Here are my twelve favourite shots from the time in Italy ~

They are, of course, idiosyncratic, and probably not shots you would have chosen, but they touch my soul.

By the way, for those interested in the technicals – all these photos were taken with a Sony compact camera, the RX100 Mk3. It has a 1″ sensor, and a Zeiss 24-70mm lens.

It all went too quickly.

And yet at the time, there were days when it was a hard slog.

In nine days we climbed a total of nearly 6kms.
And we descended a total that was a bit over 6kms.

Each day on our walk we averaged an O Cebreiro. Up and down. Anyone who has climbed up O’Cebreiro on the Camino Frances knows what that means.

And what it feels like!

Ok – no more whinging.

It was magnificent – in part because of all the mountains and valleys. It has to be the most stunningly beautiful walk I’ve ever done.

I will always remember looking out across valleys threaded with streams, over green patchworked hilltops shrouded in mist and dotted with old stone farmhouses, to distant mountains, and crumbling castles silhouetted against threatening skylines.

There were no big cities, no ugly industrial zones, often no noise other than cuckoo birds and the tinkling of streams. And the ever present rustle of wind through trees.

No pilgrims too.

We only met up with a few pilgrims in the last couple of days. For the rest of the time we were the only people on the track.

I felt a deep connection to this walk that transcended mere beauty.
There was something else at play here.

The walk began casually, after a gorgeous Tuscan lunch, with a short sharp climb from the township of La Verna up through mist to the monastery that sat atop a heavily wooded mountain.

We arrived in swirling mist – walking into the square in front of the monastery’s church, at the edge of which was a large knobbled wooded cross.

As with everything to do with St. Francis, that cross was unadorned, simple, and humble.

The monastery was where St. Francis experienced his stigmata, and where he often stayed for long periods.

At 3pm every day, the monks conduct a short service in the church, then walk in procession carrying a large cross along a covered corridor to a chapel – something which they’ve done every day for hundreds of years.

We attended that service, and trailed along behind in the procession.

And later we explored the monastery – and began to get a strong sense of St. Francis, and what this place meant to him. That evening we bedded down in the monastery after a delicious but simple meal.

The following morning – the first day of our walk – dawned sunny with blue skies. In the few days prior, it had been raining and drizzly. But from that first day on till the end of the walk, we would have no rain.

After an austere monastic breakfast, we set off to walk the 185kms to Assisi – a walk which would take us 10 days, including one rest day in Gubbio.

We walked some 400m out of the monastery, found a roadside cafe, and stopped for 20 minutes to have a decent coffee!

Then the walk truly began.

Over the next several days, until we got to Assisi, we would find churches, shrines by the track, and towns which held dear the spirit of St. Francis.

You didn’t need to be a Catholic, (which I’m not), or even particularly religious, (which I’m not), to be affected by the energy of St. Francis that pervaded this path. It’s a walk he did many times, from his monastery to Assisi, and his soul imprint lies within and without.

We were conscious that we were following in his very footsteps.

In many ways this for me was a far more intense experience than the Camino Frances.

Why?

Perhaps because it’s so short. 185kms is not far, and yet the geography of the route is physically demanding at times. So you pack a lot in over a short distance.

Perhaps also I found it more intense because the walk is connected to an historical figure. It’s personal.

The life of St. Francis of Assisi is well documented. We know a lot about what he did, what sort of person he was, where he went and why he did what he did.

With the Camino Frances you’re walking with a concept.
With the Via di Franceso you’re walking with a man.

The two are no less spiritual in their gestalt – and I’m not saying one is a better experience than the other. I’m just saying that for me, kilometre for kilometre, the Via di Francesco punched well above its weight.

What makes any walk a great experience though are the people.
And I was surrounded by wonderful wonderful people.

Things I remember:

Elena driving the “Special” Bus with Monaco Grand Prix nerves of steel. And chasing those people at the Mozzarella Farm to ask them if they would sell us some of their stash…

Elena’s calm and elegant manner, and her exhaustive attention to detail, helped make the tour run as smoothly as it did…

Patty Talbot’s quick laugh and sharp wit. And her indomitable spirit and courage.

And let’s not forget the night we told her about Drop Bears….
We couldn’t stop laughing.

Then there was Angela Mitchell’s unwavering care, kindness, and generosity. And the flowers in her pack… I discovered that she’s not only weird and whacky, but she’s also a closet hippy…

And her husband Ken, and the way he’d turn his back on me and laugh as he walked away when I said something truly offensive. And how he climbed those mountains with a dicky knee and never once complained.

