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More about this trip-
Join Vanessa Zoltan, creator and host of Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, for a pilgrimage this September in rural Yorkshire, England! This group of pilgrims will explore Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows through the theme of wandering. Each day, we will have a morning discussion about a passage of text, viewing it through our theme. We will engage in sacred reading practices while reflecting on the text and our own lives. We will spend our days walking up to twelve miles a day through beautiful countryside and woodlands. Immersing ourselves in this new landscape, we will create a time outside of time where we’ll spend our days reading, journaling, and joining in conversation about the final book of the series.
For the time we are together, we will be thinking about what role displacement plays in this book and the Harry Potter series as a whole. Meditating on how The Deathly Hallows sends Harry, Ron, and Hermione far from their established paths, we’ll connect these themes and conversations to our own lives, asking questions like: how does being uprooted give us space to grow? By which values do we orient ourselves in unfamiliar landscapes? And which relationships in our lives endow us with a sense of belonging even when we are far away from home?
We’ll meet in Manchester on the early afternoon of the 31st and then travel to Oakwood Hall Hotel in Bingley where we’ll 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.
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We will be walking up to 12 miles each day, sometimes on hilly terrain. The Yorkshire summer might be mild and sunny, or wet and windy, sometimes all in the same day. We won’t be rushing but we expect to be tired at the end of each day. We will be meeting in Manchester on the afternoon of Thursday, August 31st and ending at a local train station in Bingleyon the afternoon of Sunday, September 3rd.
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
Faculty Leader (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 faculty for this trip.
Colette Potts
Chaplain (she/her)
Colette is an educator, family therapist, and parent of three Harry Potter fans. She serves as chaplain on our pilgrimages and happens to share a life with Matt Potts, the co-host of Harry Potter and the Sacred Text. Colette is currently working at a Harvard teaching hospital, researching early psychosis in adolescents and the benefits of early intervention through family therapy. Her real love, though, is helping parents raise the loving children they mean to raise, using caring communities to make it easier – and more fun.
Colette is working as chaplain on this trip.
“He must have known I'd want to leave you."
"No, he must have known you would always want to come back.”
-Harry and Ron, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows