My Camino – The Podcast ~

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Podcasts are cool.

They’re the new way of accessing information that you won’t find on more traditional media.

To say they’re new though is fake news. They’ve been around a while, quite a while in fact – but lately it seems they’ve made a big shift into the zeitgeist.

I listen to podcasts on my walk to the editing room each morning. I listen to This American Life, which launched Serial, the true crime podcast that started a worldwide interest in podcasting. I also listen to Alec Baldwin’s Here’s the Thing, and Real Time with Bill Maher, and lately I’ve been listening to Crimetown. 

I love podcasts.

So when Dan Mullins contacted me to see if I’d be interested in being interviewed for his new podcast show – My Camino – I was really chuffed.

Dan is a Sydney based radio producer. Each morning for the past seventeen years he’s produced a news-based talk show that consistently tops the ratings for the breakfast slot – a highly competitive time slot. This must make Dan Mullins one of the most successful radio producers in the country – if not the most successful.

Last year he walked the Camino, and it affected him deeply. He came back home to his wife and children and took up yoga and meditation. Like many before him, the obsession with the Camino didn’t end with the walk though, it was just the beginning. He wanted to “keep an engagement” with the Camino, as he said, and so he began a podcast.

Dan interviewed me late last year, before the podcast was launched. I was in Los Angeles at the time, working on PGS – my film on intuition.

As the interview progressed I noticed a couple of things about Dan –

#1  He’d done his homework. He was well researched and well prepared. You’d think this is Journalism 101, but too often it’s not the case. Too often interviewers try to “wing it” with sketchy research pulled from a cursory glance at Wikipedia.

#2  As an interviewer, he listened, and followed up on what I said. Once again, this is a skill sadly lacking in many less experienced journalists. It makes for a more organic interview.

#3  He subordinated himself to the interview. Again, particularly in podcasts, this doesn’t happen often. Often the podcaster uses the platform to spruik themselves. It’s their show after all. Not Dan.

The result was a well informed and lively chat about everything from the weight of my backpack to the underlying spiritual imprint of the Camino – and how it can change you.

I also spoke about how I walked the Camino intuitively, using my PGS – my Personal Guidance System – to lead me along The Way, from day to day. And I spoke about the alchemy of the Camino – how it can unlock the potential for transformation, if you allow it.

Dan very generously allocated two podcasts to our talk – two half hour shows. (weeks three and four on the podcast…)

As Dan says, you don’t do these kind of podcasts to make money. It’s a passion project – and even after just four weeks from the launch, he’s finding the reaction from around the world has been extraordinary. And he’s already lined up plenty of amazing characters, and wonderful stories, for future podcasts.

Here is a link to the podcast –

You can also get it from your regular podcast app.
It’s called My Camino – The Podcast 

Subscribe to it – it’s a weekly half hour show – because it promises to be a fabulous resource to further your understanding and appreciation of one of the great pilgrimage walks on this planet we call Earth.

dan-mullins-on-camino

Dan Mullins – My Camino, the Podcast

20 thoughts on “My Camino – The Podcast ~”

  2. Hi Bill –
    Thanks and congratulations to you and to Dan for the two wonderful podcasts and to Dan for all the brilliant work he’s doing with the series.
    Each podcast in the series has been a pleasure to listen to and each podcast has been so insightful.
    Love and Camino hugs to you and Jen –
    Jenny xoxo

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    • Thanks Jenny – yes I’m looking forward to the podcasts as they roll out! Dan, as you know, has a beguiling way of extracting the best from an interview subject. That bodes well for future podcasts! Thank you for introducing us by the way! with love, Bill

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  4. I love the podcasts — there’s one point I disagree with about the Camino itself, though.

    You describe it as “hermetically sealed” and somehow outside the real world — I think that’s wrong.

    Of course, there’s a strong temptation to make that mistake, or risk of making it, because so many people fly in and fly out, and meanwhile interact only with other Camino people ; which can naturally create the false impression that it’s somehow a special, elsewhere, magic place, where various special events occur.

    This confuses the physical Camino with the Way itself.

