Before the Eat Pray Love craze swept the nation (and this blog) there was Tales of a Female Nomad. In her moving travelogue of her 15 year journey across numerous continents and countries Rita Gelmans captures the dream of many armchair and part-time travelers as she wanders aimlessly without a plan through cultures and societies very different from her own. A children’s writer who earns enough to get by while on her journey by publishing new books and living frugally, her ability to make things happen is truly inspiring.

A confessed bibliophile, I always read multiple books at once. Reading Tales while I was reading Eat, Pray, Love was an interesting experience. I picked up both books when I was in Claremont, CA recently, and commenced to read them both immediately – one in the mornings and one at night. I was afraid I would get them confused during the reading, but found their voices so different that it never was a problem. These two writers, very different in style, age and locations (except Bali) address something universal that comes from traveling. Namely, the discovery of self. And this got me to thinking, isn’t that why we travel in the first place?

Even for those of us who are part time or armchair travelers, travel breaks us out of the daily grind, the ruts our wheels are stuck in, the practices which have become so easy to loose consciousness in. When we travel our routines are necessarily broken, our habits are forced to change and our lives are re-arranged. This is, I think, why we treasure travel and stories of travel so much. During those times when the ruts get so deep that we can’t break out of them, great travel writing gives us glimpses of the sunlight and reminds us that there is another way to live. Those chances we do get to break out of the everyday are when we can break into our very selves. I firmly believe that you never know who you are unless you’ve experienced cultures very different from your own, cultures that challenge the things you assume. This is both the gift and challenge of travel.

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Many of the things we love to see and learn about in other cultures is religion. Each Sunday I bring you ‘On The Trail of God,’ pictures, sounds, links, stories etc. of religions and sacred sites from around the globe and in my own backyard. If you have something you’d like to contribute contact me.

This Sunday I thought I’d share a couple of inspiring pictures from a recent trip to Ireland that are particularly beautiful examples of Catholic funerary art. Funerary art is art that is done to decorate a grave or in memory of a deceased loved one. When I went with Dee & Dum Tours to Ireland, we saw some amazing examples of this kind of art. This week I’m just posting the Catholic/Christian examples, next week I’ll get to the pre-Christian ones.

Carved crosses at Monasterboice Ireland

These intricately carved stone crosses were used to teach the Christian stories to illiterate persons through the use of imagery and symbolic metaphors. Here you can see the story of the Roman Guard piercing the side of Jesus as he hung on the cross. Around you see the blending with native symbols in the Celtic knot work that represents eternal life.

A Celtic cross in the graveyard at the Rock of Cashel that keeps silent watch over the countryside.

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