I'm going to do something different for this blog –

I'm going to ask you to post what the Camino means to you.

Whether you've walked it or not.

In your own words.

Be as brief or as verbose as you want. It's your blog.

Feel free to comment on others' posts. Let's get a discussion going here…

For me? What it means is Sacred Transformation. An opportunity to recalibrate my divine DNA.

Let the discussion begin!

Anyone who's lived through the 60s will remember the term The Jet Set.

The Jet Set were these really cool people, mainly young people, who travelled around the world on jets. They were special people. They were with it! They were The In Crowd!

They lived life in the fast lane. Everyone wanted to be a part of the jet set.

It's funny now, but at the time it was the epitome of cool.

Cut to 2013.

Cut to The Camino.

Cut to pilgrims..

They're The Slow Set!

They're the people who want to live life in the slow lane. They don't want to move fast. They don't want to catch jets or speedy trains. They want to walk!

They want to spend time looking around, savouring each moment, talking to other Slow Set people.

There's a movement in gastronomy called The Slow Cooking movement. Where the uniqueness and flavour of a dish comes through the slow and careful cooking process.

I think some of us are getting bored with the quick and superficial lives we're living. I believe that's one of the reasons the Camino is becoming so popular.

Because people are intrinsically wanting to slow down.

A water-skier goes fast to skim over the surface of a river or lake. That skier never sees beneath the surface. Unless he or she slows down.

In writing my book, it’s forcing me to go back and remember detail I’d conveniently forgotten – like my various obsessions.

One of my obsessions was finding the right walking stick, or Pilgrim’s Staff, as I chose to call it. (note the capitals please.)

When I got to St. Jean, after something like forty hours of travel from my home in Australia to the L’Esprit du Chemin albergue, all I wanted to do was three things: Get my passport, buy an Opinel knife, and buy a Pilgrim’s Staff.

The passport was easy. I got that from the Pilgrim’s Office. The Opinel knife was less so. I had to go to a few stores to get exactly the right kind. It had to be Opinel – the classic French farmer’s knife – and it had to be big enough to cut cheese and chorizo, but not so big that it weighed me down.

But finding the right Pilgrim’s Staff proved to be the most difficult of all.

I didn’t want one of those mass produced broom-stick kind of staffs. Nor did I want one of those silly tourist staffs with a gourd hanging off the top. I also didn’t want one with a leather strap. I wanted one that was in keeping with “the romance of the pilgrim.”

The “romance of the pilgrim” was something I’d gleaned off medieval paintings, and statues in churches. You didn’t see pictures of St. James holding a broom stick, or dare I say it, trekking poles. No, he invariably had a gnarled tree branch.

That’s what I went looking for that afternoon I arrived in St. Jean. A gnarled tree branch.

Needless to say, it proved difficult.

But I am nothing if not tenacious.

I did three circuits of the town, going from store to store, checking out every single staff, looking for my gnarled tree branch. Looking for a staff that had The Romance of the Pilgrim. 

I never found it, of course. I ended up with a stick that was slightly deformed, that I pretended was gnarled. But given that I was jetlagged, and I’d worn out my welcome with all the storekeepers, I figured it would have to do.

Humorous and pathetic as it might sound, my obsession was real. I did require just exactly the right stick for me to feel comfortable embarking on my pilgrimage. I was clutching onto this notion of what it was to be a pilgrim.

It wasn’t long after that my knee flared up and I was forced to throw away that deformed stick and buy a pair of trekking poles. Trekking poles to me were the antithesis of The Romance of the Pilgrim. 

But they got me through to Santiago.

I had to let go my obsessions, to discover what it was to be a true pilgrim.

Another drum roll please…

Arlene Mourier has agreed to come on as a Moderator on the PGS The Way Camino forum! 

http://www.pgsthewayforum.com/forum

Arlene has been an active and supportive contributor to this blog, and was an “early adopter” of the forum. She heads up the Old Pueblo (Tucson Arizona) Chapter of the American Pilgrims on the Camino Association –  and so will bring all her experience and commitment to The Way to the forum. 

I now have two very cool moderators – Arlene and Sister Clare. 

