stephanie Paulsell joined the faculty of HDS in 2001 as Lecturer on Ministry and was appointed associate dean for ministry studies in 2003. She served as associate dean until 2005, when she was appointed Houghton Professor of the Practice of Ministry Studies. For the 2007–08 academic year, she was also associate dean for faculty and curricular affairs.
Paulsell studies the intersections between intellectual work and spiritual practice as well as the academic study of religion and the practices of ministry. She is the author of Honoring the Body: Meditations on a Christian Practice and co-editor of The Scope of Our Art: The Vocation of the Theological Teacher. She is an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).
Stephanie is working as chaplain on this trip.
“Forever is composed of nows.”
-Emily Dickinson