I was grateful for Peter Lander’s steadiness and strength – and again his wonderful sense of humour. Oh, and his newly bought Nordic walking poles, which I’m sure will change his life…

Our dear Marie Dominique Rigaud – and her good natured negotiations with waiters each evening to get food she could eat. And her roadside yoga…

Ivan & Giovanna – our time with them was way too short. They brought laughter and light to our walk, and we missed them terribly when they had to leave –

The glorious welcome given to me by Sigrid, an Austrian pilgrim I’d met on the Camino Frances. She and her husband happened to be in the area, and they detoured so that they could have lunch with us.

And Jennifer.
What can I say about Jennifer, other than she shone the whole way…

I would also like to thank Sandy Brown, from Seattle, who has written a guide book for this walk, called The Way of St. Francis. The book will be published in the fall, I believe.

Sandy very kindly gave me access to a pre-publication version of the book, which covers the route from Florence to Rome in exhaustive detail. We would have got lost several times if not for Sandy’s book.

I have no doubt it will become the “bible” of this route, in the way John Brierley’s guide has become essential reading for anyone walking the Camino Frances.

Sandy also provided me with GPX tracks for the route, which I then loaded into my iPhone, and this made it impossible to get lost. So his generosity and kindness were very much appreciated not only by me, but by everyone on the tour.

For anyone interested in doing this walk, Sandy’s blog is:
http://caminoist.org

Thank you Sandy.

It was a great bunch of people on this tour. Some of us were friends from the previous tour. Those friendships have only deepened. Patty came in new, and within one or two days she was a mate to us all – like she was someone we’d known and walked with for years.

This was a powerful experience, this walk.

It was fun.
It was hard.
It was spiritual.
It was beautiful.

We ate well, we had good wines, and we laughed more than is socially acceptable, and sometimes we were naughty and politically incorrect, and sometimes we were politically appalling, but always we cared for each other.

The Via di Francesco is a walk I’ll never forget.

I have decided to take myself off all social media.

I will of course continue to blog, but these blogs won’t be seen anymore on Facebook or Twitter.

Social media wastes a lot of time, for little benefit.

And I find that it’s inherently narcissistic.

For me it’s an unnecessary distraction, and I’ve come back with a lot to do –

So bye bye Facebook and Twitter.

Already I feel liberated…

Seems that while we were away, and particularly over the past few days, Mudgee had very heavy rains.

And they’ve taken out the phone lines in our area.

I was able to post the previous post using my iPhone as a hotspot, but I can’t upload large images – and so my plan of posting more pics of the Assisi tour will have to wait until the lines are restored.

Good for the famers, all this rain. Driving in the country looked very green and lush. Shame about the phone lines. They probably look green and lush too.

Guess I’ll just have to sit back now and watch the Swannies play Hawthorne, home of the Landers Express!

Crikey it’s good to be home…

Go the Swannies!

After 48 hours of travelling from Central Turkey, we’re now home in Mudgee in Central New South Wales.

The trip was effortless.

We travelled economy class, had to transfer our luggage twice (in Istanbul & Rome) and had a total of 14 hours layover – with a wait of 75 minutes in the plane on the tarmac in Rome  while Muscat fixed its radio transmitters so that we could travel safely through its airspace.

It seemed that each time we had to get on or off a plane it was via a bus, which would then take the longest possible scenic route around the airport before depositing us at the arrivals hall, or the plane. So every little difficulty that we could encounter, it seemed we encountered.

Why then was the trip effortless?

For one reason:

We surrendered.

We surrendered to the time it would take, to the obstacles that would come our way, to the irritations and discomfit of long haul flights.

It was all out of our control, so why fret?

We relaxed.

Because we relaxed we slept on the flights. And during the layovers we found cafes or restaurants, and with all our luggage on a trolly (because we couldn’t check in until at least 3 hrs before the flight) we’d have a meal, have a coffee, watch the passing parade of travellers, and chat.

And the time whizzed by.
And the flights whizzed by.

What would appear to be an horrific amount of travel in fact turned out to be a breeze.

I’d like to try and apply this attitude to other aspects of my life.

Yesterday and today have been winding down days for Jennifer and myself.

Backing up all the footage and logging it, doing expenses, that sort of thing. Oh – and sleeping in, going for long walks, exploring the markets as well!

Jennifer and I love wandering around markets – the places where the locals get their produce. It tells us a lot about the culture.

I stumbled upon the markets in Konya by accident. I just walked into an odd looking building and it opened out into a huge three story complex selling all manner of things.

All sorts of salty cheeses –

And all kinds of olives. Check the prices – from Turkish Lire it equates to about €2.50 per kilogram for the highest quality olives!

Spices and honey too –

I loved that the lemons were all hand-wrapped. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen that in a market…

This little fella was tired –

Outside, near a fish market three men sat drinking tea –

And this carpet salesman was proud of his wares…

Outside a stall, cheap bangles sparkled –

Jennifer and I discovered an alley, in the shadow of a mosque, where men sat drinking tea.