    But not only is the Way not physically bound to any particular route, because fundamentally, it’s a trip from home to home, the long way ’round via Santiago, and via any number of different routes and variants ; nor either is the physical Camino disassociated from the real world in any real manner.

    The Camino, even just the French Way, doesn’t just take you into mountains and forests, wilderness and the meseta and other such magic places, but it also weaves into suburbs and cities, along motorways, industrial areas, and ordinary villages — and we are always there in contact with the ongoing normal daily routines of the people that live in the communities that it belongs to. Here too, there is a certain kind of “camino experience” that tries to tie the pilgrims into an “us and them” otherness, foreign-ness (Latin “peregrinus” : traveller, foreigner), even a kind of alienation from the world, when the ordinary interaction with that world is substituted by “camino families”, the refugios, and the pilgrim menus, as a pilgrim life divorced from the ordinary.

    But the ordinary is central to the Way of Saint James — pilgrims are ordinary people, not special ; the multiple routes to and from Santiago are spread throughout an ordinary landscape, stretching across Europe for thousands of miles ; the communities and the people amongst whom we walk are ordinary ones, deeply grounded in the ordinary nature of all of our daily lives.

    I do realise that the intrinsic connectedness of here with there can be hard to grasp for many pilgrims, relative to that Camino environment that so many seek to transform (or transform for us) into a universe of its own, particularly as so few people have walked from their homes, nor had the experience of being the only pilgrim for miles around and so to be most certainly in the ordinary world and dealing then with ordinary things day-to-day — hence the oft-cited dilemma, how to bring the Camino back into daily life ?

    That is to put the cart before the horse — on the Way, the trick is to bring your daily life into the Camino. To find yourself on the Way, you need to be yourself on the Camino. The wonderful thing about the Way is that we get to do it together ; but in the end, we come back from there alone. The Way leads back home and back into our lives, and that is where we should direct our attention on the Way, notwithstanding the joys and pains and beauties of the journey to Santiago itself.

    It is a real Way in the real world, and its proper spirituality belongs to each of us, in each of our homes and in all of our daily business. The pilgrim’s business is to find that Spirit within and bring it home, not leave it scattered along the pathways between SJPP and Santiago …

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    • Hi Julian – thank you so much for your post. It’s absolutely exceptional, from start to finish and your last paragraph … gosh … If there were a “Love” button I would click on that, instead of just clicking on the “Like” button … giving you a “Like” seems like such an inadequate gesture of feedback for your wonderful post.
      Thank you again –
      Best wishes –
      Jenny

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      • Thank you for your very kind words Jenny 🙂 — by the way, in these real terms, my current Camino project seems at last to be materialising !

        I was informed on Monday of an early September time limit, for personal circumstances, so that I’d either need to do it starting in May or June or postpone til 2018 — and today, I was very happy to do my first proper hike in over 18 months, even if it was just a 5k one albeit in steep mountain terrain, so it probably “counts” as an effective 6-7, and most importantly the effort hasn’t wiped me out physically, as it would have even 2 months ago.

        So I’m seriously now considering spending the 2 months + to get into the degree of training that I’m currently capable of, then off to Fatima for my walk from there to Santiago > Leon > Burgos > SJPP > Lourdes.

        Exciting stuff !!

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        • WOW, Julian, my heart and soul are pounding at the very thought of doing that walk. Have a wonderful time, even during the hard times and please let us all know how you go! 🙂

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        • Hi Julian –

          ‘Catching up on emails today, and in fact everything(!) after a completely wonderful three days at the AusCamino Festival. Bill and Jen were in fine form, as were Britta and Janet. It was terrific to hear Dan Mullins speak about his podcasts … he’s got some absolute crackers of podcasts in the can and more to come, one planned with Sue Regan Kenney, the Canadian author and guide who presented at the Festival with Bill.

          Your upcoming camino sounds brilliant and to be able to walk FROM Santiago, when most are walking TO Santiago would be an amazing experience.
          How many kilometres do you plan to walk each day? I’m walking across the Meseta in June and I plan on 10kms per day as I need to look after my left leg where I have a patella problem which is permanent. I’d be interested to hear how many kilometres per day you feel is a comfortable limit for you.

