Rachael has been a regular on this blog from very early on.

She and I have jousted on several occasions. I have always respected her point of view, even though at times I have not agreed with it. We’ve sometimes had very vigorous and spirited debates, and I’ve enjoyed that.

She’s kept me honest…

🙂

I asked her to do a guest post – and for her to choose any topic she wished. So here’s what she’s written –

GUEST POST – RACHAEL AYRES

In my real life I have a reputation for being strongly principled, but often the last to enter a conversation and usually somewhat tentatively.
On this here blog the strongly principled becomes “opinionated” and the tentative nature of my discourse is lost – if you say *anything* it is (sometimes) understood to be “forcing your opinion on others.”

My real life friends expressed bewilderment when I revealed this online persona! This is the only online place (either blog or forum) that I experience being the stirrer.

I wondered why (mostly because it does not sit well with who I really am, but also because it intrigues me that I can have ended up with a reputation in this place so different to anywhere else I “hang out”).


I think it’s a) partly the nature of online communication (short, without gesture or facial expression or audible tone, and somewhat surface – I don’t mean that deep and real things are not shared here, because that clearly would be wrong – it’s more as opposed to the early American politicians who would debate for hours at a time, or even the preachers who held their audiences captive for over two hours –Neil Postman provides an interesting discussion on how the medium itself restricts or allows a particular depth of dialogue to occur)….and it’s b) mostly because I hold ideas that are different to the majority here.

But that’s not what my guest post is about!

When Bill invited me to share, I wanted to say yes as a participant of this community. Having only walked 300km, I don’t feel “expert” in things Camino, but I wondered if there was some part of my experience that might encourage this community. And there was my word. Community.

Very often, people insist that a camino is a personal thing (and it is) and it must be done your own way (and it can be) and it’s not about others (I struggle to agree with that). My feeling is that we live in a very individualistic society and rather under-value each other, the concept of community, of togetherness, of reliance on anything/anyone apart from ourselves.

This is one area of life that my husband and I decided to be intentionally counter-cultural about. Although we live in suburbia, we wanted to create community around us – we got to know our neighbours and made an effort to serve them (whether it’s feeding their cats when they go away on holiday or sharing a cup of sugar when someone runs out or looking after each others’ kids or lending a trailer so not everyone needs to own one).

We try to serve those beyond our immediate neighbourhood too – having the old lady in her eighties who lived in India for forty years over for a meal or taking her a one-person portion from our dinner….. inviting a lady recently widowed to come to the Christmas Carols in the Town Hall with our family…. having Grandpa over for dinner every night…. offering respite for a friend who is a foster carer…. inviting others to join our family holidays… running a couple of organic food co-ops so that people can afford to buy healthy food…..

These are little things, but they say to our kids, “Life’s not about us, we were made to live in community with others, we are not to just look out for ourselves.”

And so perhaps it is no surprise that we took those sentiments on our camino too. Inviting Grandpa was an honour and a blessing to us. Walking with little kids and teenagers who are supposed to not get along with adults was a treasure.

Did we experience conflict? Yes. It took us a couple of days to realise that Grandpa needed to be walking at the front of the group in order to feel like he was not falling behind – and so then we made sure that is where he stayed. Small people sometimes had their moments, but we were able to offer them encouragement and assistance.

I always would have been more comfortable walking a bit faster than we were, but we were in this together and I happily adjusted my wishes to suit the weakest members of the group.

We met people who had split from their partners because they could not – or I humbly suggest *would* not – make any changes that would inconvenience them as individuals. I am not saying it is wrong to reach such a conclusion, but I do think that not having that as an option gave us a greater understanding of each other and meant that we ended up creating shared memories.

Of course we did not walk constantly in perfect formation – our group stretched out and “rubber banded” back together – we made sure that the last person to reach a rest stop was the one to determine when the rest was over….these are little considerations that can be helpful when walking as a group.

Some of you will be walking with Bill’s tour next year. Again, I do not expect you will all walk together all the time, but as you are travelling as a group, I would encourage you to live community along the way and be sensitive to each other. It might inconvenience you, but I can assure you it will make for a richer store of memories for you all.

I’m just about to head off on a three week trip overseas –

And I’m just taking carry-on!

Usually on a business trip like this, I’d take a check-in suitcase that would weigh a minimum of 24kgs, and then I’d have my carry-on as well, which would normally weigh another 10kgs or so – packed with laptop and photographic gear and books etc.

The Camino has taught me that I don’t need so much STUFF. And here is a practical example – heading off into cold weather for 3wks, with my laptop and camera gear – and still I’ve managed to get everything into a small carry-on bag.

