Here is a draft of the Camino Portuguese Tour brochure.

This will go out wide – possibly next week – through the tour operator to all his international affiliates.

There are 6 places at the PGS rate of $2950 – three are gone already. The rest are at the $3950 rate.

Sister Clare said I should emphasise that the tour will arrive in Santiago for the Easter celebrations. Which should be amazing.

In fact the whole tour is going to be amazing.

The brochure isn’t fully finished yet – still some stuff to be done on design – but thought I’d post it in this draft form to get your thoughts on it. Download here –

Camino E-flyer Draft 1

I want to introduce you to perhaps my favourite photographer –

Sabastio Salgado.

Salgado is a Brazilian photographer, now living in Paris. I regard him as the most important and influential photojournalist working today.

He has just finished an epic eight year project called Genesis – where he set out to photograph the world as it was in the beginning, in a pristine state.

Salgado came into photography relatively late in his life. He was trained as an economist, and worked for the World Bank in under-developed countries. As part of the reports he had to submit, he included photographs. And he soon realised he could have more impact with his photography than by working as an economist.

So at the age of 40 he took up photography full time.

He has done some extraordinary projects, and if you Google Image him, you will see some iconic shots. I remember once in a Paris Anthropological Museum in the Marais seeing his exhibition, Migration, and being stunned by the power of his images.

HIs work is sublimely political.

For my birthday, Jennifer bought me Genesis in book form. Here are some of the pictures from that work…

I haven't walked since the Camino.

Since mid May.

My knee…

I really miss it. My walk. Through the vineyards, early in the mornings or late in the afternoons. Listening to my audio books.

I didn't realise how much I love walking. How much it's become a part of my life. How it set up my day, or calmed me down of an evening.

I saw the day when I walked.

I saw the clouds, I noticed the weather, I felt the rain and the sun.

I breathed.

I sweated.

My body worked as it should.

I miss that.

As you might know, Sister Clare, from Ontario Canada, is going to accompany us on the Portuguese Camino in April 2014.

However, nuns make no money. They don’t get paid for being nuns, unless they work at a hospital or school.

Sister Clare has very limited resources.

So SusanS has suggested that we kit out Sister Clare by donating stuff –

Jennifer and I will be paying for her airfares to Portugal, her accommodation and meals.

But Sister Clare needs all the kit and caboodle that any pilgrim needs for a walk.

Clothing, equipment, poles, backpack, boots, headlamp, etc.

I have set up a separate topic thread on the PGS Forum. Susan Sande will coordinate any offers of donation. Even a gift voucher to a hiking store, or cash would be very greatly appreciated. Here’s the link –

http://pgsthewayforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=135

So let’s KIT THE NUN!

It occurred to me that I might be selfish, and self-obsessed.

This whole Camino thing.

Leaving my wife at home while I went off to Spain to do a pilgrimage?

When the last time I went to church was to take wedding photos for a relative…

Months before leaving for the Camino, all I could talk about was the walk, my backpack weight, my boots, whether I'd get blisters. Yak yak yak.

The Camino was all I could talk about.

Now I'm back and I'm still blogging, and I've started a forum too, and soon I'll be leading a Camino tour.

And of course there's the book. Each day writing about the Camino.

Is this fair on my wife?

This obsession?

Am I being selfish, in the pursuit of greater self-awareness?

I’m going through the photos I took in Portugal, preparing an e-flyer for the Camino Tour next year.

I thought I’d post up some shots. There are more here at this gallery –

http://billbennett.zenfolio.com/p113641309

Here is the Epilogue to the book – The Way, My Way.

Epilogue

To walk the Camino is to do a pilgrimage.

That’s what I did – I became a pilgrim.

I followed in the footsteps of millions of other pilgrims who, over the years, the decades, the centuries, have made their way to Santiago.

What did I learn?

 GRATITUDE:

I learnt to be grateful. Grateful for simple things.

For a bed at night. For clean clothes in the morning. I was grateful when it didn’t rain. I was grateful when the pain receded.

I learnt the meaning of gratitude.

 HUMILITY:

I learnt humility.

My pain humbled me.

Other people humbled me too –

People who walked much further than me. People who had pain much greater than mine.

Ultimately though, I was humbled by the occasion. By just walking the Camino.

That in itself was humbling.

THE POWER OF THE INCREMENT:

I learnt that you can achieve big goals by taking small steps.

 A lot of small steps.

