I’ve just come from Uluru.

It’s flat out there.
Damn flat.

Here in Tuscany and Umbria, it’s hilly.
Damn hilly.

It worries me.
Soon I will have to walk it, or rather ascend it, and descend it. I will have to do this with vigour, aplomb, and derring-do, because I’m leading this tour group and I’m meant to be the guy out front that shows how it’s done.

Hmmmm.

I should have trained more.
I didn’t do enough Mt. Miserys. (I think that’s the correct spelling in this context.)
In fact, I only did one Mt. Misery, which in the whole scheme of things, is pretty damn miserable.

I feel like I’m under prepared, physically, and that wouldn’t ordinarily be a concern, however I have one half of the Landers Express on this tour – Peter Landers – and he’s going to rib me mercilessly if I pike out on any of the stages.

I know I won’t. I’ll walk every kilometre.
No, let me correct that – I will walk most every kilometre, and stagger the rest.

Today before we left Sansepulcro we went to a museum and saw one of the great religious works of art – Polyptych of Mercy, painted by Piero della Francesca in 1445.

It was pretty cool.

As we were leaving I saw a member of the museum staff carrying a very old statue of Jesus into another room.

I was somewhat taken aback at where his hand was –

Fortunately he was wearing a glove…

We then met up with Elena at Pieve Santo Stefano, one of our stage stops.

She was giving the van a test run, to see if she could reverse park it up a hill in a narrow lane. She couldn’t, but that’s ok.

It was great seeing her again, and she will be a wonderful asset to the tour.

Also I spoke at length today to Ivan the Terrible, who is married to his Beautiful Wife Giovanna. They will be joining us out of Sansepulcro, and walking with us for three or four days.

Those of you who have read my book – The Way, My Way – would know that this wonderful couple featured prominently on my Camino Frances. They are delightful people, very funny, and I’m thrilled that they’ll be joining us, even if for just a few days.

Later Jennifer and I drove south to Gubbio – another stage stop – which is where we’ll spend tonight and tomorrow night.

We spent the evening wandering around the cobblestone streets, and had possibly the best meal of this current trip. Magnificent home made pastas, eggs with truffles, all beautifully prepared. We’ll take the tour group there when we come back to Gubbio.

I thought today about the ethos of the pilgrim.

When I first started out, I was a bit narrow minded about all that. I was a bit of a hardliner. I really felt that you had to walk every step, you had to carry your pack all the way, you couldn’t catch a cab, you couldn’t catch a bus – you had to be a true pilgrim.

Now I realise that’s all nonsense.

None of that matters.

I had to go through that at the time when I walked the Camino Frances, and subsequently on the Camino Portuguese too, and I’m really pleased I did. But I’m much more relaxed about those things now. It’s not that important.

The only thing that’s important is your intent.
What’s in your heart.
The real reasons you’re walking a pilgrimage route.
All the rest is pride, ego, and things that in fact get in the way of you being a true pilgrim.

As you walk more Caminos, and as the need to prove stuff to yourself and to others gradually dissolves, the true growth begins…

A young Italian lass today, while activating my new Italian SIM card, said that Umbria was the green heart of Italy. And today, driving through the magnificent countryside, I could see why.

It was another glorious day – blue skies, sunshine all day, and the fields rich in colour. A perfect spring day in Italy – at stark variance to the savage storms which are currently lashing Sydney.

After getting SIM cards we drove to a hilltop town – Monterchi – to have lunch, but the restaurant was closed, Disappointing. I’d eaten there on the previous trip and it had been a lunch I will never forget.

Undaunted, I set my Garmin to find the nearest restaurant, which was only 1.5kms away. 12 kms later, and the Garmin was still dicking around, so I shut it down and used my own PGS to find a place to eat.

This involves “feeling” the right way to go. It’s a sense which I’ve developed, and it rarely lets me down. It doesn’t follow rational thinking. I see a lane and I ignore it and keep driving. I see another lane and I turn and drive down it, not knowing where it’s heading, but just trusting that the feeling I’m getting is leading me to the perfect lunch spot.

