To all those in North America, happy July 4th!

I hope you all are having a great day – with your families, loved ones, relaxing, going to the movies, watching TV, walking in the woods, training for the Camino, whatever it is you're doing.

Rest days are as important as work days.

Your body and your mind need time out to rejuvenate. To take stock of what you've been doing, what you've achieved, perhaps what you've missed out on, perhaps what you've suffered.

Just as we can't keep going without sleep, nor can we keep going without rest. In sleep we need to dream, in rest we need to contemplate.

I learnt this on the Camino.

Some pilgrims thought it was an achievement to walk to Santiago without taking a rest day. Perhaps physically it was within their capability. But what about spiritually?

Sometimes you need to stop, to let your soul catch up to your body.

Firstly, I’d like to thank Sister Clare for handling the blog so wonderfully while I enjoyed my wedding anniversary with my wife. Sister Clare’s choice of topic raised a lot of comment, and she moderated with her usual dollops of insight and wisdom.

Thank you Sister.

The title of today’s post refers to the four central tenant of PGS – which is how I walked the Camino. I walked the Camino intuitively, using what I call my Personal Guidance System.

If we’re to access our PGS – our intuition – then we have to Stop, Listen, Trust, and Follow.

Sounds simple, but it’s so hard to do.

Stop: In this world that we live in now, it’s really hard to stop. We have so many demands on our time, so many distractions. To find a time each day to stop requires effort, and discipline. But you can only begin to listen to your inner voice if you stop.

Listen: We’re surrounded by chatter. Visual and aural chatter. It’s everywhere. It’s noise. And we’ve become so used to it that we’re often not even aware of it. How can we hear our intuition trying to speak to us if it’s drowned out by all this incessant chatter? We have to rid ourselves of this cacophony, so we can truly listen.

Trust: This is a hard one. You might get an intuitive insight. A calling to do something. But it means stepping out over the ledge. Trusting there will be a safety net underneath if you jump. Trouble is, you can’t see the safety net. Trusting your PGS, your inner voice, takes enormous courage sometimes. But its essential if you want to reap the benefits that your intuition wishes to bestow on you.

Follow: You’ve stopped, you’ve listened, you’ve made up your mind to trust, and now you have to actually DO it. That too is hard. Your intuition won’t hand it to you on a plate. You have to go out and make it happen. This is not about pasting $100 bills on your bedroom ceiling and dreaming that you’ll become wealthy. This is about trusting what you’ve heard from your PGS, then following your guide. Your guide only wants to steer you in the right direction.

It’s not always direct though. Take the guy that follows his intuition and he goes bankrupt. He rails against the whole notion of following your “gut.” He’s out of a job, he’s lost his house, he’s broke. But now he’s got time on his hands so he sits down and writes the novel he’s always wanted to write. And it becomes a best seller. He becomes enormously wealthy.

He wouldn’t have written that novel, he would never had had the time or the motivation, if he hadn’t gone broke. If he hadn’t followed his intuition. It’s not always a direct and logical path.

In the book I’m currently writing, which I’m titling The Camino – the Intuitive Way, I detail how I used my PGS each day of my walk. Invariably things worked out – but it wasn’t always easy, and there were times when things didn’t work out.

Those were the times I didn’t Listen, and Trust.

Today is my 31st wedding anniversary, so I'm taking the day off.

I would like to do something different though. I would like to ask Sister Clare to choose a topic to discuss, or a question to ask, and throw this blog open to you guys.

Right now, I have to go out and buy some flowers…

Bill

(Sister Clare, this photo is for you!)

A pilgrim walking the Camino has no status.

It’s hard to know who’s a millionaire, who’s a CEO, who’s a production line worker and who owns the factory.

I met a bloke, I thought he was a roadie for a rock band. Or an ageing surfie on benefits. Turned out he was a Professor at USC.

I met another bloke. Young fella. I thought he was a student on vacation. Turned out he’d just sold his tech company for $80m.

I met another bloke. 40’s. Would have said he was a high school teacher, or a dentist. He came across as a bit of a smart ass. He was actually a judge in the European Court of Justice.

None of the markers that define a person’s status are evident on the Camino.

No fancy clothes. No car. No big office. No staff or coterie of assistants. No waterfront mansion. No jewellery, or at least very little. You don’t see women walking the Camino with diamond rings or pearl necklaces. No Dior, or Bulgari or Manolo Blahnik.

Instead there’s muddy boots, and tech clothing, and ponchos. Or Goretex jackets, if you want to go upmarket.

Even the walking poles don’t really indicate status. You might have the latest Leki poles, but they don’t give off any signals as to your Net Disposable Income.

Backpacks too. No status there.

Weight and space are factors. Not much room in the backpack for that fabulous Hugo Boss leather jacket. Plus it weighs 2kgs. Nor can you really justify that Chanel handbag. Might get dirty, darling.

Millionaires sleep in albergues costing €7 a night. Heads of huge corporations sit down beside pensioners at communal tables and eat pilgrim’s meals costing €10. They pay cash. They’ve left their Platinum American Express card at home. (Sorry Amex, I did leave home without it.)

