As some of you might know, I’m writing a book on my Camino experiences, and I’m nearing the end. I’m at about 70,000 words.

Soon I’ll go into the editing and revisions stage. It should be done by the end of August, latest.

In writing the book, I’m having to recall moments I’ve largely forgotten – and one was a very simple moment. Of walking one morning, heading towards Astorga, and seeing distant snow capped mountains, then an hour later, looking up and seeing those mountains closer, then sometime later still, seeing them almost upon me.

I remember at the time being quite shocked by this.

That by walking, that by taking a series of small steps, I could alter the geography around me so dramatically, and bring forward a range of high mountains! It seems so obvious, but it really did have a profound effect on me.

And I began to think of the “power of the increment.”

I’d brought forward those mountains incrementally, by taking a series of small steps. I would end up walking to Santiago in a similar way. Whilst in Australia, before leaving, I remember looking at a map and wondering how could I possibly walk that far.

I did so, incrementally.

And now I’m writing this book the same way. Instead of walking each day, I’m writing each day. When I started, on June 1st, the prospect of writing a book seemed as daunting as walking the Camino.

Now I’m almost finished the first draft.

Anything can be achieved, if it’s approached using the power of the increment. You can become wealthy, by saving a little each week. You can lose weight, by eating a little less each day. Or doing a little more exercise each day. You can get a college degree, or start a new business, or paint the inside of your house, or make a beautiful quilt – all these things can be achieved, incrementally.

Sometimes the snow capped mountains seem so far away. They seem beyond your reach. But you can bring those mountains close to you, and you can climb them. If you approach them incrementally.

Someone the other day on this blog, an anonymous poster, cheekily suggested that my wife Jennifer had come up with PGS, possibly because she’s so wise and all-knowing. Which she is, that’s true!

But she didn’t come up with PGS. That was me, and it came as a result of something that happened to me several years ago.

My intuition saved my life.

I was in New Orleans working on a movie. I was in early pre-production, but had to return to Los Angeles for a few days, which meant catching the first flight out.

I woke up late, left my hotel in a rush and drove to the airport. It was dark, before dawn, and the roads were empty. I had to drop the rental off before checking in for my flight, and I was worried I’d miss the plane. So I was driving fast.

As I approached an intersection, I heard a “voice” telling me to slow down. I had a green light up ahead and if anything, my inclination was to speed up, to make sure I got through on the green and I didn’t have to wait for a red light.

But this “voice” was insistent. Telling me to slow down. It was very strange. I wasn’t in the habit of hearing voices, particularly not ones giving me driving instructions!

What made it stranger was there were no cars on the road, no traffic at all, nothing to indicate any possible danger. But because this voice, this feeling, was so weird, I slowed down.

As I entered the intersection, a huge eighteen wheeler ran the red on the cross street and hurtled through, missing me by inches.

If I hadn’t slowed down, if I hadn’t listened to that voice, I’d have been killed. 

I had to pull over, I was so shaken up by what had just happened. And I was confused too. What was that voice? Where did it come from? What just saved my life?

After the movie was completed, I started to research intuition, and I began to read of other instances where “voices” had saved lives. There are many instances on 9/11 – and others too, including the Titanic. And instances where people had attributed an intuitive impulse to a major breakthrough in science, in research, in writing a best seller, in a major sporting achievement, in finding a life partner, in all sorts of things.

And that’s when I came up with the concept of a Personal Guidance System. Something inside us, and outside us, that tries to steer us through life, to enable us to fulfil our life potential, whatever that might be.

I likened this to a GPS in a car – in that we can choose to turn our GPS on or off, we can have it running in the background and ignore it, or we can allow it to guide us to where we wish to go, avoiding roadblocks and obstacles, taking short cuts, taking highways.

Similarly we can choose to listen to our intuition, let it guide us, or we can ignore it.

This blog isn’t the place for me to detail PGS – however if you’re interested, check out:

http://www.pgsintuitive.com

https://www.facebook.com/pgsthefilm

Anyway, that’s where it came from. This “voice” saved my life. And ever since I’ve wanted to know what it was, and where it came from. And perhaps more importantly, how I can access it readily and incorporate it into my everyday life.

That’s why I wanted to walk the Camino allowing my PGS to guide me. And I’m hoping that in making the film, some of my questions will be answered.

I've just left Facebook.

This is a direct consequence of my walking the Camino.

Before walking the Camino, I was all over Facebook. When I came back, I couldn't bring myself to go on FB. Everything seemed trivial and ego-driven.

I'm keeping my business related Facebook accounts open. But my personal account, the one where I did all my activity and had all my so-called “friends,” as of twenty minutes ago has been de-activated.

And you know what? I feel GREAT about it.

Thank you Camino!

