Continuing on from the post yesterday, from famed psychic healer Michael Tamura – he sent me a 2nd email which detailed a remarkable story about how his intuition literally saved a woman’s life.

Here’s the story –

Michael Tamura – 

I was returning back to my hotel room in LA after a very long day of teaching all day followed by a series of meetings culminating with a late dinner meeting with a friend.  That friend dropped me off back at the hotel and I headed straight for the elevator to take me up to the floor my room was on.  

But, as I stepped into the elevator and before the doors closed, I had a vague thought that maybe I should go to the hotel gift store before going upstairs and get myself a couple of bottles of water and perhaps a magazine or two to read to unwind from a strenuous day.  That thought was like the proverbial cane in the vaudeville act hooking me around my neck to pull me off the stage – or in this case, the elevator before the doors closed me in.  

So, I went to the gift store to buy the water and magazines.  As soon as I got to the magazine rack, however, the young Chinese manager walked up to me – with no one else in the store – and asked me if I was the “spiritual healer” that everyone was talking about today who was teaching some kind of seminar on healing in the hotel.  He said a bunch of people talked about this teacher in his store this afternoon.  

I said that I was a spiritual healer and I was teaching seminars that weekend in the hotel so most likely that must be me.  Then, he asked if he could ask me a question.  At first, I thought, “Oh, no, there goes my desperately needed kick back and relax time before falling asleep.”  But, as I asked him what his question was, I was duly impressed with his sincerity and depth of interest.  

He pointed to a position on the countertop and said, “If this is our death, and…” pointing to another spot on the counter, “….this is our rebirth, then, what happens in between?” And, he indicated the space between the death point and the rebirth point on the imagined line.

Well, it was the beginning of another class session.  But, he quickly said, “I’ll be right back.” And then he disappeared into the back store room.  When he reappeared, he brought three plastic milk carton crates and put them down upside down on the floor and motioned me to please have a seat.  

I laughed, thinking, “Now, I’m a hostage in a hotel gift shop!”  To make that thought complete, the man went to the front door, reversed the “open” sign to “closed” and locked the door from the inside! Hahaha…. I was doomed.  Then, he ran back into the store room and this time emerged with a pretty, shy, young Chinese woman in tow.  They each took their place on the remaining crates. Now, I had a classroom with two willing students!

After talking about dying, the afterlife and rebirth for about an hour, I told the two of them that that was enough talk.  Would he like to experience a little healing?  Of course he would.  By this point, I was certain that this gathering was no accident and I was there to help him with some kind of deep struggle he was having.  

As I started to give him a healing, I immediately saw his mother, obviously in spirit, laughing and dancing around him in delight.  I described the woman and asked if that was his mother.  Before he could answer fully, the young woman sitting on the other crate jumped up and started practically shouting at him saying, “I told you! I told you! Your mother is laughing and dancing around you! I’ve seen her like that when I visit you in your apartment!”  It was getting quite interesting.

The man got a bit teary-eyed as he spoke of his mother’s death four years prior.  I thought, “So this was the healing he needed.” But, then, I saw a young Chinese boy around him as well after the mother went away.  I asked the man if he had also lost a brother when he was a child.  That’s when the damn broke.  

Between his sobs, I could tell the guilt he felt so I asked him how his brother died.  When the man was 12 years old and his brother was 8 or 9, he took his brother bike riding and they were having a great time.  But, when they were riding along a culvert, his brother lost control of his bike and fell into the water and drowned.  The man had lived with that guilt ever since and blamed himself almost on a daily basis.  

When I told him about where his brother was since that accident and that he held no animosity whatsoever, no blame, but had enormous love for him, he visibly changed from a stooped shouldered, troubled man into the kind, laughing, generous man that he was.  I thought, “Ah, so this was the real healing.”

Of course, I noticed the young woman wanting to have that kind of healing as well, so I asked her if she would like one and she literally teleported herself onto the healing crate the man stepped away from.  Her healing revealed that there was an impasse between her and her very traditional Chinese mother.  The young woman disclosed to me that she was deeply in love with the young man, the store manager, and they wish to marry, but her mother absolutely refuses to give her consent.  

I went into quite a bit of detail as to what her mother’s thinking about it all was and that it wasn’t that she was against her marrying this man, but that she was trying to protect her well being.  I told her that with communication and a little time, her mother was going to come around, especially after we worked on some past-life karmic issues between the two of them.  By the end of the healing, the young woman was smiling for the first time since I met her.

It was past 1 AM and I was finally going to be able to get some sleep! The manager realized that he intercepted me from doing what I was in his store in the first place for so he asked me what it was I came into the store to get.  When I told him that I just wanted to get some water and a couple of magazines to take back to my hotel room, he ran over to the magazine rack and grabbed a whole assortment of them along with two liter bottles of water and put them all in a big bag.  “On the house!” he announced and thanked me for giving the two of them all the communication and healing.

