Let's begin with the why. I'm sure that's the question most people will ask when they hear I am planning to walk the Camino de Santiago in a year. A journey that will take me a month or more, covering almost 500 miles. There are many routes, or caminos, from which to choose with the most popular beginning in St. Jean-Pied-du-Port, France and ending at the cathedral in Santiago de Campostela, Spain. It is a pilgrimage undertaken for as many reasons as there are pilgrims who take it. This is my reason.
I have been on a spiritual journey for the past several years. It has not always been easy, but it has taught me more about myself than I could have ever imagined. I find myself losing sight of the path at times, wandering aimlessly, taking one step forward, then three steps back. But I always seem to somehow end up back where I belong. I know when I'm back on track because, while things in my life don't necessarily get easier, I find myself reacting to them differently. I notice the synchronicities and the serendipity in life. I feel grateful for my experiences. I create my own reality. But then I get in my own way, and the next thing I know, I'm lost again. Some would say - in fact I would say - that I'm not really lost at all, and my time spent off the path I have chosen, ironically, is the path I have chosen. Are you getting the idea yet of what I hope to achieve by choosing a path, a camino, then putting one foot in front of the other - no turning back, no straying from the path. And at the end, when I arrive at the feet of St. James, I will lay down my burdens, and begin life anew. For me, it's about the journey, not the destination.
I don't plan to focus on too many of the how's. I have chosen what I want to do. How I will accomplish that is now in God's hands. I have made a plan, but I am not attached to the outcome. Whatever happens with this, is exactly what is supposed to happen. I will, of course, plan and prepare, but I am completely open to where those plans and preparations take me. This blog will be a journal, not only of where I am going, but of how I got there. Something I can look back on and marvel at the miracles that took place along the way. I will include some inspirational quotes with each blog. Some may be famous quotes, some may be the things that people say to inspire me along the way. Hopefully, they will inspire you as well.
So, wish me luck, or Buen Camino. Follow me, if you want, on this journey from my couch to the Camino and beyond.
Feel the energy.
"You don't choose a life, you live a life." ~Emilio Estevez, as Daniel, in 'The Way'
"The wake is the trail that's left behind. The wake can't drive the boat." ~Dr. Wayne Dyer