I’ve given some thought at to whether I should post this – because I don’t want this blog to be about me – there are many more important things to discuss!

However in the previous post there was some discussion about the photo Jennifer took of me at the airport, and how tense and uptight I looked.

So I went back and found a shot of myself on the day I left St. Jean Pied de Port. Then I found a couple of shots taken of me shortly after arriving in Santiago. And I thought it might be interesting to post “before” and “after” shots, to see if there were any physical indications of a transformation.

I think there are.

For a start, and I mentioned this in a response to a comment made yesterday by Sister Clare, even though it was an overcast day in St. Jean the morning I left, I was wearing sunglasses. Yet when I arrived in Santiago, on a bright sunny day, I wasn’t.

That’s just an obvious difference. There are others too.

So again, please understand I don’t post these shots out of vanity, but to begin a discussion about the transformative powers of walking the Camino.

By the way – Jennifer says my life can now be divided into a Before-the-Camino Bill and an After-the-Camino Bill. She sees the changes as being that dramatic.

Hi – my name is Jennifer Cluff. I’m married to Bill. And he’s asked me to write this blog.  And so I do reluctantly.  Writing and me are are not good friends.

First I would like to thank you all for helping Bill remember his spiritual self through this blog.  Your kindness in sharing your energy with him is extraordinary.  And when he reads out to me some of the responses he receives, I get a tangible reminder of how the world is changing in a most wonderful way. I find it wonderful that people are communicating and sharing their innermost feelings on this blog. People we don’t know. People across the other side of the world. Really, it’s amazing. And it’s wonderful.

I must state very emphatically that I’m not a Camino walker.  I have no desire to be so.  I love Spain, I love Spanish food, I love walking, I love walking meditation, I love being on my own, I love the idea of the adventure of an albergue, I just LOVE churches, I love not washing my hair, but I have no desire whatsoever to walk the Camino. Bill had a strong calling. I don’t, and never had.

When I said good-bye to Bill at Sydney airport I was so relieved that I didn’t have to hear about the Camino for at least 24 hours, until he landed.

He drove me crazy for 6 months with his packing and unpacking, his weighing and discussions about all that he had weighed.  On and on and on.  When I kissed him goodbye at the airport, I was so happy he was finally on his way and our conversations could be about the reality of the Camino rather than the anxiety of what may happen.

(Actually, my last memory of saying goodbye to Bill is this: He wanted me to take a photo of him with his backpack just about to enter Immigration. I took the photo but he wasn’t happy with it. He told me it was out out of focus and there was too much “headroom.” He wanted me to take another one, which I did, and he wasn’t happy with that one either. So I took yet another, which he checked, then another one, then another one until I got one with just the right amount of “headroom,” but it was still “soft.” If his plane hadn’t been about to board I would have been there all afternoon. As he disappeared into Immigration and I walked away, I really felt sorry for any pilgrim who had to take his photo on the Camino!)

So finally he was gone and at last I had space where Bill wouldn’t be coming into the room wanting to talk about the Camino. You have no idea how obsessive he became. No matter what we talked about, no matter who we talked to, Bill could weave the Camino into any conversation. But at last I was free of all that.

During his pilgrimage, I would ring him 3 times a day 4.30pm, 7.30pm and 10.30pm.  There were times when he was very distraught with his pain, and there were times when he genuinely didn’t feel he could finish. I would tell him simply this was something he chose to do. And that he COULD overcome his pain, and he COULD finish, because I simply knew he could.

For me, intuitively I knew I had to make the most of my time alone to go on my own adventure.  And this I did.  I believe everyday is a pilgrimage and with Bill away, I was given an opportunity to devote more time each day to meditation and contemplation, and so I grabbed it.

I never doubted Bill would complete the Camino.  What I did wonder though was whether he would be able to bring his pilgrim self home with him. Could he bring his new found tolerance and relaxation back to his normal routine?  Well he has! All I can say is that the Camino is a powerful force for transformation.

All of us are living through a time of extraordinary change. It is hard to stay calm while the world as we know it is being re-shaped. Without a doubt I believe that those of you who are called to walk the energy line of the Camino are helping to ease us all gracefully through this change.

Jennifer.

I really love my wife.

But I don’t know I could walk with her.

She told me to walk the Camino by myself. She said I needed to walk by myself. And in retrospect, she was absolutely right. I would not have had the experiences I had if she’d been with me. They would have been different experiences, not necessarily better or worse, but different. 

We have different rhythms. I get up early, she gets up late. I operate on 5 hours sleep a night, she gets grumpy if she hasn’t had 9 hours. That’s a differential of 16kms.

(4 hrs x 4kms/hr.)

Extrapolate that over 33 days, and that’s 528kms. In other words, by the time I got to Santiago, she’d be at Belorado. Not even at Burgos.