We all stepped out of the store into the darkened hallway as he fumbled with the lock to lock up the shop for the night.  Meanwhile, as he struggled with the key, the woman pulled me aside away from his earshot and whispered into my ear, “Thank you for saving my life tonight.”  

I took that as hyperbole coming from the afterglow of the healing she got, but, she reiterated it saying, “It is true. You saved my life tonight because if it weren’t for all that you said about my mother and the healing you gave us, I was going to go back to my apartment and kill myself.”  She then unfolded a piece of paper with her final love letter and suicide note that she had already written to her fiance!  She told me that because of what I told her she realized that she didn’t have to kill herself.

Three months later, the two of them got married with the full blessings of both families.  Six months later, they found and bought their first home.  A year later, she was pregnant.  The last I saw and heard of them, they were working on their third child and happily moving along their path.

Yes, intuition, when followed through, changes lives for the better.  I followed mine and they followed theirs.  All of our lives were enriched by our coming together.  And, intuition reveals itself in a variety of forms.  Rather than my PGS telling me, “Go to the hotel gift store and talk to the manager about life and death,” it suggested that I might want to get a bottle of water and a magazine or two to read before hitting the sack.

I got approached by a bloke who runs a website that promotes interesting non-fiction books. He asked if I’d be interested in writing an article – about 600 words or so – about my Camino memoir, THE WAY, MY WAY. 

I’m a sucker for shameless self-promotion – so I thought – why not?

So I wrote the piece below, and I thought i’d post it here as well – because it gives some background as to why I wrote the book.