I’m not just shedding practical material stuff I don’t need though, I’m also heading off having just shed some fairly major emotional stuff I don’t need too.

So I head off feeling light.

Thank you once again, Camino de Santiago!

Only one day now before Jennifer and I set off on our three week trip – first to London, then to Porto to follow the Camino through to Santiago, then we’re flying to Bavaria for a few days before returning to Australia.

I’l be blogging during the trip – and also contributing to my food/travel blog – http://www.billsroadfood.com

Donna has now joined our tour – which is fantastic! It will be her first Camino. We’re as thrilled as she is.

This afternoon, I donned my brace and went for a 6km walk. It was late in the afternoon, the air was coolish, and I felt great. It was so wonderful to be walking briskly. And unusually for me I listened to a song. Here are the lyrics of that song…

When I was young and they packed me off to school

and taught me how not to play the game,

I didn’t mind if they groomed me for success,

or if they said that I was a fool.

So I left there in the morning

with their God tucked underneath my arm —

their half-assed smiles and the book of rules.

So I asked this God a question

and by way of firm reply,

He said — I’m not the kind you have to wind up on Sundays.

So to my old headmaster (and to anyone who cares):

before I’m through I’d like to say my prayers —

I don’t believe you:

you had the whole damn thing all wrong —

He’s not the kind you have to wind up on Sundays.

Well you can excomunicate me on my way to Sunday school

and have all the bishops harmonize these lines —

how do you dare tell me that I’m my Father’s son

when that was just an accident of Birth.

I’d rather look around me — compose a better song

`cos that’s the honest measure of my worth.

In your pomp and all your glory you’re a poorer man than me,

as you lick the boots of death born out of fear.

I don’t believe you:

you had the whole damn thing all wrong —

He’s not the kind you have to wind up on Sundays.

(Wind up – Jethro Tull)

My sister Anne is five years older than me. She’s the eldest in the family, I’m the second eldest.

For as long as I can remember, we’ve always fought.

Don’t ask me why – we just have.

You’d think that as we got older, we’d have grown out of it. We would have mellowed. But no – if anything, our animosity towards each other only deepened.

It came to a head a couple of years ago, during the massive floods that swamped Brisbane. I was in India at the time, and I didn’t get in touch with her, not knowing she had a rental property that was under threat.

She thought I was uncaring. I thought she was hysterical. It opened up old wounds that went back thirty or forty years. Fifty years probably.

We made our peace, kind of, but there was still a residue of acrimony. Something that sat deep within both of us. Something that wouldn’t be shifted with easy apologies and kissy kissy make-ups. I felt we’d both probably take our enmity to our graves.

And then I walked the Camino.
And my sister began reading my blog.
And something quite miraculous happened –
We became friends.

All the anger and bitterness that we’d both harboured towards each other dissolved. It just disappeared. She saw another side of me, and I realised it was meaningless to hang onto old energies that were hurtful to both of us.

Then she read my book, and it only amplified her feelings towards me. She saw how the Camino had whittled me down to a half decent human being.

Anne wrote me a lovely email yesterday, congratulating me on the book, and saying some things that I thought could make for a very poignant post on this blog.

So Anne, sister, big sister –

I’m sorry,
I love you,
Please forgive me,
Thank you.

Anne Taylor’s Guest Post

Hi Bill,

Congratulations on your wonderful Camino blogs and your book. 

Reading them all, I felt that I got to know the person I grew up with, but yet never really knew at the time.  We both know that there were tensions between us, but I don’t wish to talk about the past. 

Instead, I’d like to express my gratitude for what you have done for me – and us – by walking the Camino and revealing the changes in you as you progressed. 

As you gradually displayed your new, softer, kinder self and your new humility I realised that here was a person I’d really like to know and spend time with. 

As you cast off your old layers (you know the ones!), so did I.   Your book and blogs made me laugh aloud on almost every page (it was very funny), marvel at your tenacity and shed tears towards the end as I saw how deeply you cared about your fellow-pilgrims. 

The symbolism of the towel was extremely moving.  The Meseta section in particular really resonated with me, because that’s where I experienced the death of my old attitudes towards you.

Your journey has had a profound flow-on effect on me, and then you, that neither of us would ever have dreamed would happen.  It was totally out of left-field!  I call it a magical effect: 

I’ve connected with my brother after all these years.  So thank you Bill, and thank you Camino.

With Sincere Love,
Your sister,
Anne 

As many of you know, Arlene – who is a regular on this blog – recently returned from her second Camino. It was a deeply moving experience for her.

