Thank you - hope to see you in August perhaps.

The pilgrim label I think is good for two reasons:

1. RD subtitled his The Ancestor's Tale 'a pilgrimage to the dawn of life' and if he can, we can!

2, the word pilgrim has been defined as wanderer or foreigner ..and yes it has a mainly religious history, but we wanted to create an event that, whilst scrupulously superstition free, creates for non believers the same collective belonging (to the tree of life) that many religions so effectively engender through their teachings. In that sense we wanted to shout out that profundity does not belong exclusively to religion, and that we can celebrate collectively also. To define it differently seems almost to miss the point - the pilgrimage concept is a good one, utilised by many religions,but not owned by religion.If we give it a different name religious folks will rightly point out that it is in fact a pilgrimage...and they'd be right. By calling it what it is perhaps we challenge a little the current religious monopoly on such activity? Darwin's insight is every bit as a worthy, if not more worthy, of a pilgrimage.

Comment 7 by bluebird :

Enjoyed the ten minute video, looks to be fun and interesting, esp. the talks at the end.

...rendezvous points will be marked by appropriate words of wisdom, music and performances

Good time to munch on Ancestor's Trail Mix ;)

A very minor quibble, I wish the walkers were referred to as "sojourners" or the like rather than pilgrims. It brings to my mind images of people on a holy trek, or the folks who disembarked the Mayflower.