Thank you guys!

Bill

I mentioned on the blog that my wife Jennnifer doesn’t believe in the past. She’s been working hard to release the past from her life. 

Some of you wanted further explanation, so today I’m giving the blog over to her, so she can tell you in her own words. 

Letting go the Past…

A while ago I had a problem. So I asked my Higher Self how to solve the problem, and the answer I got was: “Let go of the past.”

I didn’t like that answer so I rephrased the question and I got the same answer: “Let go of the past.”

I didn’t want to let go of my past.  I didn’t want to let go of the wonder of my life,  the joy of my family, the beauty I’ve experienced.  I didn’t understand. So I asked: “How do I let go of the past?”  As I phrased that question the answer rocketed in to me:

“Let go of pain and suffering.”

Oh my goodness, is that my past?  Pain and suffering?

That was about 6 months ago now, and I’m still letting go of that pain and suffering, along with anger, hate, grief, frustration, fear. There’s a long list of things I’m releasing from my life. In letting go of the past I’m slowly taking off a putrid, disgusting shroud.

Yet I’ve discovered that all the good remains! Love, joy and delight are not the past. They cannot leave me. They are me.

Pain and suffering create stress.  Stress creates ageing.  Ageing requires a calendar and a time progression.  Thus I’ve ended up with a past.

(I know that sounds way too simplistic and I sound like a whacko – but I’m very comfortable with everyone having their own opinion.)

I must not look to “the past” to find a solution to a problem.  In the past I’ve used anger and frustration. So to use a past solution is only going to continue the habit of the problem and bring the problem again into my present.

How do I solve a problem?  I asked this question after I became comfortable “letting go the past”.

“Put love to it,” was the answer I received.

So when I “put love to it,” I am literally loving my problem. (I’m still learning to do this.)  When I love the problem I am allowing the solution to present itself without a struggle, without that charged energy that attracts the habit of the problem.

I can rewrite my past.

If at anytime in the day I think back on my life, as we all do, and I have any negative feelings toward anything that has happened to me, I pour as much love into it as I can.  I literally blow kisses at the memory to remind myself to let go of any pain and suffering.

And so I become very comfortable with all that is called the past. As I do this I notice that what I thought was past becomes very present to me. This is quite a recent experience.

This exploration has only just begun.

Jennifer

I have an important announcement to make –

Roll of the drums please…

Sister Clare has agreed to be a moderator on my forum –

I can hear the stunned silence.

Yes, it took a bit of arm twisting, because she didn’t want to diminish her involvement on this blog, but I assured her the forum would provide her a terrific venue from which she can respond to questions and topics directly.

She can also post her own topics too.

She is a moderator on the Spirituality & Religion forum, but she will also be active on The Camino forum too.

The tagline for the forum is – Discussing the spirit of the Camino. Here’s the link:

http://pgsthewayforum.com/forum/

Welcome Sister! I will enjoy working with you on it –

Bill

My wife today reminded me about my anxiety over the weather.

I planned to walk the Camino in early April. But I’d been following the weather reports, and it was a shocker. Late late winter, snow and freezing temps, and the Route Napoleon was closed because of heavy snowfalls.

Not only that but a pilgrim had just died trying to get to Roncesvalles going the Route Napoleon. It took rescuers four days to find his body.

Several times each day, in the weeks leading up to my departure for France, I’d check the weather reports, and I’d go onto the forums that were monitoring the situation. It was bad. And it was freaking me out.

So I went out and I bought gaiters, at $85 a pair, and I bought a reflective safety vest too because it looked like I’d have to go the Valcarlos route, which meant walking on roads. And the forums were stating categorically that anyone who walked on the roads going via Valcarlos needed to wear a reflective safety vest, otherwise they’d get hit by a truck.

Closer to my departure, the bad weather wasn’t easing up. I was avidly following the day by day blog of a woman walking with her two young daughters. Each night I’d look at her pictures of snow, and mud, and rain.

I’m from Australia. We don’t do snow here. Or if we do, it’s for the wealthy and the indolent in some far flung ski fields.