Here she shares those experiences with us…

CAMINO DE SANTIAGO 2013

I dedicated this, my 2013 Camino to my deceased husband, Peter, the father of my children.  Pete died far too young, he was only 46 years old when he was taken from this world. 

Prior to his death, we had been going through some difficult times, our relationship was very strained. We were barely speaking to each other; in fact it seems our only words were angry, cross, and defensive.

Then he was taken. There were no more angry words, there was no more bickering, there simply was NO MORE.

As you can imagine, I have carried so much guilt and regret since that day 19 years ago. I wish I had not been so stubborn, so stuck in the mire of blame. He passed before we could resolve our problems. I have felt guilty and regretted my stubbornness since that day. He passed away and I never got to tell him how sorry I was and still am.

Last year when I walked the Camino, I simply walked the Camino. I didn’t have any specific reason or purpose, this year my intention was to walk in honor of my deceased husband. To walk for his understanding and his forgiveness, to walk so I would be able to forgive myself, so I can finally stop carrying the heaviness of this guilt.

Because of my purpose this year, I chose to walk the Camino solo, alone with own thoughts.  I met others who I would chat with for a while. I did encounter most of these people repeatedly along the Way, sometimes I would walk with one or the other of them for a good part of the day, other times I would prefer to walk alone.

I stayed in hotels and casas rural to insure my solitude.  I most always am a very social person, I like being around people. But the purpose of this Camino was to make peace with events in my past and I needed to be alone to be successful in achieving my purpose.

I set my daily goals to stretch my comfortable walking distances so that I would be tired by the time I reached my destination.  I ate the menu del dia when I arrived at my destination, usually about 2 or 2:30 in the afternoon.  After eating, I returned to my room showered, got ready for the next day, wrote in my journal, blogged and then meditated until I was ready to go to sleep.

I didn’t join the other pilgrims in the evening, nor did I drink more than a glass or two of wine with the menu each day. I simply thought those activities would interfere with the purpose of my Camino.

After I had been walking for some time, actually approaching the town of Foncebadon, I broke down and cried like a baby.  I was very thankful the walk was shrouded in mist and I was alone, the other Peregrinos didn’t notice my tears.

Finally I started to release some of my guilt! Maybe my healing had begun. I left Foncebadon after a hot cup of cafe con leche and made my way to the Cruz de Ferro. At the cross I left two stones, one for me and another for Pete then climbed down the stone pile and got back in the queue to place the stones my friends had asked me to place for them.

Oddly, it was on the walk immediately after the Cruz de Ferro that my knee began to bother me. I am unsure if it had anything to do with releasing my guilt, or simply because the descent was extremely challenging. I suppose I will never know.

I continued on my way to Santiago, sometimes crying, sometimes smiling and sometimes laughing while I relived my life with Pete.  It seemed to me the Camino was working its magic, I was beginning to let go of my guilt.

By the time I reached Galicia, the rainy weather had all of my attention. It was very hard walking in the rain, I was continuously struggling to get my poncho on and off and the gators were bothering my legs. My knee was also hurting all the time now.

Finally I walked into the square in front of the Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela and broke down sobbing. Thankfully right in front of me stood a fellow from England I had walked and talked with on several occasions. He hugged me as I wept, when I looked up, he was weeping too.

We both cried for a while and then walked to the Pilgrim’s Office together for our Compostela.  I understand arrival at the Cathedral has different effects on individuals. For me it was unbelievably emotional.

At the Pilgrim’s Office, I explained to the representative I had walked in honor of my deceased husband and received my Compostela in my name “Vicarie Pro” my husband’s name. 

The next day at the Pilgrim’s Mass, I again experienced the uncontrollable crying I had when I entered Santiago de Compostela. I’m sure I wasn’t the only pilgrim crying though. 

All of my tears and the Camino de Santiago have helped me release the anger and guilt I had related to my husband’s death. I believe I achieved the result I was hoping to attain by walking the Camino and would walk another Camino in a “New York Minute”.

The Camino may not be for everybody. It may not help solve everyone’s problems. But I do believe it gives time to pray and contemplate. It strips unnecessary items from you and reduces your needs to the most elemental – food, water, and a bed to sleep in.

The most important thing the Camino gave to me in 2013 was time to reflect and clear the slate.

¡Ultreia y Vaya con Dios!

My friend Vida Sobott, who is a very unusual and talented lady, posted this on her Facebook page overnight.

I had to share it with you here… As a bit of fun…

A man decides to end his life.

As a train approaches he throws himself off the platform onto the tracks.

