Pilgrimage through Generic space

When I first read the description of conceptual blending, I had a hard time making any connections to religion, or to anything more than confusion for the most part. However, given some of the examples in the text, there are many ways that conceptual blending can apply to religious rituals. The example of conceptual blending from the reading that most illuminated my understanding is the boat race, which is a mirror network. In the boat race example, a boat sailing from San Francisco to Boston in 1993 tries to beat the record of a boat that sailed the same path in 1853. The two inputs are the boat from 1993 and the boat from 1853. The generic space that connects them is the path they both follow from San Francisco to Boston. This reminds me of ritual pilgrimages taken my followers of certain religions. Many Mormons travel across the Midwest to relive the journey that their predecessors made when they were forced out of their settlements in Illinois and Missouri. It is a way for them to connect to the history of their religion and get a better understand of how their religion got to where it is today. Such pilgrimages are what makes religion come alive instead of being something one merely reads about. Another example of pilgrimages is Muslim Hajj to Mecca or groups like Birthright that bring Jewish youth to Jerusalem. These two cases are not examples of mirror network because the path most people take to get to Mecca or Jerusalem is different than their ancestors took. However, in both cases the parallel two journeys, the one happening now and the one in the past, seems to me to fit the pattern of the other non-religious examples of conceptual blending.