Invariably it does, and today it didn’t let me down.

We ended up in what turned out to be one of the great historic towns of Umbria – Anghiari.  This time of the year all these towns are virtually deserted. It’s wonderful. You wander through cobblestone alley ways and under medieval arches and you’re the only one there.

I found us a restaurant that was sublime. Buffalo mozzarella that was so fresh – followed by grilled chicken with white truffles. The mozzarella was €5 and the chicken with truffles was €9. Plus a 750cl of a carafe wine – a Montepulciano – that was unbelievable, and cost €10, but would have cost $80 in Australia.

After lunch we drove to Sansepulcro, which is a town on our tour. Another beautiful historic medieval Umbrian town. We checked out the hotel we’re staying in – and the restaurant – both of which are in the heart of the historic centre.

In the evening we went for a walk around the town, and later outside the old gates of the town we found a local bar where we sat and watched the sun go down and had a plate of hams, salamis and local cheeses, with a glass of red wine each.

Tomorrow we go for a walk along our route – maybe 10kms or so. We want to test out our GPX coordinates on our iPhone maps, to make sure they all work ok.

You might think from all this that we have it easy, but hey, this is work…

Right at the moment it’s 4:14am, I’m jet lagged, working on my laptop in a hotel which overlooks Dubai Creek.

Jennifer and I decided to break up the journey so that when we got to Italy, we could head off into the Umrbian hills while there was still some daylight.

I’ve been to Dubai once before. And wandering around the markets, as we did yesterday, I couldn’t help stop thinking about how we’ve demonised the Middle East, because of our fear of terrorism.

Late yesterday we were in a cheap backlane restaurant, eating mutton curry, and I was listening to someone at another table speaking on the phone. We’ve heard that guttural Arabic accent in recent films and tv shows about terrorists. And we now associate it with “bad guys.”

It made me think about how the West demonised the Germans during World War 2, and the Japanese too. How those accents at the time, and some time later, were always associated with hatred and fear. They were the bad guys then – and now they’re the good guys.

Yesterday as we walked along the streets I saw women in headscarves, and some were burqa-ed up so that all you could see were the eyes. And it made me think how this has become such a hot issue in some western and european countries – again because of our fear.

I spent some time in Egypt a while back, and now with this little bit of time in Dubai I have to say that all the Arabs I’ve met have been friendly welcoming people. They smile readily, and are always willing to help.

Now that’s a huge generalisation, I know, because there are some Arabs in Egypt who are serious bad guys – but then there are some serious bad guys in the west too.

Our fear breeds suspicion, suspicion leads to hatred, and hatred spawns racial vilification and stereotyping. We find ourselves sitting in a restaurant eating mutton curry and wondering if the man on the phone at the other table is a terrorist.

He’s probably just calling his mum to say he’ll be late home.

In our country at the moment we read in the newspapers how teachers and headmasters at the country’s most prestigious private schools have been involved in pedophilia.

There was a story the other day about how a Catholic orphanage turned a blind eye to the systematic rape of young children in their care. Nuns beat children who came to them complaining that they’d been raped. One of the young boys had blood streaming from a lacerated anus, and the nun whipped him for daring to say anything bad about the priest.

When I heard this on the radio news I felt disgusted.

People within our own society – people we trust, and whom we’ve entrusted with our children – have let us down.

These people – the teachers, the headmasters, the priests and nuns – they don’t wear funny scarves, or long flowing robes, or burqas. They dress like us, they look like us, they talk like us. They could be our father or mother, or sister or brother. They’re not different to us. And they’ve never roused our suspicion, because they’re one of us.

And yet they are more dangerous, more disturbed, than these women wearing headscarves. Or these men with hooded dark eyes and flowing beards and funny robes.

I watch people in the street, and I often consider how we all come in different shapes and sizes. And how we spend so much time thinking about how we look, and how much money we have or don’t have, and we worry about things which are really inconsequential.

And I think about how alike we all are – underneath it all – and how much actually really matters. Not much.