For us to walk together, I’d have to either sleep in each day, or she’d have to get up earlier.

After 31 years of marriage, I know both of us well enough to know that neither would work.

I saw plenty of couples walking the Camino – married couples, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, close friends. Walking with someone else didn’t seem to impair their experience. On the contrary, it seemed to enrich it.

But here I am, starting to think about my next Camino. And she’s making noises about possibly coming.

I open this up to the blog: Should I let her???

A friend of mine works in hospitality.

That’s a genteel way of saying she works in a bar. Actually it’s a gambling bar, and it’s not very pleasant.

This friend is a very clever computer nerd. She’s a college honours graduate, but she’s taken up this bar job because it pays well, and she can’t get any other computer related work at the moment. For more than twelve months now she’s been saying she hates her job and she wants to get out. But there’s been nothing to go to.

A couple of weeks ago at work she tripped and fell down some stairs.

She hurt her foot, badly. She’s since been to doctors, podiatrists, had MRIs, the whole shebang. Not good. Her foot is damaged and it’s not going to get better any time soon. She’s not able to do her job.

She got her wish. She’s not doing hospitality anymore.

She’d programmed the Universe to enact on her wish.

Something similar happened to me. I was a young tv reporter, and all I wanted to do was make films. But I was good at my job – in fact at the time I was the best tv reporter in Australia. I’d just won the equivalent of an Emmy for TV Reporter of the Year. At the tender age of 26 I was the senior reporter on the highest rating current affairs show in the country. I was flying high, earning a lot of money, and loving it. But still I wanted to make films. Underneath it all, I felt empty. I felt there was more I could be doing with my life.

I was involved in a very bad car accident – I was a passenger in a film car that lost control and hit a telegraph post. The car was totalled and I ended up in hospital with severe spinal injuries and a smashed leg. (The root cause of my current knee problem.)  Ten days in intensive care, three months in the Spinal Unit.

I came out of hospital with the slate wiped clean. I realised that what I’d been doing was not what I really wanted to do. So I quit the show and I shifted into making documentaries, which in turn enabled me to later make feature films.

If I hadn’t had that horrendous car accident, I’d probably still be a tv reporter. And unfulfilled.

Unknown to me, I’d programmed the Universe. Sometimes if you’re comfy in what you’re doing, the Universe picks you up by the lapels and slaps you around the face. It wakes you up to your true purpose. To what you really want. Sometimes its methods are brutal, and ugly.

But hey, you asked for it…

You’re never too old to walk the Camino.

I wrote about this during my walk – The Camino is full of OLD PEOPLE!

Day 29 – The Camino is full of OLD PEOPLE.

There was a lovely comment/post the other day from a fellow who was 68 who spent 49 days walking the Camino with his wife – and they had a tremendous time. And it occurred to me that it would be great to look at this again –

What astonishes me is that people in their 60s and 70s leave the comfort of their homes and battle the elements, and any health or past injury issues they might have, and hike up and down mountains, staying in basic dorm style accommodation, carrying heavy back packs, as they walk this ancient pilgrimage route.

Walking the Camino is not easy. It’s not easy for a young person. It’s not easy for someone fit and strong. Much less someone in their 60s and 70s.

And yet I hear stories, and I’ve personally witnessed, pilgrims in their 70s leaving the young kids behind – walking longer, walking stronger, and with more determination.

On my Camino, when I think back on those that took buses, trains, and taxis, invariably it was the young ‘uns. A lovely fellow called Bob, himself in his late 60s, said the older folk have determination and grit. That’s what keeps them going.

It it a generational thing? Do the Gen Y kids lack determination and focus?

Mind you, I met a fellow in his thirties – he’d walked from Le Puy – and he was nailing it. Walking 35-40km each day effortlessly. So it’s not fair to make generalisations about generations!

I heard amazing stories of handicapped people doing the Camino, of people in their 80s, and also of those who’d suffered some dreadful personal tragedy which in its own way would be crippling.

What enables these people to do this most arduous of walks?

It’s the spirit of the Camino that I believe infuses them with something quite magical. It restores their strength. It gives them courage each day. It makes them younger.

It makes them capable of things they would never think possible.

You’re never too old to walk the Camino, and I would add to that – you’re never too infirm, either.

(below is a photo I took at Lourdes – an ancient source of restorative water…)

Some of you might think you have things to learn from me.

Perhaps you do, but I have more things to learn from you.

Every person who posts on this blog, I learn from. In responding to posts, I learn. In observing interchanges between you, I learn. From Sister Clare, I learn. From Steve, I learn. I learn from all of you.

Each of you is a teacher – my teacher.

The Camino was the big teacher. And its lessons continue from afar.

Some of those lessons continue through you.

So thank you.

Bill