But only if you don’t give up until you reach your goal.

MY POSSESSIONS ARE MY BURDEN:

I carried everything I needed on my back. Up and down mountains, across plains, over rivers.

My possessions were my burden. Anything unnecessary was an unnecessary burden.

It’s the same in life. My possessions are my burden.

 JUDGE NOT:

There were so many times I judged people.

People I thought old and frail. People I thought not as capable as me.

Actually I mis-judged them. I was wrong.

I learnt that you must never judge, and never underestimate others.

 WE ARE MORE CAPABLE THAN WE REALISE:

I discovered I was more resilient than I realised. I was able to overcome obstacles I didn’t think possible.

And I saw miracles.

My pain left me on the Meseta. My eyesight improved. But perhaps the greatest miracle of all is that I changed.

 YOU BRING FORTH WHAT YOU FEAR THE MOST:

I learnt that what you fear the most, you bring into your life.

I was scared of climbing high mountains. And because of my anxiety, I made it everything I feared.

Even before I left for Spain, I was scared my knee would thwart me.

It did.

What you fear, you attract. 

I CAN TRUST MY PGS:

I learnt I could trust my PGS – my Personal Guidance System – my intuition.

It shepherded me along the Camino.

The times I ignored it were the times I had difficulties.

The times I trusted it were the times I experienced something wonderful or profound.

 EVERY DAY IS A PILGRIMAGE:

I learnt that you don’t need to walk the Camino to be a pilgrim.

You can be a pilgrim every day of your life…

If you see that your life IS a pilgrimage.

 WHAT DID I ULTIMATELY LEARN?

That the only thing that matters – that truly matters – is love. 

Off topic, but hey, it’s the weekend.

I am staggered at how good American TV is.

Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Homeland, Dexter, Boardwalk Empire…

I’m watching The Killing at the moment. Fabulous. Just finished watching House of Cards and The Americans – both are sensational. And gutsy unconventional storytelling.

Movies are becoming so predictable – big franchise tentpoles that have little engagement for me. Do I really believe that one of The Avengers will ever be in jeopardy? Do I care?

Exhibitors make their money from the candy bar. Distributors make their money from safe-bet comic book films. I hanker for the intelligence of cinema in the 70s. When Scorsese, Coppola, Hal Ashby, Billy Friedkin were in their prime.

TV is now where the smart storytelling lives. It’s so well written, so beautifully cast, stories and characters have the time to develop and become complex.

Breaking Bad has to be amongst the best tv I’ve ever seen. The performances, the writing, the audacity is breathtaking.

We really are in a golden age of TV.

What are your favourites?

Two quick questions –

What is the name of the Sydney based Camino association… and when are the next dinners / lunches? And who’s in charge of the organisation?

Second question, this relating to the book…

What do you think I should price it at, as an ebook?

Choices and Changes

I’ve  always believed that life is a journey from birth to death on which we are given opportunities to learn and grow.

Who we become, and how our lives turn out depends on the choices we make, and which learning opportunities we accept, which we decide not to pursue.

I think our choices are linked together like a long chain. What we decide at one point, dictates to a degree what our next set of choices will be. The links work together,  shaping us into the kind of person we eventually become.

I enjoy reading biographies, and listening to life stories. They remind me how diverse our life choices are, as well as often, how surprising and unexpected the resultant changes can be.

When I reflect on my own life,I often wonder who or where I would be if I had made different choices. I’m  sure this occurs to everyone from time to time.

For the past couple of years, I have been engrossed in peoples’ accounts of the Camino. Not one has said they didn’t  experience any changes at all – and some are astonishing by the degree of change described.

There are people who, having walked the Camino, went home, quit their jobs, dug up their roots and moved to Spain just to always be close to the Camino, this great agent of change!

I’ve  noticed, though, that most of the people I’m  learning about have been in the last half of their lives ; whether for economic reasons or otherwise, many pilgrims don’t  make it to the Camino until they are older.

Here’s  what I’m getting at –

Taking into account what the Camino has taught you about yourself and your life, how do you think that knowledge would have changed the person you became , if you had learned those things when you were younger?

Would you have made the same choices about what you wanted to do with your life, or who you spent it with?How would knowing more about who you are have played out ,if you had known it at the age when you were making life and career choices?

Would you have chosen the same lifestyle? How would the changes brought into your life on the Camino have shaped the choices you made about what you wanted your life to be?