I look at a distinguished gentleman rushing past in an expensive suit, polished shoes, grey hair, immaculately groomed. He could be a judge, or the CEO of a highly successful company, or he could be a doctor. He could be a heart surgeon rushing to save someone’s life –

– or he could be the headmaster of a private school that has silently sanctioned the sexual abuse of children for decades.

Who knows?
You can’t judge.

So why then should we judge these people in the Middle East, who worship Mohammed and the Qu’ran, and who hold religious and cultural beliefs that are different to ours?

One of the things that terrifies us the most is uncertainty.

It keeps us in jobs we hate, in relationships that are unfulfilling, in a day to day routine that is mindless and stifling.

We hate it, and yet we feel comfortable with predictability. Knowing what will happen with a degree of certainty. Even though we feel uncreative and shackled.

But when you think about it, nothing is certain.
Nothing is predictable.
Our whole world can change on a dime.
In a moment.

Why are we so scared of uncertainty?

Because implicit in uncertainty is the possibility of change. And whilst a lot of us want change, when it really comes down to it, we only want change within certain parameters.

Known parameters.

We want to change our lifestyle, but only if it doesn’t eat into our savings.
We want to leave a loveless relationship, but only if we can find a better one.
We want to do something that will better the world, but only if there’s not too great a personal cost.
We want to change our lives, but only if it’s not too disruptive.

Jennifer and I live intuitively.

We always have.

We met intuitively, we married intuitively, we make all our decisions – big and small – intuitively. If it feels right, we do it. And we don’t even think about it.

Because with thinking comes the wrecking ball of intuition – logic and common sense.
And then comes timidity.
And after that, fear.
Finally, stasis.
We stay the same. We don’t change anything.

My wife and I don’t do logic and common sense.
Each day we take a running leap at life – we hurl ourselves off the edge of a cliff and we freefall, knowing that we’ll land safely.

And we do.

We embrace uncertainty.
We relish it.
It’s what gets us out of bed each day.

Because within the realm of uncertainty lives a myriad of possibilities.

And that’s where the best stories are told, within that realm.
Nothing great comes from certainty.

On Saturday we’ll be in Dubai. The next day we’ll be in Italy, on the Via di Francesco – the Way of St. Francis. Two weeks later we’ll be in Istanbul, a week later in Konya in Central Turkey, hanging out with the Whirling Dervishes and the Sufis – all for the film I’m making on intuition.

I love living intuitively.

Conversation in the Bennett household this morning:

My wife: I can’t find my panty-hose.
Me: Would you like to borrow mine? 

Yesterday, in preparation for the Assisi walk, I went out and bought some panty-hose, which I use under my leg brace to stop rubbing on my thigh.

I like the Extra Tall, sheer support style, used by airline hostesses, whom I’m told spend a lot of time on their feet.This type of panty-hose works well for me.

And I like black, because it’s kind of sexy…

Jennifer eventually found her own pair of panty-hose, which was a sheer relief for me, because I don’t like sharing something so intimate and personal…

I have issues, I know…

Angie Mitchell and her husband Ken will soon be leaving Australia for Italy, to walk with us on the Assisi tour.

We’ll be meeting up in Florence, then taking a private bus to the Franciscan monastery at della Verna – where St. Francis experienced his stigmata – then walking 182kms through to Assisi. It promises to be a wonderful walk, although physically challenging at times.

Angie and Ken came with us on the Camino Portuguese tour this time last year – and in the intervening time Jen and I have got to know them as very special friends.

They’ve both been training for the tour – and Angie, being a writer, has put some thoughts down which I’m now posting as a guest blog.

AM I READY?

As we drove 5 km up the road yesterday morning at 5:45 for our regular walk up the little mountain at the Sunshine Coast called Mt Coolum, ‘Am I Ready’ kept playing in my head?

Thankfully I was the passenger looking at this sizeable mountain and pondering on my readiness for the Via Di Francesco Tour starting on 27 April in Florence.