The website is: www.nfreads.com, and here is the link to the article:
http://www.nfreads.com/article/the-way-my-way-why-i-wrote-the-book/

~~~~~~~~~~

THE WAY, MY WAY
Why I wrote this book
by
Bill Bennett

The Way, My Way, is my memoir of walking the Camino de Santiago in Spain, in 2013. It’s a journey of some 800kms, from the French Pyrenees to Santiago de Compostela, which is the capital of Galicia near the far west coast of Spain.

It’s a pilgrimage route that’s been in existence since before the time of Christ, however in recent years it’s become very popular – not only for those that want to do the walk for religious reasons, but also for those that 1) want some exercise, 2) want a cheap holiday in Europe, 3) want to challenge themselves, or 4) want to get laid.

Why did I do it?

Well, it wasn’t for any of those four reasons. In fact, before I did the walk, I had no clue as to why I wanted to do it. I wasn’t at all religious. As I state in the book, I wasn’t even sure I was Christian. On the last census, when I had to put down my religion, I said I was a Buddhist, mainly because the poor buggers have had such a hard time in Tibet, I figured they might need my statistical support.

I can though trace my fledgling interest in the Camino to a few years earlier, when I stayed in Galicia for a couple of months, hunkered down in a small stone farmhouse, working on another manuscript. To break the terrifying prospect of looking at a blinking cursor on an empty screen, I would sometimes go driving, and I would see pilgrims walking the Camino, heading to Santiago, lemming-like.

I would see them walking in the rain, in howling winds, on highways, and along country trails that took them up impossibly high hills. It seemed like such a stupid inane meaningless thing to do that I felt compelled to do it myself.

So when I returned home to Australia I began training, and the next thing I knew I’d booked a flight to France to walk the walk. As I say, I didn’t know why I wanted to do it, it’s just that my compulsion had grown into full-blown obsession.

On the second day of the walk, I developed a major problem with my knee – I was to find out later that I’d lost all cartilage in my joint, and I was technically “bone-on-bone” – and as I wrote later in my book, my Camino became less of a pilgrimage and more of a hurtful lesson in pain management.

I kept going with the aid of the wonder painkiller Ibuprofen, at a dosage that would have given a Spanish bull a heart attack, swallowed down with copious amounts of Coke Zero.

Along the way I met some fascinating characters, learned a hell of a lot about myself, and gained some profound insights that changed my life – all the while keeping my sense of humour.

I got to the end of the Camino, standing in front of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, expecting some kind of epiphany. As I wrote in my book, I was hoping that the skies would part and on a golden beam of sunlight a flock of celestial angels would descend, complete with harps and horns, and herald me with divine insight as to why I’d put myself through thirty days of pain.

That didn’t happen.
So I found a pub and got pissed.

I got back to Australia and realized that if I really wanted to know why I’d walked the Camino, I had to write a book. And hopefully, the reasons would become apparent in the retelling of the story.

And so that’s why I wrote, THE WAY, MY WAY, to make sense of my walk. In a way, it was to complete the walk, because I realized it hadn’t finished in front of that Cathedral. And in fact it still hasn’t finished.

If you want to buy the book, it’s available on Amazon and iBooks.

Here are the links:
Amazon: The Way, My Way
iBooks: The Way, My Way

I now run a Camino blog, which is:
www.pgstheway.com

I also run spiritual tours, at:
http://www.gonetours.com

On Wednesday Jennifer and I leave for Portugal, to prepare for our next Camino tour.

As I’ve mentioned previously, we were contacted last year by a wonderful lady in New Zealand who’s head of an organisation of carers.

She asked if we could set up a Portuguese Camino for some carers so that they could use the pilgrimage walk to release all the sadness, anguish, and associated emotions and issues that come as a result of the demanding work they’ve been doing.

It will be an extraordinary experience for us to walk with these people – and hear their stories.

Before the tour starts we’ll go to Fatima, to film some sequences for my intuition film.

At the end of the Camino tour Jennifer and I then fly to Cannes, to attend the Cannes Film Festival. We’ve received financial support from the Government, through Film Australia, to talk to financiers and distributors about the intuition film.

That’s cool huh?

After Cannes we then fly to Budapest, to film some sequences in Hungary. Whilst there I’ll catch up with two Camino buddies that I met on my first Camino – including Balazs, who was the guy who lent me the towel that propelled me along the 800km walk.

If you want to know what I’m talking about, read my book: THE WAY, MY WAY. Balazs features prominently in the book, as does Lazslo, my other Hungarian mate.

While I’m away, including while I’m walking the Camino, I’ll be tick-tacking with Rishi in the editing room, viewing cuts via Vimeo, and giving him notes via Skype.

Isn’t technology great?

So it’s a busy time coming up.

Before I walked my first Camino, my body rejected me. It rejected the whole notion of walking over the Pyrenees and across Spain.

Basically, a few days before I headed off to walk the Camino, I came down with a chest infection, an eye infection, and a knee so sore I could barely walk.

I wrote about it at the time in this post:

Yesterday my body rejected me

Now, on the eve of heading off to the Portuguese Camino, the same thing is happening.

I’ve been training solidly – some weeks I’ve walked more than 100kms – and I’ve been averaging about 80-90kms most weeks. And I’ve been fine. Not a problem.

Backstory: When I walked my first Camino in 2013 I had real problems with my right knee. I did that walk on pain killers and grit. After the Camino when I returned home I had an MRI and my orthopaedic surgeon said my knee was bone-on-bone. There was simply no cartilage left in the joint. He told me that a knee reconstruction wasn’t a matter of if, it was a matter of when. In the interim he told me I had to wear an elaborate $1500 knee brace.

I was dutiful and did what I was told, and wore my brace on subsequent Caminos, and all my training walks – and there’s no doubt the brace helped. By and large the brace helped me walk without pain.

But I have this crazy notion that the body heals itself. If you listen to it. And I don’t believe in invasive surgery unless it’s absolutely necessary. And I mean absolutely necessary.

Last year while filming my intuition film I had to climb a steep mountain to get to the Tiger’s Nest Monastery in Bhutan. It was as tough a climb as the Pyrenees to Roncesvalles. Then I had to come down again, in the dark, down a rocky track.

I did this without my brace, and whilst my knee was sore for a few days after, basically it was ok. No longer term damage.

So when I got back home I started to do my training walks without my brace. Short distances at first, but then longer. Listening to my body all the time, and respecting what it was telling me. Resting up when I needed to, allowing it time to heal between walks.

I haven’t been using my brace now for about six months – and as I say, I’ve been clocking up some decent mileage each week.

I decided that I wouldn’t take my brace on this Portuguese Camino, which is 240kms over 12 days. Until the other day, when suddenly, for no apparent reason, my knee said:

Hello Bill! Remember me? 

Here’s the thing –
The mind knows.
The body knows.

Just like before that first Camino, when I came down with all those ailments.

It’s a ruse.
It’s faux pain.
It’s pain that likes stasis.

I’m about to head out now for a 15km walk. I’ll assess it after that. But I’m still of the mind not to take my brace on the Portuguese Camino.

I do believe the body has a very powerful self-righting mechanism. And that too often we rush to western medicine when we should just allow our bodies to heal themselves.

My good friend Peter Warren has one of the choicest jobs in the film industry, traveling around France filming segments for Gabriel Gate’s foodie show during the telecast of the Tour de France.

He’s in France at the moment doing this.

Peter the other day sent me via Facebook a link to a site about meditation – and this particular story was about some of the obstacles to meditation.

I thought it was worthwhile re-posting it here…

~~~~~~

1. The Identification Trap

This is probably the most obvious trap, or at least it is obvious to others if you go around claiming you are enlightened, but it is also the most subtle and hard to understand. To believe there is some fixed separate person that is enlightened is exactly what the ego does. The ego is believing in some fixed identity that endures over time, instead of the ever changing relationships and processes that make life what it actually is.

