These pilgrims get up early! It’s a function of long mileage and hot temperatures.
I take a last look at the rising sun and then turn my back on the sunrise to begin my climb.
Now it is just walking and paying attention that are my responsibilities. Stay alert and walk.
I catch myself wondering where I will stay the night, whether a bunk will be available, whether I will see all of the signs along the way. I find this mind chatter so distracting.
As I become aware of my Mind Running Off Into the Future, I remember my intention and my commitment to Be in the Present Moment as I walk, and I bring myself gently back to Now.
As I do, I feel a tension in my gut and a tightness in my shoulders release. I wasn’t even aware that I was carrying those.
This pilgrimage is asking many things of me. One of the things I am asking of it is to teach me what it can about my “real life.” I find myself asking my pilgrimage, now, what would it be like if “walking and paying attention” were my only responsibilities in my life.
What if, in “walking and paying attention” in each moment of our lives, we are given what we need to deal with anything as it comes up? Really trusting this would be such a different way of living. As implausible as it seems to me, I can feel a spark of curiosity and promise arising within me, a hint of a different way of living, of “just” inhabiting fully the Now Moment.
What would it be like to live like that?
Is that what Waking Up to My Life means?
This pilgrimage intends to show me the answer to those questions
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