I started to seriously consider bumping my trip back a month, to give the winter storms time to abate. I didn’t relish the prospect of tramping through snow. But my PGS told me to stick to my dates. It told me that it would be a mistake to change dates.

So I didn’t change my flights. I stuck to my dates, and I landed in Biarritz to coldish overcast skies, but no rain, and no snow.

The Pilgrim’s Office in St. Jean told me, when I went to pick up my passport, that the Route Napoleon was still closed, and would be for the foreseeable future. The next day I walked to Roncesvalles via the Valcarlos route.

I didn’t wear my vest, and I didn’t get hit by a truck.

That night, I left my vest in the albergue in Roncesvalles.

From then on, I had delightful weather. Truly delightful. Clear blue skies, cool refreshing breezes, absolutely perfect weather for walking. Yes I had a couple of rainy days. Particularly as I approached Galicia. But I counted eighteen straight days without any rain. Out of the 31 days, I had maybe three days of rain, and two of those days were just drizzle.

My mate Steve, who contributes to this blog, left a month later – coincidently around about the date I was considering, had I rebooked. He got horrible weather. Rain most days. And mud. If I’d changed my flights, I would have copped that bad weather.

As a filmmaker, weather is a crucial issue. If you’ve shot half a sequence in sunny weather, you need to shoot the rest of the sequence days or weeks later in the same kind of sunny weather, otherwise when you put the shots together in editing, it won’t look right. Cut from sunny sky to rainy sky to sunny sky again – you get the picture.

What I’ve learnt as  filmmaker is not to worry about what I can’t control. I can’t control weather. So there’s no point worrying. All I can do is prepare. So in preparing for my Camino I loaded my backpack with thermals, with gaiters, with raingear, with reflective vests, and with warm gloves and a beanie. I HATE beanies.

Like I say, I left the vest at Roncesvalles. When I got to Pamplona, I posted off my thermals and my gaiters and beanie to my pre-booked hotel in Santiago. I didn’t need them, and I was convinced that I wouldn’t need them from Pamplona on – even up around O Cebreiro.

And I didn’t.

Each day while I walked, I refused to look at weather maps or listen to weather reports. Why worry about what you can’t control? I would make a final decision as to what I was going to wear each morning when I stepped outside the albergue. If it was raining, I’d put on my jacket. If it wasn’t, I’d leave it off. Simple.

My weather forecasting consisted of looking up into the sky to see if I could see stars. If i couldn’t, it meant there were clouds. Clouds didn’t necessarily mean rain. Clouds meant it would probably be warmer than if there were no clouds.

I put aside my fear of the weather. I did that in Australia, before I left. I trusted that I would walk in the sun. And I was determined not to walk the Camino in fear. As it turned out, I had the best weather…

Today I finished the first draft of the book.

It’s come in at 83,000 words.

Now comes the hard work – revisions and editing. The final word count will probably be around 72,000.

Already I have a literary agent interested in reading it with a view to possible conventional publishing, but in the first instance I’ll keep to my plan and eBook it.

It’s quite funny in parts – and looks more deeply at the experience of walking the Camino.

Its tagline is: How a microfibre towel got me through the Camino. 

It’s probably another 6 weeks or so before it’s ready for publishing.

I’m handing over the blog today to Steve.

Some of you might know him. He and his wife Jill walked the Camino about a month after me. He got rained on most of the time. Even when his wife was a hundred yards ahead of him, he got rained on and she didn’t.

🙂

He’s been a regular contributor to this blog. He’ll bring a fresh perspective to these pages.

By the way, my PGS The Way Forum is now up and running. This forum won’t be about albergues and equipment and bed bugs etc, it will be a forum which, like this blog, discusses the spiritual and religious aspects of the Camino, as well as the emotional and psychological side of the pilgrimage. And health issues too! The tagline for the forum is –

Discussing the spirit of the Camino. The link is:

http://www.pgsthewayforum.com/forum

Please join up and start posting topics there too – I want it to become an active place where these deeply felt issues can be openly discussed. I will be active there as well. There should be no technical issues now, but if you encounter any, please let me know.

So now Steve, over to you mate…