The ego believes in a fixed identity

 

As for enlightenment, that’s just for people who can’t face reality. – Brad Warner

This trap also includes believing other people like Gurus or Masters to be enlightened; to see them as perfected beings and you as a lower or lesser type of being is exactly how the ego operates; by solidifying and comparing. Believing in others’ identity as perfect is actually just the ego projected outward.

Thinking you are better than another because you are a ‘meditator’ is of course caused by identifying and then comparing. This is an obvious pitfall to be avoided. Try to meditate regularly without labelling yourself a meditator or spiritual or anything else. Live without a story; simply fresh and awake in every moment without an identity.

In meditation we don’t let the mind stick to anything, not identifying with anything, remaining free. Don’t make an ‘I dent’ in any appearance or any thought, just stay open and aware.

Meditation is not about escaping from reality

The key mistake of this trap is thinking relative appearances can be perfected or completed. Relative appearances will always be changing through stages of birth, temporarily abiding and dying. These natural cycles are perfect in themselves but they are never finished or complete and they certainly don’t stop. To be in the flow with life is the perfect way, but there is no fixed identity doing it.

The key realisation of meditation is there is no-self. The light is on, but there is no-one home, no fixed ego doing everything. This is not philosophy, this can be discovered through meditative introspection. Right now look inward for the thing you call ‘you’ and see what you find. There is spontaneous awareness sensitive to the moment but no one there to do it or gain reward, that is why Buddhists practice non attachment to the results of actions.

This is difficult for the rational mind to accept, it challenges notions of free will and independence but there are other conceptual alternatives to either thinking there is an enlightened person or not; like what Zen Master Suzuki suggests, “there is no such thing as an enlightened person only enlightened activity” or what the non-dual Master Nisargadatta says:

Wisdom tells me I am nothing, love tells me I am everything, between the two my life flows.

Losing your identity on the way to enlightenment

2. The Permanency Trap

“Ah Ha! I’ve finally got it, I’ve finally arrived” said the ego, “I’ve finally found that perfect philosophy, the right answer and the meaning to life.” This is the permanence trap. As soon as you think you’ve got it, you’ve gone astray, you’ve missed the point of impermanence and you are grasping at something conceptually secure to hold onto in this ever changing world.

The ego grasping onto permanence is so often an intellectual grasping, you think you’ve got it, the answer to your problems, the final conclusion. This is a trap. This dulls the sensitivity to the present moment, it breeds arrogance and ultimately brings huge disappointment. As Zen Master Suzuki says “…the minds readiness for anything is wisdom.” He goes on to warn “that in an expert’s mind there are few possibilities but in a beginners mind there are many.”

It is also very wise to always remember the first line of the Tao Te Ching when you think you’ve finally got the right answer:

The truth that can be named is not the real truth.

Waiting for the spiritual enlightenment bubble to burst

Thoughts and concepts are actually kind of permanent – they do not change like material things do. They may be replaced quite readily, but once you’ve decided on an opinion or a conclusion, that thought remains permanent and herein lies the problem. Reality is constantly changing, there is no blanket belief that will cover all events and situations. Alan Watts says it best:

There is a contradiction in wanting to be perfectly secure in a universe whose very nature is momentariness and fluidity. But the contradiction lies a little deeper than the mere conflict between the desire for security and the fact of change. If I want to be secure, that is, protected from the flux of life, I am wanting to be separate from life. Yet it is this very sense of separateness which makes me feel insecure. To be secure means to isolate and fortify the “I,” but it is just the feeling of being an isolated “I” which makes me feel lonely and afraid.

3. The Centralization Trap

This ego trap I am happy to finally talk about because it is a major mistake people make when practising mindfulness meditation. People often withdraw to a centralised point of observance or witnessing and it feels like there is an isolated and separate thing watching everything else. The problem is so many meditation teachers teach this way of meditating (including me).

Entering the state of observation

It is taught to be detached, to be the silent witness, to let things come and go without being moved from a non judgemental awareness, but this is just a small stepping stone toward the truth of things. The next step is to understand there is no separation between your witnessing awareness and what it is observing. Samadhi is one of the oldest forms of meditation practised by many in ancient India from all different religious sects, and it was what Buddha was training in when he discovered deep truths about things. Samadhi actually means to become one with what your observing. It does not mean to remain separate and aloof, it means to unite fully with your object of observation – there is no difference between you and it. It is total absorption in the moment, actually losing yourself in what you are doing, not gaining or adding a new witnessing self.

