Natasha Serlin

It's just, it's plentiful.

It's generous.

And it's here.

Actually, what you just said really touches me and resonates because for me, this is not a religious journey and it's free of dogma.

I'm actually sitting in a spot just at the edge of some woods on a little bench surrounded by green with a Mary Magdalene statue behind me.

I didn't really understand why we were starting in Spain and going to see the Black Madonna, but now I do understand that really that was about the beginning, the Divine Mother.

I feel like now we're in the right headspace to begin our Mary Magdalene pilgrimage.

Thank you for your medicine.

Now the journey really starts, because from here on, this pilgrimage becomes less about following a route and more about opening to what Mary Magdalene might mean for each of us as individuals.

She is being reimagined here, not simply as a figure from scripture, but as someone whose story of love, grief, endurance and transformation may hold echoes of our own.

And so Leslie and Aude begin by asking us to let go of what we think we know.

It's day three, and I'm now sitting in my room.

I can hear the running water outside, and the room is a haven to all things Mary Magdalene.

I feel really peaceful today.

Quiet.

Soft.

I don't know what's unfolding.

I feel like I'm on this pilgrimage because some, I think, a door or some portal, some things will change and open but I don't know what.

So this is about remaining present in the void of not knowing and accepting that.

And on the windy bus journey through the gorges and the mountains, I started thinking about the questions I wanted to ask myself and share as part of my pilgrimage.