Susan Gilbert

~ David Whyte

Walking the Camino there is such a sense of freedom!  Yes, initially we might be concerned about “Will I have a roof over my head tonight?” or “How will my feet hold up today?” but overall we only need to walk, eat and sleep having left our daily to-do list back home.  There is freedom on the Camino.

While I carried my cell phone which I used to write my daily blog posts at the end of each day’s walk, and stayed connected to fellow pilgrims who were ahead or behind me on The Way, the digital disruption of mass email exchanges and social media postings that consume so much of my work life here at home were placed on Pause.  I felt freedom.

I love David Whyte’s poem especially because it reminds me that the Camino makes me feel alive.  Every moment I walked I felt alive with the world around me.  Now that I have returned, I keep that feeling awake by maintaining connections with my fellow pilgrims, taking long walks here at home, and staying in a place of wonder and being – especially when my work or life begins to show the effects of stress.  I remind myself with David’s words:  “Anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you.”

With those words in mind, I have an awareness now to participate more with what keeps the camino feeling of freedom close and makes me feel alive.  It’s so easy to shut down that awareness when we get in our To Do mode rather than To Be mode.  It’s natural, it’s what can become normal.  The shift to Camino Freedom is a daily ritual that takes both practice and awareness.  While I wish I were back on the Camino right now, the reality is that’s not possible.  Yes, it will happen again – and hopefully soon – but I want to live each day until with Camino freedom right here at home.

When like-minded pilgrims connect along The Way, hearts beaming with positive intention for self and each other, it creates a rippling effect……And that rippling effect gracefully carries forth on the Camino.  I find now that new individuals are being attracted into my life, while others fall away.  Life seems to be shifting before my eyes.

While walking the Camino there can often be two paths to our next destination.  One path might be longer than the other; or, more visually pleasing.   We have a choice which one to take.

I’m not sure that I’ve ever played small in my life here on planet Earth – but, I remind myself how much bigger and richer my life can be when I let go of what our 21st century life and society makes normal.  The Camino teaches true freedom and living.  I’m listening and making daily decisions about what path to take as I look out over the horizon of each day.

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I want to start off by saying that if you have walked The Way, you know you have been forever changed in a mysterious and hard-to-describe kind of way.  It’s a good thing.  It happens on its own and you don’t need to think about it.  There is something about being given a break from daily life, feeling the reverence of communing with nature and God, combined with the rhythm of walking and sharing the path with other pilgrims that opens us to a natural place of being.  Even after returning home, the experience lives on forever.  You’ve been connected to something timeless and essential, more real.

Several months before I left for my Camino, I joined the local chapter of American Pilgrims.  They provide an informal monthly coffee get-together where people who have walked the Camino and those who are considering or getting ready to walk the Camino can meet one another.  Additionally, they conduct organized walks around the Seattle area.  I was so busy with my own training schedule and work that I did not attend or meet anyone from this group before walking the Camino; but, I do receive their monthly email of events.  This organization is also how I received my Pilgrim Passport which is needed to gather the required stamps along the way.  Pilgrim Passports can be attained several places and on the Camino, but I received mine in the mail from the American Pilgrims’ organization.

Each year, the Seattle chapter holds a St. James Day walk through the Capital Hill area of Seattle ending at St. James Cathedral and I decided to attend it as part of keeping the Camino alive in my heart, mind and soul.  Imagine my surprise when I find that there are over 100 ‘pilgrims’ on this walk and the Seattle chapter has over 600 people on their email list receiving the monthly newsletter.  I also learned that the Seattle chapter was the first local group formed and was started in 2008.  Since then 32 local chapters have formed across the United States.  Additionally, the Puget Sound Chapter is participating in a pilot program as the first Albergue Partner project at the Albergue Parroquial de Santa Maria in Carrion de los Condes.  This organization is committed!  Who knew that there were so many local people interested in and walking the Camino, many of them doing it multiple times and on different paths leading to Santiago?!  I loved having the shared experience once again in our short Camino reenactment right here in Seattle.

St. James Cathedral is beautiful.  Just as in Santiago, not being Catholic, I wouldn’t have attended mass at either location without my new connection to St. James.  Our priest talked about pilgrimage in his sermon and at the end of mass, noted our attendance at the mass as those who had walked The Way.  I felt honored, renewed, and reinvigorated with the mysterious Camino.

After the mass, we all returned to the building where we had begun our walk and enjoyed a pot luck dinner together, during which there was more swapping of Camino stories and experiences of places we had stayed along The Way.  I know I will walk the Camino again and have considered choosing the Del Norte (northern coast of Spain) route next time.  Several attendees had either done that walk or would put me in touch with other pilgrims they knew who had.  Those who will walk the Camino for the first time in the coming year were gifted a single shell on a string that will accompany them when that time arrives.

If you live anywhere near one of the American Pilgrim local chapters, I encourage you to reach out and participate.  Pilgrims who have walked The Way are available to answer questions posed by soon to be pilgrims.  Seasoned pilgrims gather and keep the Camino alive through their storytelling and sharing.

