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More about this trip-
Join Dana Schwartz and Vanessa Zoltan for a pilgrimage in August 2023 in rural Cornwall, England! This small group of pilgrims will explore Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca together with intention and care. 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. On this trip, we will walk up to twelve miles a day through beautiful countryside. Using the landscape as a source of inspiration, we will spend our days walking, reading, and joining in conversation about this novel.
Rebecca is a novel about memory and ghosts — the ghosts that linger in physical spaces and beyond. On this pilgrimage, we will explore how our memories shape the stories we tell ourselves today, and what ghosts from our past we carry with us. We will connect these themes, along with the other themes in the book, to conversations in our own lives, asking ourselves questions like: how do our histories inform our present? What power can we find in our preoccupations, or how do those preoccupations limit us? What conscious and unconscious narratives do we play into as we embark upon new chapters of our lives?
We’ll meet near the Plymouth train station on the early afternoon of the 9th and then travel to the riverside country estate Erth Barton, 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, walking.
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We will be walking up to 12 miles each day, sometimes on hilly terrain. The Cornwall summer is typically beautiful, but the weather in the UK is notoriously variant. It might be mild and sunny, or wet and windy, sometimes all in the same day. We won’t rush our walks, but we expect to be tired at the end of each day.
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
Dana Schwartz
Faculty Leader (she/her)
Dana Schwartz is the author of five books, including the #1 New York Times bestseller, Anatomy: A Love Story. She is also the host and creator of the iHeartRadio history podcast Noble Blood, where she explores the stories of some of history’s most fascinating royals.
She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their two cats, and she spends most of her time baking and learning strange facts about history.
Dana is working as faculty on this trip.
Vanessa Zoltan
Chaplain and Co-Faculty (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 is working as chaplain for this trip.
“I suppose sooner or later in the life of everyone comes a moment of trial. We all of us have our particular devil who rides us and torments us, and we must give battle in the end.”
-Daphne Du Maurier, Rebecca