Everyone is equal. And in that sense, the Camino is quite unique. I can’t think of any other place or situation in society where there’s no discernible status.

Except maybe jail.

And in death.

Also, there’s no rank. No hierarchy. There’s no Sergeant Pilgrim. There’s no Governor Pilgrim. Everyone is judged on who they are and how they act – not on their material goods or their station in life.

Anything that you’ve achieved in life is meaningless on the Camino. It has no value there.

Except if you’re a walker.

We tend to bestow hierarchy on those who have walked more Caminos than us, or have walked further than us.

We grant hierarchy to someone who’s walked from Le Puy, for instance. We grant hierarchy to someone who’s walked eight Caminos. But that hierarchy isn’t something that’s come with them from their everyday life.

We’re quick to strip that hierarchy from them however if we discover that pilgrim catching a train. Or getting their backpack shipped ahead.

It’s a natural human desire to seek definition amongst us.

But a pilgrim has no status.

And that’s one of the joys of walking the Camino.

So we’re at 50,000 views and this blog has become a wonderful place where people can exchange thoughts and ideas. Some are Camino related, but often they’re not. And these discussions are often the most fascinating!

I love it.

Today is a perfect example, where several of you are swapping comments amongst yourselves, and I’m just sitting back, trying to write my book, 😜, and really enjoying what’s being discussed.

But I’m wondering, should I set up a forum attached to this site, to make it easier for you to really follow a thread, and comment?

This is not to shift these exchanges off this blog, it’s to provide a fully functional venue where it’s easier and simpler to post comments.

Also, it would mean that any one of you could also start up a topic. I don’t necessarily have to kick it off with a new post. You could initiate a discussion yourselves.

I would keep blogging – and I could imagine sometimes comments on the blog could spill over into the forum.

Let me know if you think this is a good idea or not. It’s really to make it easier for you all to have these vigorous and fascinating discussions within an environment that properly caters for it.

I would love to hear your thoughts on it!

Bill

This blog has just clicked over the 50,000 page views mark.

This since mid April.

I’m not sure about these things, but that to me seems like a lot. Particularly as this blog started out being just for family and friends – 25 people in total. And also given that I’ve done nothing to boost the numbers. No fancy tagging or search optimisation etc.

The blog has just spread through word of mouth.

While I was walking, this blog became an essential part of my Camino experience.

It continues to be so.

I am blessed to have met some wonderful people here, and some have become good friends. I’m also blessed to have gained a greater insight and understanding through the postings of others here.

So THANK YOU to all those who have visited the site, and especially to those who now regularly contribute.

You make this blog something very special.

Bill

I remember walking into Santiago and thinking: I’ve done it. I’m here. I’ll never walk the Camino again.

Less than a week later, I’d changed my mind.

I remember the moment when I changed my mind. I was in a train heading down to Porto. I looked out the window and I saw a pilgrim on the Portuguese route. The train was up high, so I was looking down on her. She was on a small country lane and she had her guidebook out. She was lost.

I could see, from my higher vantage point, a yellow arrow pointing the way, but from where she was, she couldn’t see it.

I got a sudden pang of… what was it… longing. I wanted to be down on that country lane, wearing my backpack again, looking at a guidebook, trying to find that yellow arrow. It was at that moment I knew that I’d would walk the Camino again, and I’d walk through Portugal.

What is it about the Camino that draws people back?

For me, I have no desire to walk the Coast to Coast walk in Britain, nor the Appalachian Trail nor the Pacific Crest in the US, nor some of the glorious walks we have here in Australia. Long distance walking as such doesn’t interest me.

It’s the Camino that’s become my obsession.

Why?

Today I asked that question of Steve – a bloke from Texas I’ve “met” through this blog. We’ve become good friends. He’s just finished his Camino. The camaraderie, he said. The people you meet.

Yes, I’d have to agree. The people who are attracted to the Camino, who are called to the Camino, are mostly wonderful extraordinary people.

But then I thought more on this, and thought that surely anyone walking the Appalachian Trail would be extraordinary too. That’s over 2,000 miles, and you have to carry more on your back than if you walk the Camino – a tent and all your food, for starters. There’s no sleeping in albergues and having cafe con leches whenever you want them.

So it has to be more than the people you meet. There must be something else.

And the conclusion I came to is that it’s a pilgrimage.

Whilst I couldn’t imagine walking the Appalachian Trail, or the Coast to Coast, I could imagine myself one day walking the Italian Camino through to Rome, or perhaps even the route to Jerusalem. (Knee allowing!) I certainly want to walk the Portuguese Camino back to Santiago again.

I should remind you all that I’m not Catholic, and I’m not religious as such. But like so many others, I’m inexplicably drawn to this notion of walking a pilgrimage route.

There are pilgrims I know of who’ve walked the Camino six and eight times. Some have walked more. They never tire of the journey, and they see something new each time. They experience something new each time.