We sat down and joined them.

Right opposite a man was forging metal pans –

And at the end of the alley, a shop sold hookahs. Not to tourists, this was the real deal –

I bought a copper tea pot for the equivalent of €10. I’d brought one eight years ago when we visited Istanbul. I’ve used that teapot every day since, but its insides now are getting corroded, so it was time to replace it.

We leave first thing in the morning.

Konya to Istanbul (1.5hrs), then a five hour layover. Then Istanbul to Rome (3hrs), with a 6 hour layover. Then Rome to Dubai, 6.5 hrs, then transit 2 hrs, then Dubai to Sydney (15hrs), then Sydney to Mudgee by road, 4 hours.

I would hate to add that all up.

It’s been a hell of a trip. The tour was extraordinary, and I think I need to get back home and shake off Turkey to fully appreciate the significance of the walk.

And Turkey too has been amazing. I’ve learned a lot, I’ve got the footage and interviews I was seeking, and I’ve met some truly wonderful people in Zeyno and Fatih.

I don’t know when we’ll be travelling next – possibly in September for the Indian tour, but right at the moment I’m looking forward to settling back into Mudgee, and resuming normal programming – as normal as my programming is…

I’m sorry there’s been a delay in posting this second part.

It’s been fairly hectic these past several days in Konya, what with the filming and all.

But here are some shots which tell the story of the pilgrimage. As I said in the previous post, they’re not necessarily the best shots – I’ll be posting my personal favourites later – but they mean something to those of us who participated in this amazing Via di Francesco.

Also, these shots only take us up to Gubbio, about two thirds of the way. I’ll have to past a part 3 to complete the walk.

The photos remind me of what an extraordinary time we had – it all seemed to go so fast though. And only now, some time later, am I starting to realise what we actually did…

I’m sorry for all the typos in my recent posts.

I usually don’t finish the post until midnight or after, and I’m so damn tired I have not been as diligent with my revisions as usual.

I apologize,

Or,

I apologise.

My apologeys.

Here’s what was on the wall beside me as I had breakfast this morning – all made from ceramics, with Whirling Dervishes as leafs.

Or leaves.

Isn’t it cool?

After more than four weeks of being on the go, today was thankfully a slow day – although slow for me was hitting the sack at 12:30am last night after finishing my blog, then waking at 6am to work on the logistics of the Indian tour.

By 9am I was ready for breakfast, the last morning together with Zeyno and Fatih.

They have been incredibly generous in all ways – not the least being accompanying us to Konya and helping organise our time and our filming permissions here.

They were asked by a friend why were they doing it – what was in it for them – and Zeyno just shrugged and smiled and said there was nothing in it for them, it just felt like the right thing to do.

In other words they’d made an intuitive call on it.

Like Jennifer and me, they live intuitively, and they make decisions, big and small, by listening to their inner guidance.

In this case I’m very grateful that they did.

After breakfast I interviewed Zeyno – and it was a cracker. Her interview alone was worth the trip to Turkey. Because of her previous life in Washington as a high level political advisor, she was used to speaking on camera. And she’s a smart articulate woman. Plus she knows her stuff.

She spoke about intuition from an Islamic and Sufi perspective – and perhaps most importantly she gave very sensible and well articulated advice on how someone can learn to trust their intuition, and how they can begin to tap into their latent intuitive powers.

Her interview with contribute significantly to the film.

I’d wanted a location for the interview which featured Rumi’s mosque in the background, and so we shot on a rooftop restaurant – Mevlevi Sofrasi – just across from the mosque..

We were ably assisted by Ozcan and his staff, who kept backgrounds quiet for us, and positioned our table in the perfect spot for the interview.

Here’s another shot of Ozcan, because he’s an actor and he’s handsome – and he gave us free tea…

At dinner I asked for a beer but Konya doesn’t serve or sell any kind of alcohol. Not even beer. They do they have a great yoghurt drink, which you can mix with soda water. Yummy.

After the interview Zeyno and Fatih very kindly did a past life session on me, where they accessed my past lives and found something which I’d done in a previous life that was still impacting on me – detrimentally – in this current life.

I won’t go into details, because it’s very personal, but I was a bad boy some 350 years ago. A very bad boy. And I’ve been paying for it ever since. And harbouring a lot of guilt.

Together Zeyno and Fatih determined what I’d done, and why I’d done it, and they placed it before me so that I could see it, feel it, taste it, touch it, and then apologise for it. And then they released me from the guilt.

Strangely, while this was happening I felt a sudden exhaustion, and then hot flushes running up the right side of my body, right up to my neck.

