Trekking St. Cuthbert’s Way

Trekking St. Cuthbert’s Way

Digital Presentations and Photographs by REL290 Students and Professors

SEPTEMBER 26 – OCTOBER 15, 2022

stArt.rv (Reynolda Village)

“The course focuses on early medieval Celtic Christianity as exemplified in the life of St. Cuthbert, while providing meditative tools to embody it in a place-based and sense-based long distance walking experience and to foster personal growth.”

“The course emphasizes a multi-dimensional understanding of historical aspects of Celtic spirituality and its inseparability from space, place, the natural environment, artistic practices, and interactions with other cultures. The course will also introduce manuscripts and illuminations  through the tangible examples and experience of early codices [hand-made medieval books]. Specifically, it will consider the Lindisfarne Gospels, created in honor of St. Cuthbert soon after his death, along with other cultural and archeological artifacts of the era.”

“The course will culminate in an immersive trip to Scotland and Northumbria to traverse St Cuthbert’s Way, a 60-mile trail named after the 7th-century saint. This experience of pilgrimage or extended walking meditation will be structured with interdisciplinary academic work in the multi-layered arts of close-sensing, attentiveness, contemplative reading, and short meditation segments designed by student teams, with participants chronicling their experience and forming written and aesthetic responses to it.”

The photographs and slideshows on display are by students Henry Bieze, Andy Benson, Evan Davis, Luke Hanson, Audrey MacDonald, Morgan Milhollen, David Morton, Clayton Rhoads, AG Shoaf, Brooke Smith, Leo Strebel, and Quynh Nhu Vu, with additional content from Dr. Ulrike Wiethaus (Prof. Emeritus, Dept. for the Study of Religions) and Paul Bright, Director of Art Galleries and Programming.