          You certainly have your training off to a great start – isn’t it a joyous feeling to be in training, knowing that in around two months time you’ll be on those sacred paths once again?

          Best wishes and Buen Camino with your training.

          Cheers – Jenny

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          • Thank you — if things work out similarly to 2014, it will likely vary between 5 k and 30 ; so most probably towards 15k near the start then probably 20-25 later on.

            I never managed a 40k day 3 years ago, though I did get close once.

            I’m expecting it will take about 3 months to do the 1400K or so …

            The trails around here are mountain trails, so only semi-appropriate for this sort of training, as the Camino is not a mountain trail, and mountain is anyway not “my” surface, and these steep surfaces wreak havoc on the knees and ankles — but there are some workable options, albeit with fair amounts of tarmac.

            I’m still out of the knee braces, though I had one short period where they were helpful this winter. I do not plan to carry them. Also no woollen jumper, so I’ll definitely be packing lighter. 🙂

            One thing I’m finding is that the long period of training I did in 2013-2014 (which was probably as many Km as the pilgrimage !!) is still helping now, as well as the Camino, as many of the movements that I learned to help minimise stress and pain are still virtually second nature.

            Something else that helps immensely — me, anyway — is the steak diet I’m following ; it’s really working to get muscle mass up and at least some of the weight down. And I find I’m eating less because I’m getting what I actually need, so it’s even working out cheaper !!

            —

            As for the “reverse” aspect, having done some of it partially on my return journeys in 2005 and 2014, psychologically it is quite hard, more than physically — to head alone into a tide of pilgrims walking the other way. But I found in 2014 that I can handle that aspect now, whereas it was more difficult in 2005 — perhaps because I had found a walking companion between Santiago and Ponferrada, so that being alone after that was more stressful.

            But yes, it’s been something I’ve been wanting to do since 1994, but neither my 2005 nor 2014 Caminos were good for it, as I did not want to just walk a short distance to Santiago on either occasion, and if I had done “the whole pilgrimage” in 2005 from my parish back to my parish, 2000k in each direction, it would have taken 5-6 months (I was a LOT faster back then) … and in 2000 I walked to Rome instead.

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          • Julian – I was speaking to Dan Mullins the other day, the bloke who does the podcasts, and I was telling him about you, saying how you are a ridgey-didge pilgrim, and how he should interview you for the podcast. Would you be interested? Bill

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    • This 2017 Pilgrimage feels real — I bumped into a lovely couple of VERY long distance cyclists earlier today (yes, I live somewhere that bumping into pilgrims is a daily possibility) ; a man from Florida and a lady from Italy spending a YEAR on their bikes ; and yeah, part 1 of their journeying was Lisbon to Santiago, then part 2 along the Francès to France ; yet what do they spontaneously decide to talk to me about ? About how weird it is to do the Camino in the “wrong” direction … 😉

      This is happening, I can feel it.

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      • Hi Julian –

        Thanks so much for sharing your plans for your 2017 Pilgrimage. I hope that it will be a wonderfully profound experience and one which will bring you joy.

        The walking on roads … you may have seen a post by Peregrina 2000 on the Forum recently where she said that she always tries to walk on the softer dirt bit in the middle of the track to help her feet particularly. When Britta, Janet and I walked in 2012 Britta regularly made a habit of walking on the verge if it wasn’t too uneven and often walked backwards for a short distance to give other leg and foot muscles a workout and take the pressure of the usual sets of muscles we all use in walking. As a pilgrim who has walked thousands of kilometres I imagine these routines are something that you would be doing too.

        It’s great that the steak diet is working well for you and is helping build muscle prior to your camino.

        On a humorous note, walking in reverse means you will be one pilgrim who’ll always see the cyclists! No unwelcome surprises as they whoosh past!

        Buen Camino Julian and best, best wishes with your training – not long until you’re back on those sacred paths again.

        Cheers – Jenny

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        • Oops – just noticed a typo – I meant to say “off” instead of “of” when talking about taking the pressure off the usual set of muscles.
          Cheers – Jenny

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