It was very odd.

The whole session took about half an hour, and at the end of it I was yawning with tiredness – which they said was only me releasing energies. I have to admit it was fascinating, and I felt much lighter after it was over – like something oppressive that had been weighing me down for a long long time had been lifted.

Zeyno and Fatih can do these sessions via Skype, so if you’re interested in finding out what past life karma you’re still holding, then get in touch with me, and I will put you in touch with them. You might think it’s Weird and Whacky, but it works.

We then said our goodbyes to Zeyno and Fatih, with the possibility that we’ll meet up again later in the year in the US in Sedona – another spiritual power point.

Jennifer and I now have two days in Konya before we make our way home. We’re spending those days relaxing, preparing for the long flight, and taking stock of what we’ve learned, and what we’ve shot here in Turkey.

I haven’t really understood Islam up till now. And I don’t profess to be an instant expert by any means. In these few days  I’ve only glimpsed what Islam has to offer.

Sufism interprets the Islamic teachings in a softer more empathetic and loving form, and that’s what we’ve been dealing with in Istanbul and Konya.

I like Sufism. One of the gentlemen I spoke to, a senior Sufi, talked about being “comfortable.” Sufism makes me feel comfortable.

Here’s something which should make any sane human feel distinctly UNcomfortable –  I took this portrait of Fatih last night at the Whirling Dervish ceremony. It’s hard to believe he’s one of the gentlest souls you could meet. This can only mean one thing – that I’m a damn fine photographer.

Did I mention that one of the strong tenets of Sufism is about letting go of ego?

This morning we got up early because the Cultural Ministery gave us special permission to film at Rumi’s tomb before opening hours – before the hordes of worshippers descended on the place.

For Sufis it’s perhaps their most sacred site – and we had it all to ourselves for an hour this morning.

We then returned to the hotel – a boutique hotel right opposite the main mosque – and had one of the most extraordinary breakfasts I’ve ever had –

We then went our separate ways for a few hours – Jen and I wandered around the town and then came back to the hotel and had a nap – Zeyno, Fatih and Priyanka also had a kip – before reconvening at 3pm to meet the head of the Rumi Foundation in Konya.

The gentleman couldn’t speak English, however based on a question I asked him, he  spent quite a bit of time drawing a diagram to show me what happened to your soul after you die.

We then went to Shams tomb – Shams was the man who most influenced Rumi in the mid 13th century – and is referenced by Rumi in quite a bit of his poetry. HIs tomb is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

After all this tomb action, we were hungry, so we went and had a traditional Koyna early dinner at a fabulous restaurant, generously hosted by Zeyno and Fatih.

Here is a photo of two of our cooks –

After the lunner (lunch/dinner), we then made our way to a huge modern stadium where there was to be a large public Whirling Dervish dance ritual.

It was held in a large indoor arena – like for rock concerts or indoor sports games. The place was packed, and while the Whirling Dervishes were polished and highly professional, it smacked more of entertainment rather than a deeply humbling spiritual experience, such as we’d witnessed in that outer suburban hall in Istanbul.

Dervishes were originally ascetics. Like Indian sadhus. They were very much like Franciscan monks, renouncing all material possessions and largely begging for food.

Rumi is said to have begun the Whirling ceremony (Sema) – a form of movement meditation designed to bring the practitioner (the Semazen) closer to God. Here’s an excerpt from Wikipedia:

In the symbolism of the Sema ritual, the semazen’s camel’s hair hat (sikke) represents the tombstone of the ego; his wide, white skirt (tennure) represents the ego’s shroud. By removing his black cloak (hırka), he is spiritually reborn to the truth. At the beginning of the Sema, by holding his arms crosswise, the semazen appears to represent the number one, thus testifying to God’s unity. While whirling, his arms are open: his right arm is directed to the sky, ready to receive God’s beneficence; his left hand, upon which his eyes are fastened, is turned toward the earth. The semazen conveys God’s spiritual gift to those who are witnessing the Sema. Revolving from right to left around the heart, the semazen embraces all humanity with love. The human being has been created with love in order to love. Mevlâna Jalâluddîn Rumi says, “All loves are a bridge to Divine love. Yet, those who have not had a taste of it do not know!”

Wiki link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sufi_whirling

It’s a fascinating ceremony – and the Dervishes have to undergo intense preparation and cleansing before they can become Semazens.

The more I learn about Sufism, the more I feel aligned to it. In fact, I feel very aligned to Konya. I feel comfortable here…

This evening we said goodbye to Priyanka. She had to return to Istanbul for work. She said she might join us on part of the Indian tour, which would be fabulous.

Here is her jewellery website. She’s a very clever young lady –
http://aamaya-by-priyanka.myshopify.com