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More about this trip-
Join Common Ground Pilgrimages & Harry Potter and the Sacred Text for our first ever Harry Potter pilgrimage. Together, we’ll explore Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows through the theme of love. Each day, we will have a morning discussion about our theme, viewing it through a passage of the text. We will engage in sacred reading practices while reflecting on the text and our own lives. During the day, we will walk through the beautiful South Downs National Park. Using the landscape as a source of inspiration, we will spend our days walking, reading, and joining in conversation about the last book of the series.
For the time we are together, we will be thinking about what role love plays in this book and the Harry Potter series as a whole. We’ll connect these themes and conversations to our own lives, asking ourselves questions like: What types of love do we want to see grow in our lives? What types of love are we ready to let go of? How can we better express the love we feel?
We will meet at King’s Cross Station in London on the morning of the 7th and then travel to Tilton House where we still stay for the remainder of our time together. Each day, we will make space for writing, reflection, reading, silence, ancient reading practices and of course, for walking.
Trip Faculty
Casper ter Kuile
Faculty Leader (she/her)
Casper ter Kuile is the author of The Power of Ritual, the co-founder of Sacred Design Lab and the co-creator of podcasts Harry Potter and the Sacred Text and The Real Question.
His work explores how we’ll make meaning, deepen our relationships, and experience beauty in the 21st century. Whether convening, studying, writing, or speaking; he’s always weaving together tradition and innovation, levity and profundity, the secular and the sacred.
Casper is working as faculty on this trip.
Vanessa Zoltan
Chaplain (she/her)
Vanessa is the CEO of Not Sorry Productions. She hosts 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. It was a great trick she pulled off. She is also the author of the book, Praying with Jane Eyre.
Vanessa was trained as a non-denominational chaplain at Harvard Divinity School. She is a proud California girl who currently lives in MA with her gorgeous, blended family. Her Romance novelist pseudonym, if she ever publishes a Romance novel, will be Lorelai Mason, as you can see in her profile pic.
Vanessa will be the chaplain for this trip.
“Even after all this time?”
“Always.”
-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows