The Camino has a way of forming friendships that can run very deep, very fast.

And I’ve discovered that you don’t even need to meet these friends in Spain or Portugal or France. You can meet them online.

Through this blog I’ve made some wonderful friends. And now on this current work trip to the US, I’m getting to meet some of them face to face.

Earlier this week I finally got to meet Michael and Kathryn Schlesinger. Michael writes under the name Rambler59. I’d always thought that meant he was a rambler – a nomad – and he was either born in 1959, or he was 59 years old.

Turns out his pride and joy – apart from his wife and family – is a glorious old 1959 Rambler station wagon.

Jennifer and I had a gap in our schedule so I contacted them – they live down at Newport Beach – and were free to meet at short notice, so we drove down.

Wonderful people – and they had the Camino “shine” which was apparent immediately upon meeting them. (What is it with this Camino shine? How come I don’t have it? Maybe it’s because I drink too much Coke Zero…)

Michael and Kathy treated us to a fabulous afternoon – they took us out onto Newport Harbour on a little electric boat – we had Proseco and nibblies – and we chatted incessantly.

Then they took us to The Wedge – a very famous surfing beach which has the most insane wave for belly-boarders.

Then later we went out to a cool Mexican restaurant for dinner.

The evening concluded with me corralling their large screen computer, going on YouTube, and playing them parts of the Aussie Rules Grand Final, in which of course the Sydney Swans won.

They’d never seen anything like Aussie Rules footy before. It was a little confusing for them. I guess it is an odd code of football. But for me, it was a triumphant way to finish the evening, although I did hear Jennifer muttering  in the background… “Bill, I thought you promised me that if you walked the Camino, I’d never have to apologise for you again.”

We drove away from the Schlesinger’s house feeling like we were leaving old friends behind. The bond that the Camino forms, even across cyberspace, is palpably strong.

Then yesterday we drove out to Palm Springs to meet up with Steve and his former wife Jill. Steve had flown in from Houston specifically to introduce us to Jill who, like me, is more beautiful in the flesh than in photos.

Jill is a stunningly beautiful woman in every way – and she’s whip smart. So smart I began to wonder why she’d ever married Steve… (Steve, maaaaaate)… but once again, on meeting her I felt like I’d known her for years, because of this blog, and because I’d followed her adventures on her blog when she and Steve walked the Camino together last year, trying to figure out if they should stay together or not.

We then went to a very cool old styled hotel and had drinks around the pool. It was happy hour and we dutifully got happy. Jill told me this was where Sinatra and the Rat Pack used to hang out in the 50s and 60s.

They then took me on a tour of Palm Springs and showed me some extraordinary houses, owned by the rich and famous. Then we had a great dinner together and I discovered “misters.” Not misters as in misters and missuses – but tiny jets of water spray that make the desert air less dry. 

Again we talked and talked – and Jill has indicated she wants to join us on the Assisi tour next year – which would be amazing.

Steve won’t come. He hates walking. And also, it might rain… and I can’t guarantee sunshine every day in Italy. My weather powers only reside on the Camino.

If I can now step to one side and make the observation here that in the several hours I was with them yesterday, they were cuddling each other and cooing and picking the parsley out of each others teeth and carrying on like damn teenagers. And they’ve just divorced.

I told them they’re the poster couple for those aspiring to an amicable divorce. Steve says he has no expectations – he takes each day as it comes – and he’s learnt that you never know what the future holds…

Personally I would not be surprised if one day they get back together again, but hey, I’m a romantic. They do make a beautiful couple though.

This photo below doesn’t do them justice. They are far more beautiful in the flesh than in photos…  like me.

From Palm Springs Jennifer and I make our way north up into Washington State, where we’ll meet up with Lynda Lozner and her husband Dale.

Lynda has been active on this blog almost from the start – and I’m very excited to meet her and Dale. We’re going to have dinner at the Twin Peaks diner. And have a damn good cup of coffee and some cherry pie.

How cool is that?!

Further to yesterday’s post about erasing your past – it’s generated some discussion – which is wonderful. But let’s think about it within the Camino context. Think about this:

Walking the Camino requires you to erase your past.

For that period when you’re walking, the past does not exist. It doesn’t exist for a number of reasons:

The Camino returns you to a primitive state.
Your existence, your survival if you like, is contingent on the basic necessities of life – food, water, shelter. When you’re in a primitive state, nothing else matters.The past doesn’t matter. The future only matters to determine your survival needs.

Where will I sleep tonight? Will I get a bed? Where will I eat? Will the stores be open in the next village? How much water should I carry up that mountain? Will there be a fountain part way up the track? Do I need to rest a day? Am I getting sick? Will this blister become infected? How much food can I carry before my backpack becomes too heavy?

These are survival questions. The past doesn’t matter. There’s no room for thinking about the past when you’re in survival mode. And the Camino requires you to shift into survival mode. Into your primitive state. Into your true state. As a human being. And as a being. 

The Camino strips you of status.
You are like everyone else. Whether you’re wealthy, whether you’re on welfare, whether you have a good job, whether you’re unemployed – on the Camino none of that matters. You all are essentially the same.

You all wear essentially the same clothing. You all wear the same “uniform.” There are no diamond earrings or pearls. There are no Dior outfits. No Zegna suits. Who knows if your boots cost $50 or $500? More importantly, who cares? None of that matters.

What you’ve accumulated in your life, whether it be possessions or power or position – status – it means nothing on the Camino. What separates you is your wisdom, your empathy, your generosity, your spirit. Who you really are. 

The Camino reduces your past.
Most people who walk the Camino do so wanting a question answered. They may not know it when they start off, they may not be aware that they’re wanting a question answered, but invariably that question presents itself – and sometimes the answer too, but often the answer comes much later. Sometimes weeks, sometimes months, sometimes years later.

That question is a function of your past, and will determine your future. What should I do with my life? Should I continue with my relationship? Should I change jobs, change careers? Do I really love that person? What do I need in my life to make me truly happy?

In the process of examining your past, within the spiritual crucible of the Camino, the past disappears. Like a chemical process. Like alchemy. Apply heat, within the crucible, the past reduces, breaks down, combusts, and becomes something else. A new element in your life. And in becoming a new element it ceases to be what it once was.

The Camino forces you to overcome your past.
If you want to continue, if you want to finish, if you want to achieve your goal of reaching Santiago, you must overcome your past. Your past might be blisters, it might be injury, it might be a flagging spirit, it might be a backpack that’s too heavy, it might simply be fear.

If walking the Camino is representative of your journey through life, then the blisters, the injuries, the burden, the flagging spirit, become representative of aspects of your life – your obstacles, your trepidations, the material and metaphysical burdens that you have chosen for your life.

Because they are all choices that you’ve made. Life hasn’t put obstacles in your path. You have chosen to put obstacles in your path. You have chosen to burden yourself with material possessions. You have chosen to become dispirited.

If you want to reach Santiago, you have to overcome these things. You have to choose to get rid of your past. You cannot choose to allow the past to stop you. The Camino forces this upon you. It forces you to make a decision – will I allow the past to stop me? Will I allow the past to shackle me? Will the past overcome me, or will I overcome the past?

Very few people who reach Santiago arrive with the past they had when they started their pilgrimage. The Camino has forced them to overcome their past.

On the Camino, the past doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you keep putting one foot in front of the other.

(this is my last posting before Jennifer and I depart for the US.)

The past does not exist.
This is what Jennifer has been telling me lately.
“Let go your past.”

When you let go your past, you’re letting go of everything that is in your past. You’ll be letting go of the anxiety, the stress, the suffering, the confusion, the abandonment, the disappointment.

The joy that you believe is in your past isn’t in your past at all.

All the good things that have happened in your past – the moments of triumph, the times when you were in love, when you were happy, when you experienced joy and laughter, the times when you felt safe – they are always with you. You cannot, no matter how hard you try, get rid of them.

The joyful things don’t belong to your past, they belong to your now. They’re your life force, your light, your energy field – your true self. All the rest is a dirty overcoat, which is trying to keep you in the past.

When you’re young, you have no past. You have yet to accumulate those things that will later try to keep you in the past – those things that you’ll dwell on: the mistakes, the failures, the rejections, the humiliations.

They’re yet to hobble you. So you can achieve things unfettered. Without thinking about the past. Without the spectre of failure, personal humiliation, rejection.

Later in life, the past inhabits you.
It inhibits you.

“Oh I can’t do that because last time I tried that, I failed.” or… “We’d better not take that financial risk because we tried that once before and we lost everything.” or… “things never worked out last time I tried that…”

The past can be insidious. In later life it can bring you to your knees. It can cripple you. The past can leave you old. And bitter. And cynical. It can leave you so moribund with fear you can’t get off the couch and step outside the house.

We all get stopped by our life. We all get reminded of our past.

But what if we erased our past? What if we were young again? What if we began to think like we thought when we were 26 years old. When nothing could stop us. When everything was possible…

What if we were unstoppable again? What if the past did not exist – and everything was fresh and new and possible again? Back then there were no barriers. There were no fears. There was only ever opportunity, which we took, brazenly.

We can step out of that dirty overcoat, and take on the bright shiny mantle of “now.”

But first we just need to let go of our past.

The last tour was a blast.

We all had a truly memorable time. And we’ve all become friends. More than friends. There is a bond between us which is hard to describe.

Jennifer and I are now starting to think of the next one.

Next year we’re definitely doing a walk from Florence to Assisi, then to Rome. That will be in April. We already have four people who have committed to that tour – and our maximum number will be nine.

We found on the last tour that keeping the number of people to under ten makes for a far more enriching experience. It’s best to keep the group small.

The last trour went smoothly because Jennifer and I did two full scouts prior to the tour commencing. We did our homework. We drove the route, and checked out every hotel, we went into bedrooms, examined their bathrooms, made notes of which had baths as against showers, whether they would do an early breakfast for us, whether the staff were pilgrim friendly etc.

We prepared as thoroughly as we could.

Financially, it meant we made a loss on the tour, but the prep work had to be done, and it had to be done properly. Just like making a movie. But now we have the infrastructure in place should we wish to do another Camino Portuguese tour.

It will be the same with the Assisi Tour.

Jennifer and I will have to go over there well beforehand and scout it fully, and we’ll even probably walk some sections. We will need to check out hotels, where to eat, and we’ll also need to find an Italian Catarina. That will be hard. She was fantastic. But we’ll need someone who speaks Italian, and who knows the region.

We will also start thinking about a Celtic Camino.

We’re thinking it will involve a series of separate walks around the West Coast of Ireland – possibly on the Beara Ring, the Kerry Ring, and the Dingle Peninsula. It won’t be one continuous walk – it will be four or five separate walks on those three peninsulas – taking the van between the different locations.

We’ll then fly the group from Ireland to A Coruna in the north of Spain, bus the 50kms or so to Ferrol, then walk the Camino Ingles into Santiago. That’s a short Camino – about 100kms or so. But it means we get a Compostela.

We’ll ask Catarina to do that one. She speaks English – kind of!

Again though, Jennifer and I will have to return to Ireland and set that up – figure out the walks, line up hotels, work out the itinerary etc. The Irish part of the walk would end with a long walk along the Cliffs of Moher – which are incredible.

That won’t be a cheap tour. Ireland is two to three times more expensive than Spain, and then we’ll have airfares too. But it should be an amazing tour.

As for when we’d do that – possibly September 2015.

More immediately, we’re thinking we might do another Portuguese Camino Tour in October. Catarina has put her hand up to say she’s available – but it would depend on whether we got sufficient interest. We’d need about eight people to make it viable.

Jennifer and I enjoyed the last tour so much, we’d like to do some more. But we can only offer a tour if we’ve fully prepped it. This is not stuff you can do on the internet.

And in the case of Ireland, it’s very important we check out the pubs!

It’s fascinating now, with a bit of perspective time-wise – to look back on the tour and reflect on the group experience.

When you walk in a group, as part of a tour, there’s a whole other dynamic going on that you don’t experience when you walk alone.

There are the obvious things: often you’re walking with others and so you don’t have the time or opportunity to contemplate or reflect, because your energies and attention are deflected to whoever you might be with.

But the upside of that is that the other person might be providing you with insights, or dare I say it, beads of wisdom, that could end up being incredibly beneficial to you. Or you might be walking with a few people, and you might be bouncing around ideas or beliefs that you wouldn’t have considered had you been walking alone.

Same at lunch or dinner – group discussions can be fascinating, revealing, and insightful.

You might say that this can happen if you walk alone, and you meet up with people who you befriend along the way. But it’s not the same thing.

As a group you start off together – you’re bonded from the outset if for no other reason than you are a collective – and unlike friends you meet along the way, who you might not see for a week before you meet up with them again, with a tour group you’re with each other every day, and most meals too.

What this creates is familiarity, deeper friendships, and sometimes a level of intimacy that you wouldn’t otherwise experience. And by intimacy, I’m talking about being able to confide in someone. Being able to trust someone with your innermost thoughts and feelings. And being able to share moments of fun and pure joy.

Yes of course that also happens on the Camino when you walk alone – and sometimes there’s intimacy with strangers. Because they are strangers. Someone will pour out their heart to you because they know most probably they’ll never see you again. You become their Camino Confessional Box.

But that’s a whole other ballgame to the group experience.

One of the other major benefits of the group experience is that you begin to act like a family, and you begin to care for one another in ways that would’t necessarily happen if you were walking alone.

Yes if you walk alone you can be the recipient of acts of kindness and generosity – again often from complete strangers – but I’m talking about the caring and deep rooted empathy that comes from a bonded “family” experience.

I saw this first hand. The Camino began to work it’s magic on one of the group – this person began to unhinge, and a whole lot of stuff that had been lying deep within began to surface. Someone else on the tour recognised this – knew that person needed help – and gently stepped in and provided much needed guidance and support.

Because of the group experience, there was trust and familiarity between the two of them that allowed it to happen.

I’ve been aware too that now after the tour, that caring and providing of support between some in the group is continuing. Which is wonderful to see.

Fact is, you can be by yourself in the group experience. You just walk off on your own. it happened a lot. Everyone else recognised immediately that the person needed to be on their own for a while. They understood, and respected that.

And when we arrived in Santiago, there was no dilution of the impact of that arrival because we were a group. If anything it was intensified, because of the shared experience. Because we not only knew what we’d been through to get there, we also knew what the others had been through as well – as individuals, but also perhaps more importantly, as the group. The family.

We had become an an entity – a unit – a strange kind of animal that the Camino had spawned. We were separate pilgrims, yes, but we were also an organism that had registered it’s own experiences. The shared experience, as against the personal experience.

And the shared experience was truly memorable.

Apologies. I’ve been lax this last week with the blog – for two reasons.

Firstly, I’ve had my head down preparing for this coming trip to the US. Jennifer and I leave Mudgee on Thursday, and fly out this Friday. We’ll be away nearly a month. So there’s been a lot of boring office work to do, but also a lot of stuff to organise and prepare in advance of coming to the States.

The trip is to speak to potential investors in the PGS film. I will post separately on that later.

One of the things I’ve been doing this past week is sorting through all the photos taken on the tour, and selecting the best shots of everyone, day by day. I’ll put these photos onto USB sticks and send them out to each person who did the tour.

In going through the shots as I did, I became very emotional. Such a lot happened in such a short period of time. We had some incredible experiences.

I don’t know what it’s like for the others, but that two weeks has created resonances within me that are getting stronger every day. It was enormous fun, yes, but it was also a very powerful time spiritually – when the Camino worked its subtle magic. It unhinged things within me, and I suspect within others too.

The second reason I haven’t posted this past week is because unlike last year, I don’t want to post daily anymore.

There were times last year when I found I put up posts just to fill the space each day. I don’t want to do that anymore. I only want to post when I have something to say. Something that I believe is worth saying.

I will post regularly from the US – and I’ll also be putting posts up on my road food blog. And I’ll be posting photos here too. I’m looking forward to putting my “eye” to work in the US!

I’ll also be looking forward to meeting some of you. As the itinerary becomes more clear, I’ll post approximate dates of where Jennifer and I will be, but it looks like we’ll be doing a lot of driving over a short period of time.

We start off in Los Angeles – do a quick side trip to Palm Springs to see Steve & jill, then we head up to Oregon and Washington State, across to the Tri-Cities, then over to Provo in Utah, then possibly to Kansas City, then back to Los Angeles, possibly via Newport.

A big trip in a short time. But it will be a huge amount of fun.

Okay – now I have to prepare a couple of posts which I’ll put up shortly. Only a few days to go before we leave for this trip – yikes, there’s so much to do!

As many of you might know, after the Portuguese Camino my wife Jennifer and I went to Ireland.

I’d never been to Ireland before, and had always wanted to go. For some inexplicable reason, I was drawn to the place.

About ten days before arriving, I set about booking our accommodation.

Our flight had us getting into Dublin about 5pm. I didn’t want to stay in Dublin though the first night – I wanted to stay somewhere out of town, in a small village, and get a real sense of the Irish countryside, and the people.

I looked at various options within about 90 minutes drive of Dublin, and finally settled on a little B&B in a tiny village called Avoca in County Wicklow, south of Dublin. The B&B in fact was situated just outside the village, at a place called The Meeting of the Waters. 

This place, for some reason, called to me.

I should explain that when I plan a trip, or when I organise accommodation, I always allow my PGS – my intuition – to guide me. I disengage my logical practical self, and use my intuitive processes.

That’s what I did in this instance. I don’t know why I chose Avoca, and The Meeting of the Waters – as I say, it just called to me. It just felt right to stay there on the first night in Ireland.

We flew into Dublin, picked up a rental car, and drove to Avoca. It turned out to be a picture postcard little village – famous for being the location for the tv show Ballykissangel, which I’ve never seen.

Avoca was just as I’d imagined an Irish village to be – beautiful.

We then drove a couple of kilometres out of the village, following a river through some of the most exquisite countryside I’d ever seen. The B&B was a restored farmhouse, and it lay at the confluence of two streams – hence its name, The Meeting of the Waters. 

The following morning Jennifer and I walked around to the junction of the two streams, and discovered that it was the place where the Irish poet and writer, Thomas Moore, wrote many of his famous works, including a poem called The Meeting of the Waters. 

I stood there, at this meeting of the two waters, and immediately felt comfortable there. Like I had a connection to this place which went back centuries. Like I belonged there.

It was a very strange feeling.

Some of you who read my blog posts from Ireland might recall me writing at the time that I felt like I had come home. In fact on April 27th I wrote:

I feel at home here.
For some reason, I feel like I have come home.
That I was always here.

Cut to:

Mothers Day. This past Sunday. I called my mum to wish her happy Mothers Day. She was out having lunch with my family in Brisbane. I spoke to her for a while, and then for some reason I had the urge to speak to my sister, Anne.

I hadn’t spoken to Anne for several months. In fact she didn’t even know that I’d been away, or that I’d been to Ireland.

Those of you who are followers of this blog might recall that prior to my first Camino, I’d been estranged from my sister Anne for decades. We’d always fought. The Camino in fact reunited us. Brought us back together. I regard it still as the single most beneficial gift the Camino gave me – my sister.

Anne has spent many many years researching our family tree and ancestry – our genealogy. She asked about Ireland and said: You know that’s where our family came from…

In fact I didn’t know that. For some reason I’d always thought we’d come from Wales, or Scotland. I’ve never really taken any interest in our family heritage. But Anne has. She’s been dogged in finding out where we came from.

And then she said: Yes, we come from a small village in County Wicklow. Avoca.

What? I said. Avoca? Are you kidding me? 

And then she told me about my forebear – Mary Fairfield, married to a man named Donovan. They were tenant farmers and had a small farm just outside of Avoca.

I was stunned.

Of all the myriad of places I could have chosen to stay that first night in Ireland, I’d chosen the place where I’d come from.