I understand there’s a very real danger of living in a Camino Cocoon – that it’s much easier to live in the “Camino” world than the “real” world. That it’s a place of escape from all those difficulties we all face in everyday life. A nice little bubble where everything is simple, and people are nice and friendly. (Most of the time!)

That’s not the reason I’d like to walk the Camino again.

I can’t get out of my mind that image, from on high, of that lost pilgrim somewhere in northern Portugal.

I want to get lost again.

As some of you might know, I’ve been working on my eBook since returning from the Camino. I hope to have it completed and published by August.

Here is a sneak peak at a section – it describes my walking from Burgos to Hontanas, and worrying about getting a bed…

After several hours walking, I saw a figure up ahead. Perhaps because of the monotony, or perhaps out of sheer tiredness, I began to obsess that this person ahead of me would take the last remaining bed in Hontanas.

I’m not sure if my mind was playing tricks on me, because this started out as a joke to keep me amused, but it soon began to take hold. The person up ahead was a lone black figure – a silhouette against the white gravel track slicing through the green rolling hills.

He – I surmised it was a he because it walked like a “he” – took on a sinister form. Like a bandit. The person who was going to steal my bed from me. This dark marauder, always staying ahead of me no matter how fast I walked. This usurper of my coming night’s sleep.

I started to increase my speed. Bugger the pain. This thief wasn’t going to steal my bed! The last bed in town!

I was an ocean liner with throttles now pushed to the max. My engines were churning on overdrive. I was actually kicking up dust. I felt like Speedy Gonzales. This villain up ahead was getting closer. Kilometer after kilometer, I was slowly reeling him in.

Soon I’d be alongside him and I’d smile genially, and I’d say G’day mate, in my broadest Australian accent, if for no other reason than to disrupt his equilibrium. Put him off his pace. Then I’d discreetly surge ahead, so that by the time I got to Hontanas he’d be a mere stick figure in the distance behind me, choking on my plume of dust, and I’d have enough time to find the last remaining bed in town and claim it as my rightful own.

He stopped to get something out of his pack.

And I walked up to him.

What a nice guy!

His name was Wolfgang, as in Mozart he told me. I asked him who Mozart was and he looked at me blankly. Then I laughed. Australian sense of humor, I told him. He still looked at me blankly.

He was a Tax Inspector from Germany. In my mind, this put him on the same shelf as parking police and periodontists. To put this in perspective, on the next shelf down are people who kill baby seals. Even so, he was a delightful bloke and we had a good chat as we walked the last 8 kms into Hontanas.

This afternoon I was driving back to my home town north west of Sydney, and I happened to look out the car window.

I was passing a small pine forest, and on the other side was a lake. I got a sudden and vivid flashback to a similar grove of pine trees outside of Logrono. It too overlooked a lake.

But what I remembered most clearly was the beautiful young Japanese lass sitting under a tree, having a rest stop. She'd started at St. Jean same day as me, and we'd seen each other on the Camino several times since.

Whenever we met she was always happy and laughing and gorgeous. But I didn't even know her name. She spoke very little English. And yet there'd developed something of a sweet friendship between us.

She saw me walking, and yelled out to me to join her. Laughing, she waved me over.

I'd had a hard time that morning. I'd left Viana early, and had already walked about 12kms. I wanted to get to Ventosa, another 20kms further on.

Not only that, but I was in a lot of pain, and the long paved walking track leading out of Logrono had aggravated my injuries.

I didn't want to stop, but I walked over. She had some food laid out, and she invited me to join her.

I declined. I wanted to keep walking, and I knew that because of the language barrier, any time spent with her would be fraught with communication difficulties.

As I drove past that pine forest this afternoon, I got a sudden pang of regret.

I should have stopped.

I should have joined her and taken fifteen or twenty minutes out to sit and chat, no matter what the language difficulties.

We saw each other again several times over the next few weeks, and I bumped into her in Santiago at the end, and we hugged.

I never did find out her name.

And I regret that too.

Six weeks now after having finished my Camino, I still can’t walk properly.

I’m hobbling around like an old man.

(If you’ve read my past postings, I’ve previously defined as “old” anyone over the age of 60. I’m 59 yrs 10 mths and 2 wks, so technically I’m still a young buck…)

I have a deep seated reluctance to see doctors, believing the body heals itself, but yesterday I finally went to my GP.

My problems were two-fold: my knee is still very painful, and my left foot is numb, under the ball of the foot. And it’s not improving.

I walked 800+kms in 31days, and for 28 of those days I took 600mgs of Ibuprofen thrice daily. It reduced my pain and enabled me to complete the walk, but it also masked some warning signs.

So, what the doctor said…

With the knee, I have to get an MRI, and will probably need surgery. And with the foot, it seems I might have “nerve entrapment,” which happens when tissue around a nerve swells, or gets damaged, and it blocks nerve functions to the foot.

I had very bad tendonitis on that lower leg, and that’s what I think has caused it. I now have to go see a Neurologist and have tests, to see where this nerve entrapment resides.

So, the cost of walking the Camino….months of lingering pain and medical bills.

But, I have to get these injuries fixed up –

– so I can do it again!