Tailor-made: a reminder of what you have experienced

People want a memory of what they have experienced on their journey. Nowadays it is mainly photos and videos, but it can also be small things, for example a stone, a statue or a feather. People like to hold on to what they have experienced in order to return to the past every now and then.

It surprised and amazed me when the first photo of a tattoo of the Walk of Wisdom came in. A pilgrim had the shape of the route of the Walk of Walk of Wisdom tattooed on her ankle like a rosary. A memory of her recently deceased, religious mother and her pilgrimage. Tattoos are common these days, but what moved me was that someone thought the Walk of Wisdom was so important to want it on her body for her whole life. This was followed by more tattoos: the image of our pilgrim symbol on a calf. Someone even met a pilgrim who had the symbol tattooed on her neck! It was also a nice surprise for the designers of our symbol Huub and Adelheid Kortekaas.

Now I was watching a documentary the other day. It was about the city of Amsterdam and what I didn’t know was that Amsterdam used to be a pilgrimage city. Pilgrims set out to do penance to a place where a miracle with a host had happened. When they returned, they had to have proof that they had walked the pilgrimage. They did this, among other things, by getting a tattoo. After all, you could lose a document, but on the body it was proof forever. So it is not so strange that a pilgrim gets a tattoo. Of course, there are more ways to preserve a memory. I wonder if there are any pilgrims who also have a special memento of the Walk of Wisdom and want to share it with us.

Manja Bente, co-coordinator Walk of Wisdom ([email protected] )