Instead of centralizing inward, the idea of meditation is to decentralise outward, disperse yourself into everything. Everything in the moment is you. This is what is meant in a famous line in the Buddhist Heart Sutra when it says “form is emptiness and emptiness is form”. Your empty awareness is not separate from anything, it is actually one and the same with everything.

This is exactly how mindfulness enables ethics, wisdom and compassion; you unite with things so as to understand them, you are them, this is the deepest kind of empathy and the subtlest type of sensitivity. Buddha taught to listen to things and all that you hear is just sound, or to watch things and all that appears is just appearances, no separate person seeing the sights or hearing the sounds, just sounds, just appearances. Once again this is not philosophy, this is the experience found in meditation. This wisdom has been lost in modern McMindfulness as taught by so many of today’s teachers.

Disperse yourself into everything

4. The Accumulation Trap

This is a trap warned about by Buddha and later by Zen Master Dogen. When you try and gain something from your meditation you have gone astray especially if you are trying to get enlightened. There is nothing to add and nothing to take away. Gaining or resisting is exactly the attachment and aversion Buddha warned was the cause of all emotional suffering, and what Dogen says is the major mistake of meditation practice.

When you try and accumulate merit or knowledge as taught by religious versions of Buddhism you are developing a super strength ego. Any type of wisdom or virtue that is accumulated falls under the natural law of death and decay, it is not a reliable refuge. Anything that is born will die. It is only in the perfect wisdom of a spontaneously present and open mind that enlightened activity can take place. Be in the moment and leave no trace.

It is the ego’s modus operandus to try and gain and benefit and get something from every moment. There is never any contenment or peace in that approach. The Tibetan Buddhist master Sogyal Rinpoche once said that meditation was simply the practice of contentment. That sounds too simple but it is extremely profound and a lot more difficult than you think.

Tibetan Buddhist master Sogyal Rinpoche

This pitfall includes the ego trap of developing yourself. Self development needs a timeline, a past and a future and this is exactly the state of mind we are trying to overcome in meditation by being in the eternal now. Forget about ideas of getting better, be totally yourself today and tomorrow be totally yourself. Each day is complete, each moment is complete, don’t compare moments. Your past self and your present self may look different but only when you solidify and compare, solidifying a concept of yourself, comparing and improving are all ego traps to be avoided in meditation.

The greatest instructions I have come across in my 20 years of study are the ones that say don’t try and change anything, don’t manipulate yourself, don’t try and achieve enlightenment, simply allow this moment to be as it is. One famous Tibetan proverb says “this moment as it is, is enlightenment.”

5. The Happiness Trap

Chogyam Trungpa said that “Enlightenment is ego’s ultimate disappointment.” Why would he say that? It seemed to me for a long time that enlightenment meant I could be happy all the time impervious to whatever was happening and it was the most natural thing in the world to pursue this worthwhile goal. How wrong I was. The Happiness Trap is a title of a fantastic book which outlines using mindfulness as personal therapy and it explains very clearly that the biggest trap we face is wanting to be happy all the time. It just completely goes against reality. The reality of change, the reality of disappointment, the reality of trying and failing. It is the ego’s greatest victory when it convinces you it can protect you from all this stuff. The only realistic way is acceptance.

Do you long for happiness all of the time?

The more we try to avoid the basic reality that all human life involves pain, the more we are likely to struggle with that pain when it arises, thereby creating even more suffering.
~ Russ Harris, The Happiness Trap

Eckhart Tolle echoes what many great spiritual teachers have said – resistance to the present situation is the root of all suffering. Unfortunately that includes resisting unhappiness, or pain or even depression. As the old saying goes, “what you resist persists.” Allowing space for these things to be and move, actually allows them to pass right on through, it doesn’t mean they won’t return, life is full of suffering, but the good news is nothing is permanent. There is no need to tell ourselves sweet stories or sugar coat reality, as Brad Warner says:

Real wisdom is the ability to understand the incredible extent to which you bullshit yourself every single moment of every day.

Bringing meditation into our reality

Being intimate with reality

Trying to be happy all the time you end up like Ned Diddley Dandy Flanders, that Simpsons character that always tries to be happy and positive, and comes off just a little bit scary and neurotic. Perhaps like a happiness junkie addicted to seeing the bright side of every situation. But it’s ok to be sad, it’s ok to grieve the loss of loved ones and it’s ok to not be perfect, that’s just being perfectly human.

Meditation is not about trying to escape or transcend into something otherworldly, it’s being intimate with reality, seeing things as they are not how you would like them to be. It is from this place of acceptance that effective changes can be made because you are perfectly aware of the situation.

Our dear friend Lynda, who is going through a hard time at the moment with her daughter Stacey – she’s dealing with a major health issue – found time to send me this article which made us both laugh.