Pilgrims helping pilgrims.

It’s a good thing.

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When I was training for the Camino, my thoughts on long walks were often questions:

Would I be able to do the full Camino Frances, a 500 mile pilgrimage?

Would be able to find places to stay each night?

Of all the possible side affects – blisters, tendonitis, hip and knee pain – which would I experience?

What sections of the Camino would I find the hardest – the meseta, the mountains, the downhills?

On and on, the questions popped up in my thoughts.  They weren’t thoughts based on fear – I wasn’t worried.  I felt capable of making decisions along The Way.  They were just questions that I wondered about.

[Read more…] about Walking Thoughts

One month ago I walked into Santiago, the final stop on the Camino de Santiago and my 500th mile.  In many ways it seems like yesterday and in others like its been much longer ago. Funny how time can be elusive.  Who knew how much my perspective about what makes a happy life could change from the time I exited the St. Jean Pied de Port train station, which was my last form of motored transportation, until I walked into the final city after 39 calendar days and 37 days of walking.

[Read more…] about One Month Ago I Walked Into Santiago

The Camino is very giving.  

The Camino gives in unexpected ways.

The Camino continues to give long after you reach Santiago.

The Camino is a teacher who opens up new areas of awareness not available in the busy doingness of our everyday lives.

I learned about gifts from the Camino slowly over the thirty-seven days of walking the path even though they began appearing immediately.  I am still learning, seeing and receiving.

[Read more…] about Gifts from the Camino

“A cloud does not know why it moves in just such a direction and at such a speed…It feels an impulsion…this is the place to go now.  But the sky knows the reasons and the patterns behind all clouds, and you will know, too, when you lift yourself high enough to see beyond horizons.”  ~Richard Bach

I don’t think there is an ‘after camino’ – only a continuation in a different way.  After almost five (5) weeks of being in the same daily pattern:  look at the length and path to walk that day, have some coffee and/or breakfast before leaving or at the first village of the day, then walk, eat, be with other pilgrims along the way, small chores in between like washing clothes and for many others, foot care and finally sleep.  Get up the next morning and Repeat – I find myself feeling lost.   Life is simple on the Camino, boiled down to the most basic needs in this world – so uncomplicated.  When I was in the taxi leaving town enroute to the Santiago Airport and saw pilgrims walking into Finesterre, I wanted to open the car door, jump out and start walking with them.  The vehicle felt foreign, like a hurling bullet.  Walking is slow, methodical, completely within your own body’s control and strength.  The car felt claustrophobic, too fast and quite frankly, scary.  As the car moved around winding roads across the countryside everything was going by too quickly.  I found myself trying to figure out where ‘the path’ was, looking for pilgrims and yellow arrows to point the way.  All the good ‘one with the world’ feelings were evaporating quickly.

Arriving at the Santiago Airport for my flight to Paris-Orly Airport via Madrid was fortunately a way to begin to ease myself into what was to come.  The airport is small and the security almost non existent.  No one in line and I breezed through.  That changed once my flight arrived in Madrid 45 minutes late due to storms and I did the mad dash for my connection barely making in it the loud, confusing and overwhelming mass of people.  Arriving at Orly, the overwhelm had ratcheted up after being confined in two aircraft over about five (5) hours when I found that while I made my connection, my bag did not.

After filling out a lost bag form with a promise it would be delivered to my airport hotel where I would stay until I left for my final journey home the next day, I called the hotel shuttle and decided that my original plan to go into the Paris that evening was not going to happen.  I needed some solitary time and space.  I’ve been to Paris before and will visit again, but not this time.

I had flown Icelandic Airlines via Reykjavik, on the way over and found that while a bit quirky, the very low airfare and roomier than normal economy seats were an easy trade off.  My departing flight from Paris and connecting flight in Reykjavik both had delays and I began to realize that each leg of my return was mirroring my own desire to delay returning home.  I was missing my home and my animals – don’t get me wrong – but I did not want the Camino to end.  With plenty of time during flights to begin processing my experiences, I thought when I got home I would be ready to re-enter the ‘real world’ but after three days, I am still not.  Typing this message on a regular keyboard rather than my phone is a luxury as is everything I have in my home and office.  I have meandered around my lawn but have yet to put on my walking shoes again.

There is so much more I want to share with all of you who have come along with me on my Camino.  I’ll be posting highlights, how-to’s, and begin to answer many of your questions.  I’m also paying attention to so many of you who have suggested I write a book about my Camino.  That seed is growing inside me.   I am so very grateful for all of the amazing support, and comments, and just all out positivity by so many people throughout my walk along the path.  I could feel you all cheering for me.  Often I was asked if I was walking the Camino alone – I learned that I am not alone and I have so many amazing people in my life, I am just so incredibly humbled and grateful.

I received an email this morning from a dear friend who walked the Camino herself last year which said:

NOW—your Camino truly begins!

Soft steps dear YOU…

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