PILGRIMAGE TAG
Drawn from the Autumn 2010 issue of The Linnet’s Wings, these pieces reflect how we journey through memory, devotion, and the long road of the heart. Whether with boots on stone or in the soft tread of ritual, pilgrimage here is a quiet act of returning, to what was lost, held, and what still whispers from the shore.

The Linnet's Wings

5 Works from our Autumn 2010 Shelf

Echoing through our Autumn 2010 issue. Walk with the creators down the path of pilgrimage, through light, ritual, memory, and silence.

Pilgrimage
Drawn from TLW Autumn 2010
First Tag Added: July 2025

“We do not walk to arrive, but to remember."

These works were first published when the leaves turned in 2010-but their steps still echo underfoot here in the village. They speak of sacred rhythms, domestic rituals, and quiet returns. Orla found them while dusting the chapel ledge. Said the stones there were warm. Said the shelf was humming.

Pilgrimage #1

The Kitchen at Number Six-
-From Orla’s side notes: “Maudie O’Byrne boils her water to silence the walls."

Every morning, Maudie sets two plates--one for herself, one for whatever memory might come calling. The house is quiet, but never still. The eggs crack louder here. The floorboards shift with each change in weather or mood.

It’s said she hasn’t opened her back door since the day the storm took the ash tree. It still groans in her sleep, she says. When it rains, she listens to the drip in the sink and says nothing. But the way she stirs her tea, clockwise, slow, always four times-well, Orla says that’s a spell to hold the roof on.

Pilgrimage #2

Orla Merrin’s Wishing Line Log -- Entry #224
Date: August (sunny but windy)
Location of Find: Bench outside the Weaver’s Cottage
Ribbon: None -- folded inside a square of red upholstery fabric
Note: “May the weight of what I carried rest in the wood, not in me."

The fabric was cut neat, no fray on the edges--someone took care. Smelled faintly of lemon oil and something sweeter, maybe orange peel.

It was warm when I picked it up. That doesn’t happen with cloth unless someone’s been holding it, but there was no one in sight.

The writing on the paper had softened--like it had been read until the words tired out. I think it’s the lighthouse keeper’s wife again. Same long tails on the y’s, same leftward lean.

I’ve put the fabric in the bottom drawer of my catalogue. The note’s tucked inside the swatch. That way, if the wood ever gives back what it’s been keeping, I’ll be ready to catch it.


Tags for 'The Parlor Chair'
#Upholstery of Secrets
#Red as Remembrance
#Letters Without a Destination
#The Chair That Hummed
#Ghosts in the Cushion

Pilgrimage#3

Apple Beth and the Saints of the Sky

Wishing Line Echo #4
A story remembered under Lough Owel, after a wish was tied to a branch and left to swing against the stars.


Apple Beth says the feather wasn’t meant to be left. It must’ve slipped from her shawl or her hand when she was drawing St. Not Yet. But I don’t think so.

It was tucked into the grass like someone had planted it. Not fallen: Rested and waiting.

There was a breeze, but it didn’t move. Not even when I breathed close.

I’m keeping it in the back of the ribbon catalogue. Page marked with a dried blackberry petal.

There’s no note, but I know what the wish was.

"Let longing be its own compass."

#Pilgrimage 4

Orla Merrin’s Wishing Line Log Entry #253

Date: Overcast afternoon, early September
Location of Find: Disused railway marker

Whim Whar
Ribbon: None
Item: Faded ticket stub, second-class, no station printed
Note (reverse): “If he still waits, tell him I missed only once."

The stub was folded into a perfect triangle, no fray, just soft at the edges. It felt like it had been held a long time. Probably kept in a wallet with hope, or in the lining of a coat.

I found it tucked where the iron splits, between the marker bolts and the gravel. Wind couldn't have placed it like that.

I held it against my cheek. It was warm.

I waited there for a while. No train came. But the air thickened like it does before thunder, or farewells. I could almost hear the voice of a conductor from somewhere I’ve never been.

I marked it as a near arrival.

Pilgrimage: Season of Departure and Return

They came to the chapel path in different ways: One followed feathers, one stirred storms in her kitchen, and another left letters folded into velvet. A fourth watched stars for names no one else remembered. And one waited by the marker, not for who, but for when.

Each story on this Autumn shelf holds a threshold crossed, a gesture repeated, a silence filled with memory.

The pilgrimages here were not always made on foot.
Some were made in longing.
Some in refusal.
Some in rhythm.

Now, as the reeds dry and the frost begins to stitch itself across the bog edge, we close this shelf and hang a new page on the line as we open Winter: to Read More go to


Winter comes like a question you didn’t mean to ask.
We follow the smoke trails and bundled coats now.
We step into hush.

Cooming Soon: the Winter Shelf

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