Knowing that we do travel through our subsidiary Gone Tours (www.gonetours.com) she sent me this list compiled by Thomas Cook Vacations – it’s a list of the most bizarre complaints they’ve had over the years…

~~~~~

1. “I think it should be explained in the brochure that the local convenience store does not sell proper biscuits like custard creams or ginger nuts.”
2. “It’s lazy of the local shopkeepers in Puerto Vallarta to close in the afternoons. I often needed to buy things during ‘siesta’ time — this should be banned.”
3. “On my holiday to Goa in India , I was disgusted to find that almost every restaurant served curry. I don’t like spicy food.”
I’ll book it but only if I can screen my fellow travelers first.
4. “We booked an excursion to a water park but no-one told us we had to bring our own swimsuits and towels. We assumed it would be included in the price”
5. “The beach was too sandy. We had to clean everything when we returned to our room.”
6. “We found the sand was not like the sand in the brochure. Your brochure shows the sand as white but it was more yellow.”
7. “They should not allow topless sunbathing on the beach. It was very distracting for my husband who just wanted to relax.”
8. “No-one told us there would be fish in the water. The children were scared.”
9. “Although the brochure said that there was a fully equipped kitchen, there was no egg-slicer in the drawers.”
10. “We went on holiday to Spain and had a problem with the taxi drivers as they were all Spanish.”
11. “The roads were uneven and bumpy, so we could not read the local guide book during the bus ride to the resort. Because of this, we were unaware of many things that would have made our holiday more fun.”
12. “It took us nine hours to fly home from Jamaica to England . It took the Americans only three hours to get home. This seems unfair.”
13. “I compared the size of our one-bedroom suite to our friends’ three-bedroom and ours was significantly smaller.”
14. “The brochure stated: ‘No hairdressers at the resort’. We’re trainee hairdressers and we think they knew and made us wait longer for service.”
15. “There were too many Spanish people there. The receptionist spoke Spanish, the food was Spanish. No one told us that there would be so many foreigners.”
16. “We had to line up outside to catch the boat and there was no air-conditioning.”
17. “It is your duty as a tour operator to advise us of noisy or unruly guests before we travel.”
18. “I was bitten by a mosquito. The brochure did not mention mosquitoes.”
19. “My fiance and I requested twin-beds when we booked, but instead we were placed in a room with a king bed. We now hold you responsible and want to be re-reimbursed for the fact that I became pregnant. This would not have happened if you had put us in the room that we booked.”

Bill & Jennifer

In a little less than a month now, Jennifer and I will be leading a tour of the Portuguese Camino, taking 13 New Zealand carers from Porto to Santiago – a walk of about 240kms.

Carers are those amazing folk who care for someone; whether they be sick, injured, infirm, elderly, incapacitated in some way – in other words, those that need to be cared for.

These carers are remarkable people.
But what they do day-to-day is demanding, depleting, and emotionally draining.

I was contacted some time ago now by a wonderful lady named Laurie Hilsgen, who is the head of an organisation in New Zealand that represents carers. Laurie asked if we could mount a pilgrimage walk, because she believed it would be a wonderful way for some of these carers to fill their tank again, so to speak.

She believed a Camino would be a great way to rid themselves of any pent-up anguish, emotional turmoil, exhaustion, frustration, sorrow and any or all of the sundry other psychological debris that comes from what they do each day.

More importantly, Laurie hoped that a Camino would be restorative, and a way for these wonderful carers to recharge their batteries, and to renew and refresh themselves physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

We will finish the tour not at Santiago, but further on at Cape Finisterre – the End of the World – where we plan to hold a ceremony at sunset – a ceremony that will represent the “casting off” of any negative emotional energy that might still cling to them.

Cape Finisterre cross at sunset

I’m sure they will find the Camino to be a magic elixir.

On a purely physical level, the mere act of getting up early, walking in the fresh spring air of Portugal and Spain, walking long distances up and down hills and across streams and through magnificent medieval villages – that in itself is incredibly restorative.

Cape Finisterre lighthouse

Then there’s the meditative aspect of walking – walking sometimes 25kms in a day – the hypnotic nature of that, of being at one with your breath, with the rhythm of your steps, with the movement of your limbs.

It takes you inside yourself. It shakes loose old worries, old fears, bitter regrets.
It brings them out into the light, into the sunshine, where you can look at them, and laugh at them, and walk way from them. Leave them behind, on the trail.

It cleanses you.

Valencia – Portugal

Yes you get tired, yes you get sore, yes you wonder sometimes if you’ll complete the day’s walk – but that’s all part of it. That’s what makes getting to Santiago, and getting your Compostela – your Official Certificate of Completion of the Camino – so worthwhile. That’s what makes it such a special achievement.

There is an enormous sense of achievement completing a Camino.

It lifts your self esteem – and that doesn’t fade. That stays with you for years and years.

Santiago Cathedral