Let me put it out there now, I am not anywhere near being a mountain climber, I don’t even like going up big hills and my goal in life was to go nowhere near any walk that looked like a hefty climb!

I have always been very happy walking on reasonably flattish ground, even brashly boasting on my daily walks to any willing listener.

It was only last year that Ken and I nosedived into long distance walking on the Camino Portuguese and despite sore feet and blisters I loved everything about the experience. It is funny isn’t it how easy it is to forgot any tough up hill trekking?

But oh my goodness what I have done agreeing to go on this walk asks the fearful anxious side of my brain? Really Angie what were you thinking?

Because you see, the looming walk in the Umbrian part of Italy has lots of steep inclines and declines and a good level of fitness is needed for pilgrims, says my friend Bill!

It was when I saw a table detailing the distance and height for each day that I swiftly upped my fitness regime.

I recalled that Bill talked about his brother Bob doing 100 squats a day as part of his preparation for his recent Camino Frances, so I increased my number of squats to 70 a day. That would surely strengthen my muscles in my thighs and get me up those high inclines of over 800m!

And since I don’t live near Mt Misery, the name says it all doesn’t it, I decided that Mt Coolum would have to be conquered. Or better still my extreme reluctance to go up big hills would have to be overcome.

It was definitely time to change my irrational thinking. There was no way around it. I told Ken we really need to include climbing up this mountain in the fitness plan. Ken’s reply “Aren’t our long distance walks enough” fell on deaf ears!

My ever-patient good husband humours me by coming with me a few times a week. The great thing is that I have increased my fitness level and better still; I have overcome the fear I initially experienced at a scary section of uneven rocks.

Yes, I have to confess I went down on my hands and knees, just for a second! Now I nearly jog at this point!! Sorry, I got carried away; there is definitely no jogging!

I just have to be ready says my rational brain! D-day is coming at a fast pace. Everything else is organised; the backpack, the euros, the plane tickets and the hotels.

I am ready to be reunited with my Camino buddies to have lots of chats about weird and wacky things, ready to walk on the paths that St Francis strode, and better still ready to enjoy the food and wine.

And seriously, I will only know how ready I am when walking those steep inclines/declines, and slogging along the kilometres everyday.

Hang on, maybe it is time to readjust the plan and walk up and down Mt Coolum every morning!

One of the most astonishing things that I saw while at Uluru was a machine that was described to me as being “the future of medicine.”

And it might well be.

If that sounds a little cautious, it’s not because of the machine’s capability, which is truly remarkable. It’s more because some Western scientists and medicos are reluctant, or simply refuse, to embrace anything that doesn’t fit into their empirical world view.

They still live in the world of classical physics, which states that there’s a separation of mind and matter.

Quantum physics however has proven there is no separation of mind and matter.

It’s what the Eastern mystics have been saying for thousands of years. And yet many in the West still cling to this notion, even though it’s no longer relevant in our modern world.

For two thousand years, Chinese healers and philosophers have believed that the mind and the body are interconnected – that they are all part of one whole – and that our mind and body are connected through a system of energetic channels, punctuated by meridian points.

This is what acupuncture is based on.

And within our body, one of the largest concentration of these meridian points is the tips of the fingers and thumbs.

Enter the machine.
Let’s give this machine a name –
The GDV.

What does GDV stand for?

Gas Discharge Visualization. 

What does that mean?
Now it gets a bit technical, so let me just explain.

Consider the possibility that your energetic field within your body – your “subtle” body – is constantly monitoring your state of health. And that this energetic field is sensitive to any issues or maladies which might threaten the well being of the body.

In other words, your energetic field has your back. It’s developed an inbuilt early warning system that alerts you to possible medical problems way before they become life threatening.

Now what if we could tap into that early warning system…

If we could do that, then we’d be able to pick up health issues long before they become problematic. What we’d be looking for are spikes or dips in the energetic fields associated with particular organs or systems – abnormal fluctuations of energy that indicate that something is amiss.

That’s what this machine does.
The GDV.
It reads that early warning system.