Just at that moment, someone in one of the carriages mistakenly pulls the emergency stop lever. The train comes to an abrupt halt. Unwittingly, this person thwarted the man’s attempted suicide.

Coincidence?

A young man’s father visits from overseas. He wants to go to a koala park. The young man doesn’t want to. It’s a long drive. But the father is insistent. They have an argument. Still the father is insistent. The young man can’t understand why.

They go to the koala park, and there he meets a girl who becomes his wife, and life-long partner.

Coincidence?

Anthony Hopkins, the actor, commits to a role in a film based on a book – The Girl from Petrovka. But the book is out of print. He goes to several bookstores in London, and can’t find a copy.

Dispirited, he goes to Leicester Square tube station to get a train home. He sits on a bench and there beside him is a discarded book. It’s The Girl from Petrovka.

Later, on the set of the movie in Vienna he meet’s the book’s author. He tells the writer of the coincidence.

The writer informs him that he lent his book to a friend in London. They check the book that Hopkins picked up off the bench, and inside are the writer’s handwritten annotations. It’s the same book the author lent to his friend.

Coincidence?

These are incidents detailed in a feature article published last weekend in The Weekend Australian Magazine. There’s an interesting quote in the article: Coincidence is God’s way of staying anonymous.

It’s a cliche now: There are no coincidences. But if not, then what is it?

I say it’s PGS. I believe that young man’s father had a strong intuitive impulse to go to the koala park, perhaps not knowing why, certainly not anticipating the outcome – that his son would meet his future wife.

Anthony Hopkins and the book? Same thing. I would say it was his PGS directed him to that bench in that tube station. And it was PGS at work which made the previous owner of the book leave it on that bench for Hopkins to pick up.

Why didn’t someone else pick it up? Why didn’t Hopkins get a taxi, or go to another tube station? What are we talking about here? What’s at work here?

Last week while I was working up at my university, out of the blue a professor handed me a book to read. The book was on synchronicity. At the time I was completely flummoxed as to why he would lend it to me. We hadn’t been talking about synchronicity. And this was the first book he’d ever lent me. But he wanted me to read it.

Here is the magazine article, if you’re interested. It makes fascinating reading –

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/six-degrees-of-separation/story-e6frg8h6-1226745955381

A week today Jennifer and I fly out to London, then Portugal.

We'll be scouting the Camino Portuguese for our tour which we'll be leading next April.

We'll fly from London to Porto, then pick up a car and drive the route, checking out accommodation, restaurants, and points of interest along the way, right through to Santiago.

Jennifer and I will be researching the historical, religious and spiritual aspects of the route, and the country we'll be walking through next April. We'll be visiting all the major churches and cathedrals along the Camino.

I also want to begin to lock in hotels, rates etc – and find cool places to eat. Already I know a place in Barcelos, famous for its chickens, that has the best grilled Portuguese Chicken in the land.

I'll be blogging daily while I'm away, and of course posting photographs.

In Santiago Jennifer and I will be meeting up with Marie, who posts here under the name of Marie the Basque. She has already signed up for the tour, and is making the trip over to Santiago especially to meet us.

I'm excited to meet her.

I also hope to meet Ivar in Santiago, and Johnnie Walker. If any of you have their email addresses, would you mind sending them to me? At –

billpgsblog@gmail.com

I'll also be on the lookout for a person who can act as a local liaison – that person needs to speak Portuguese, Spanish, English, drive a van, and have the personal skills to handle the needs of fifteen pilgrims.

If any of you know of such a person, again please get in touch.

And if any of you can suggest any particular town or place for us to check out, again please let me know.

After we've done the tour scout, Jennifer and I are flying to Germany for a few days – there are people in Munich I need to meet re film financing.

It will be wonderful to be in Bavaria just before Christmas.

This week will be busy.

Duncan has got two more people for the tour, so we don't have many places left now. Because this is the first time I've led a tour, I want to make sure that Jennifer and I are properly prepared.

I woke up the other morning covered in red blotches.

Itchy.

All over my arms, and some on my lower back too.

They began to form into nasty wheals, and my first thought was that it was an allergic reaction, perhaps to something I'd eaten.

I racked back over what I'd eaten the previous 24hrs. I tried to think of anything I'd eaten that I'd never eaten before. And I remembered the previous evening succumbing to a pre-made supermarket Chicken Kiev.

It was truly disgusting.

And very yummy.

So I immediately put that down as the culprit of my red blotches.

I NEVER eat processed food, but for some reason I'd gone against all my natural instincts and eaten this toxic substance.

The wheals didn't go down, and in fact they got worse. They started to break out into little tiny sores.

And I began to think that if it was an allergic reaction to the supermarket Chicken Kiev, then perhaps I should have shown other symptoms as well – like asthmatic breathing, sweats, etc.

I went online, found myself on WebMD, and saw that I most probably had hives – but I couldn't figure out what might have caused them.

Meanwhile the wheals were getting larger, more itchy, and the sores were starting to seep. Pretty awful.

So I went to the doctor. Seems that I've been going to the doctor a bit lately, after not going for years.

The doctor examined me, asked some questions, and told me it was exema. It met all the symptoms. He asked if I'd been stressed lately, and I recalled the previous few days at the university, dealing with the students. That was stressful.

The doctor said I had to be careful that this didn't become permanent, and prescribed various ointments, creams and pills. I got the scripts filled and it cost me $126. The doctor was $75.

I got scared. Exema. That's serious. And it's not pretty. Was my immune system breaking down? Was there some larger underlying cause? Given the stress I've lived under for so many years, was my body starting to cave in?

I took the pills, put the creams on, it didn't really help.

Still there were questions… Why was it just on my arms and neck and hands? Why not my legs, or body? And why were the wheals so itchy?

I looked at myself in the mirror.

And then I remembered. The evening I'd had that putrid Chicken Kiev, I'd gone outside to take a phone call. It was coming on dusk, I sat on a chair in the garden and I got eaten by little tiny sandflies.

I'd totally forgotten this.

They'd really made a meal of me. I was in a t-shirt and jeans, and the hand that had been holding the phone, that was relatively stationary, had the most bites.

There'd been one other time I'd been bitten by sandflies – when I slept on a beach up in Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory, hanging out with some aboriginal tribal elders.

I recall having the same kind of reaction. Very itchy large red wheals that developed into sores.

So I didn't have hives. I didn't have exema. My immune system wasn't breaking down. The doctor got it all wrong.

They were bug bites.

When my left foot lost sensitivity at the end of my Camino, I thought I was developing MS. Or it was the onset of early diabetes. I'd gone online. Onto WedMD. Yep. MS. Diabetes.

Why do I always default to the worst possible scenario?

This post is for Rachael – whom some of you know is wont to prick and prickle me from time to time – which I enjoy.

She took me to task for urging my students to not follow rules. She thought I should have said instead: “think outside the box.”

i don’t know much about you Rachael, but you strike me as being someone who follows rules. You probably don’t know much about me, but I don’t. I say: fuck the rules. Always have, and always will –

Implicit in your comment about needing to follow the rules is that the rules are always correct. And that they should be followed without question. Because a rule is a rule, it is by definition something sacrosanct which should be adhered to for the benefit of the individual, and society as a whole.

I don’t buy that.

I question every rule. Because I’m suspicious of most rules. 

I believe most rules are foisted upon us by people with limited imaginations to control and subjugate individual spirit and creative endeavour. This is what Kafka wrote about so powerfully. So too George Orwell.

Read Steve Jobs’ biography – my God, he broke so many damn rules. And the world is a better place for it. Read Edwin Land’s biography – he illegally broke into school science labs at night when he was a kid so he could practice chemistry away from the constraints of his teachers. He subsequently invented polaroid glasses and the polaroid camera.

Jonas Salk broke rules to find the vaccine for polio. De Vinci stole corpses to do autopsies so he could understand human anatomy, breaking every criminal and religious law in the book. Galileo outraged the church at the time by suggesting that the earth revolve around the sun. Some of mankind’s greatest scientific breakthroughs have come from people not following the rules.

Albert Einstein, called “The James Dean of Science,” because of his rule breaking, said: Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.

In my field – cinema – following rules leads to mediocrity. The startling works of art come from artists who break the conventional rules. This is what I’m talking about when I speak to students. Scorsese broke so many rules of cinema in his early works – so did Fellini, and Antonioni, and Jean Luc Goddard. The French New Wave revolutionised cinema by not following the conventional rules of the time. They caused a huge fuss.

At the Cannes Film Festival, there’s a division called Directors Fortnight, which each year launches some of the world’s best films. Directors Fortnight was created by enfant terrible film directors in the French cinema who railed against the staid and conventional rules of Official Competition. They believed those rules were too constrictive to the art form.

But you can’t live your life breaking rules in one part of your life and not other parts of your life. You have Woody Allen having an affair with his daughter… good for him is what I say. And you have Steve Jobs perpetually parking in handicapped zones and driving way above the speed limit. It comes with the territory. Genius ain’t nice.

If you say: think outside the box, I would say stomp on the box. You shouldn’t have been in a box in the first place.