They talk about the Camino “glow,” that glow that pilgrims acquire during the walk, and when they get to Santiago. You can see it in photos. You can see it in those around you as the Camino takes hold. It is a glow. It’s palpable. Something happens inside you that imbues you with this very special quality.

Let’s talk about energy – because that’s where, for me, it all happens.

The Camino – any pilgrimage walk – is imprinted with soul energy. The energy of all those souls who have come before you. It’s in the very earth beneath your feet, as you walk. It’s the residue of the soul intention of the millions – yes millions – of pilgrims who have walked that path too. Each footprint has left an imprint of soul energy.

That soul energy then comes up through the earth, through your feet chakras, and it enters your energetic system, and that’s what gives you that glow. That’s what imbues you with that magical quality. That’s what enables 70 year olds to walk 800kms. That’s what heals the sick. That’s what gives cripples the strength to climb mountains.

It happens. It’s real.

After my first Camino I threw away my glasses. I’d had glasses for fifteen years. After the Camino, I realised my eyesight had improved so much I didn’t need them anymore. If I needed validation, last year I passed an eyesight test to renew my drivers license. Before the Camino, I’d needed glasses to pass that test.

Before the Camino – a few years before…

A week after my first Camino

This energy of healing, of restoration, is in the air you breath, it’s in the fresh foods you eat, it’s in the ancient churches and monasteries and alburges.

Jennifer and I are really looking forward to this pilgrimage. For me, it will be my fourth. But this one will be very special, because of the wonderful people we’ll be walking with.

I want to hear their stories.
Because I’m sure they’re remarkable…

On the Portuguese Camino

On my walk to the editing room the other day I noticed a man on a bicycle cycling past, wearing a helmet. On top of the helmet was a GoPro. A mini video camera. (…for those of you who don’t know what a GoPro is!)

I then began to notice this more and more.
So many people riding bicycles were wearing GoPros.

I did some research and discovered they weren’t wearing GoPros so that they could video their journey to and from work each day, it was so they could document an accident should it happen.

I thought about this.

I thought what brave souls they were, cycling to and from work each day, skirting death. They must have such a high level of conviction an accident might happen – so high that they mount a camera on their helmet. Man o man I thought – they must live in such fear each day, on their bicycles.

Huh – and I thought riding a bike was meant to be fun. Liberating. Exhilarating.
Apparently not – at least, not for these folk.

I see people out walking, and they’re wearing safety vests. Reflective clothing. They must worry about being hit by a car. They too must live in such fear.

And then I thought about intention, and about where they’re focusing their attention.

By wearing a GoPro, by wearing reflective vests and so forth, they’re setting their attention on having an accident. My understanding of the Spiritual Law of Attraction is that you get what you believe.

You might say they’re being careful.
Or “covering themselves,” should an accident happen.

With the GoPro camera they will have video proof that the accident, should it occur, wasn’t their fault. Wearing the vest no doubt will help in the obligatory compensation case when they’re hit by a car and crippled for life.

They’ll get more money because it wasn’t their fault. They could clearly be seen, because they were wearing a safety vest.

Why didn’t they pay more attention when they were walking?
Why didn’t they cycle more carefully?

Why don’t they take more responsibility for their actions?
For what they do?

Because they’re afraid.

I’m fascinated by how much fear we allow into our lives.
In the most subtle and insidious of ways.

I’m also fascinated by how much misfortune we attract into our lives because of where we place our thoughts. Our attention. Our energy.

How much fear do you carry with you each day?

For those of you following the progress of my film, well, I mentioned last week that I had made a creative breakthrough – and now it’s starting to cascade.

The thoughts and images are coming.

This is a film which will be made in post production. Editing. I’ve always known that. But now I’m starting to realise to what extent that will be true.

I’m not talking about cutting interviews. That’s the easy part. (Well, we’re into our 4th week now and we’re still cutting those interviews!) But I’m talking about the way the story is told. What I call the delivery system. The aesthetic of the film – the underlying intellectual DNA of the film. That’s what I’ve been searching for. That’s what I’ve been struggling with.

But now it’s finally coming together. I have allowed the film to speak to me, to tell me how best it should be made, and finally it’s begun to have a dialogue with me. And that dialogue excites the hell out of me.

I’m staying with my daughter and her fella in the city part of Sydney, and each day I walk 7kms to the editing room. And after work of an evening I walk 7kms back. I do this to prepare for the Portuguese Camino coming up, but also it gives me time to think.

I’ve found myself listening to podcasts – and I began listening to a series called Serial, podcast by This American Life. I know I’m very late to the party on this one – that it’s been around for a while, and I’ve been aware that when it began it created a cultural furore – huge excitement about the story, but also about the way the story was told.

I have now listened to both Season One and Season Two – and I’ve been fascinated by the mechanics of storytelling within the two seasons. Yes, audio allows you certain liberties not available in film – but I’m talking about an approach to non-fiction storytelling that conventional visual documentary has yet to embrace.