By reading your subtle energy field through the tips of your fingers and thumbs, it creates charts of your entire energetic system. A trained person then analyses these charts, and determines if there are any abnormalities in your energetic fields.

How does it work?

The GDV machine is a box with a hole in it – like a large pencil sharpener. You put each finger (and thumb) into this hole, and the machine then discharges a very weak electric pulse into the fingertip for a microsecond.

This creates a corresponding bodily reaction – an “electron cloud” of light energy photons.

This cloud is captured by a camera within the box, and that digital file is then sent to a computer, loaded with a sophisticated software programme which then creates the energetic charts.

The whole set up was created by a team of esteemed scientists in Russia, led by Professor Konstantin Korotkov – a highly distinguished research scientist. The system has since undergone rigorous testing and analysis by scientists and health organisations around the world.

Read the attached PDF below for information about the machine, and its accreditations.

The two people who introduced us to this machine at Uluru are Doug Strandly and Grace Moy O’Brien. Doug is the geek and Grace is the doc. Doug has brought the GDV to Australia – he went through extensive training in the US, and now trains others. Grace is a Chinese doctor who analyses the charts.

They make a great team.

At Uluru they did Jennifer and my charts. It’s a completely painless process that takes only a few minutes. What takes longer is the analysis of the charts, and that’s where you need a trained professional like Grace to interpret the data.

Legally they are not allowed to call this a diagnostic tool – they are not allowed in their reports to say: You have cancer in your pancreas. Instead they have to say: We have picked up an energetic abnormality in your pancreas. You should go see a doctor and have some tests done. 

As well, the software can chart your chakras – and as those of you who read the earlier post from Uluru would know, Jennifer’s chakras were in near perfect alignment, however mine were considerably larger, in fact one might even describe them as gi-normous – even though they were a little scattered…

In fact, they were all over the shop!

To be honest, I was terrified that my chakras would look like shrivelled frozen peas. I was mightily relieved to discover that they were in fact of appropriate proportion to my massive spiritual stature.

Ahem –

Anyway, if you’re interested in talking to Doug or Grace, or making an appointment to have your charts done, then here are their contact details:  (they’re in Melbourne)

Doug Strandly,
info@onewon.com.au
+61 439 955 199

Grace Moy O’Brien
grace@esolab.com.au
+61 3 9696 0469

Here is a 13 page pdf on the machine, and how it works –
The GDV-EPI Technique

Just to finish – when Jennifer and I had our charts done, Doug and Grace picked up some medical conditions that no-one would have known, other than our doctors. For instance, I had lost a filling from a tooth, and infection had set in. That showed on the chart.

It was amazing.

And with Jennifer, well, it seems that she’s developed an unusually high build up of epidermal tissue over her body, from living with me for thirty three years…

…commonly known as a thick skin –

Okay, jokes aside –

Dr. Korotkov and his team have managed to take the age old principles of eastern medicine, and have created a system of hardware and software that can measure your energetic fields, and determine where there might be health problems.

It can tap into your subtle body’s early warning system.

If the West can begin to embrace the concepts that the East has been working with for more than two thousand years, then yes, this machine could well be the future of medicine.

Have you thought about meditating but didn’t know how to do it or where to start?

I got interested in meditation at an early age – with my interest in Buddhism when I was in my early 20s.

Since then I’ve read a lot of books on meditation – some have been very technical, some very esoteric, and some completely incomprehensible.

But yesterday I found a book that’s simple, easy to understand, and great for anyone wanting to start meditating.

It’s called: Meditate Now, by Elizabeth Reninger.

It’s only about $3 on Kindle – worth taking a look at, if you’re interested. But what’s most important with meditation is practice. Regular practice.

This book starts with a one minute meditation. Very simple. Very easy. Here’s the link again:

http://www.amazon.com/Meditation-Now-Beginners-10-Minute-Meditations-ebook/dp/B00S5M9HMW/ref=pd_sim_sbs_kstore_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=17C07DGQVET2TGQWK2E2