This was seriously spooky.

And then I began to wonder: could that B&B have been Mary Fairfield’s farmhouse? Could I have actually stayed in my ancestors’ home?

(a photo taken from my bedroom window of the B&B)

I’ve said before that I’m constantly surprised at how my PGS guides me. Some of you have said to me that I shouldn’t be surprised, that I should just accept it.

But incidents like this just knock me sideways.

Of all the places I could have chosen to spend the first night in Ireland, I was led to the place where I belonged. To my ancestral home…

Here is an excerpt from Thomas Moore’s poem, The Meeting of the Waters – 

There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet,
As the vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet;
Oh, the last rays of feeling and life must depart,
Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart.

The vignetting is a little bit corny, I know – but hey, it visualises a very fruity poem so I figured sentimentality was okay in this instance…

Jennifer and I are coming to the US in less than 2 weeks now.

We’ll be in LA for a few days, then we’re driving north up through Oregon into Washington State, then across to Utah, then back to LA. All up about 4 weeks.

The trip is to speak to potential investors in my forthcoming PGS film, but if possible I would love to meet up with any of you that might be on our way, or near to where we’re going.

Already I’ve made some tentative arrangements to see a few of you.

My caveat is that the trip is for work, and so any arrangements would have to fit into a changing schedule – but if at all possible, it would be wonderful to meet some of you!

Let me know on – billpgsblog@gmail.com

Last year I walked the Camino Frances by myself.

I found it to be a profound and transformative experience. The resonances remain with me, even now.

This year I walked the Camino Portuguese with a group. In fact I led a group.

I found it to be no less a profound experience. But It’s interesting to now look back and compare the two pilgrimages.

Firstly, the Camino Frances was a longer distance – some 800kms – and it took longer. For me, including rest days, 31 days. The Camino Portuguese is shorter – 240kms – and it took us 13 days, including 1 rest day.

You’d think that the Camino Frances, because it’s longer and tougher, would provide you with all the ingredients to induce change – a greater change than a shorter pilgrimage.

But I didn’t find that to be the case.

The Camino Portuguese packs a lot into its 240kms. (That’s from Porto to Santiago.)

There are some long tough stages, and some climbs that really push you hard. After climbing to Roncesvalles, and to O Cebreiro, I didn’t think the Portuguese Camino could throw anything at me that would be as difficult as those stages.

But I found the climb to Rubiaes tough-going. As well, there were many stages which were predominantly on hard surfaces – bitumen, cement, and often cobblestones. The cobblestones were a killer on the feet. They induced blisters on many of those on the tour.

The stage from Vila do Conde to Barcelos was particularly difficult – a long walk, and largely on tar or cobblestones. We were knackered at the end of it. And that was day 2.

Also, there were sometimes fewer options on the Camino Portuguese to shorten your stages. The Camino Frances, because it’s so popular, has albergues most of the way along. You can choose to walk a shorter distance if you want.

The infrastructure on the Portuguese Camino – accommodation and cafes etc – isn’t so well developed, particularly for our tour group which required hotels, not albergues. (Yes I know, we’re not true pilgrims. To you I say bah! 🙂 )

So we had a few long stages, particularly early on.

But this I think intensified the experience, and began the transformation process in a few of those in the group after only a couple of days. I noticed this, I read the signals, but I was always a distant observer. I never wanted to pry. I just saw changes starting to happen…

You can have a transcendent experience in a flash. In a moment. You don’t need to walk 1000kms from Seville to have a life altering experience. That’s what I learned from the Camino Portuguese – and I have to say it surprised me.

I didn’t realise it would be as intense, both physically and spiritually, as it turned out to be.

The Camino Portuguese is not a “mini-me” Camino Frances. It has its own history, its own culture and food, it has very potent links to Santiago – St. James and his relics – that are unique to that part of the world.

It is a very special pilgrimage, and it can be as transformative, as spiritually awakening, as the longer Caminos.

The last shot of Donna on her guest post was a cropped picture I took of her and Greg on the second last day in Santiago.

Here is the shot in full…