This to me has been the biggest breakthrough in my approach to my film – finding a way to impart information in a way that breaks down the formalism of non-fiction storytelling.

Also –

For quite some time now I’ve been writing a journal of the process of making this film. A whole lot of seriously weird stuff has happened and continues to happen – and I’ve felt that it’s important to keep a running diary.

On one hand it will be an interesting account of the process of putting such a unique film together – but it will also be a wonderful account of how to use your intuition to create something… and the fears and obstacles that present themselves.Because in making the film intuitively, I’ve opened myself up to the vagaries of the Universe, and at times it’s been terrifying, and at other times incredibly liberating.

Anyway, I thought I might now post my entry this morning, which I began writing at 4am after an hour of thinking through my film…

I should also add that I have put REDACTED over certain sections where I talk about the craft techniques I’ll be using in the film. It’s like what the CIA does with transcripts of terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, when they don’t want the world to know they’ve been waterboarding them. Obviously I want to keep this craft stuff private until the film comes out…

APRIL 6

It’s 4 am and I’ve been awake about an hour. My head has been spinning with visual possibilities. And I think I’ve settled on something – something that I’ve been grappling with for some time now, and that is to find a way to impart information in a casual and personal way, without diminishing the veracity of what I’m saying – and yet in a way that enables me to summarise and precis, and comment upon and explain.

Most importantly though, I’ve been trying to find a way of imparting information which enables me to express how I feel, and how I’m feeling about things at certain parts of the story. And that’s what I think I’ve found just now. 

It comes back to Serial, and the way Sarah Koenig and her team were able to “jump dots” in their storytelling. What does “jump dots” mean? It means you don’t have to connect all the dots. You can jump dots. You can do the heavy lifting for the audience, and they will not only accept that, they will welcome that because they trust you. That’s the key to it – they trust you. They trust that you’ve done your homework, that you’ve stuck to journalistic principals and truths, and that when you deviate into personal conjecture, which I must in this film, then it’s clear that I’m doing so, and when I’m doing it, and there’s no confusion between objective and subjective. 

That I guess is the key to this – what I’ve been trying to do is find a narrative delivery system whereby I’m able to shift between the objective and subjective. And indeed, even embracing the subjective from a personal perspective in a film like this will be bold. And really scary for me too because I’m really putting myself out there. 

But it comes down to the ….REDACTED…. with the film, and with me. And what I think and what I feel. I can use this device to comment upon what we’ve just seen and heard, and also to prep the audience for what’s coming up. I can also though use this device to make personal observations, and to do so in a very casual and “street” like manner. A bit like a political commentator. 

I’m also thinking about REDACTED use of graphics REDACTED, and also having shifting information REDACTED that’s germane to what I’m talking about. 

The audience now has a whole new grammar which they’re using in their ingestion of visual information – a grammar that didn’t exist even five years ago. That’s thanks to social media, and a technology which allows a multitude of different informational streams. Both software and hardware. 

And yet conventional documentary non-fiction filmmaking hasn’t adjusted. They’re still speaking in Olde English. There seems to be a belief that in maintaining a certain formality in nonfiction filmmaking, that this imbues the film and the filmmaker (perhaps more importantly) with credibility. And in some cases it does – but it’s old speak. It’s old grammar and language and syntax. The world has turned. There are new and more exciting ways of imparting information. 

Particularly with such a complex story as the one I’m telling, I have to find a clear and accessible way to impart information which isn’t alienating, which isn’t confusing, which isn’t soap-box, which is engaging. And real and personal and emotional and revealing. 

I’ve learned so much from listening to Serial, and analysing how they’ve told that story. Really examining the very subtle ways they’ve broken the conventions of nonfiction storytelling. I found a New Yorker podcast of an interview with Sarah Koenig, and on my walk to the editing room last week I listened to it – and it was fascinating to hear her talk about her process.

Thing is – we don’t have to do what what’s been done before. That’s the key to it as far as I’m concerned. Listening to a podcast of Lee Carroll yesterday on my walk, (Lee Carroll channels Kryon, and he’s featured in my film) – he said: “You have to get to the point where you trust what you don’t see.”

That stayed with me all day. You have to trust what you don’t see. There’s huge wisdom in that short statement. He also talked about the dirty windscreen, and wiping a patch clean and being able to see out – and the more you clean, the more you can see. That’s what’s now happening with this film – I’m starting to clean larger patches, and I can see more clearly. 

Anyway I need now to get back to sleep otherwise I’ll be a wreck in the editing room today.