Camino Week 8: What Would a Pilgrim Do?

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about my craving for inner spaciousness, and how I was committing to more time to just be in emptiness, as part of my daily pilgrim’s practice.

It has felt so good. Room to breathe. Room for my mind to stand down.

The hard part has been resisting the urge to fill that inner spaciousness by bringing an agenda in my mind of things that I think I need to know right now.

Allowing inner spaciousness has resulted in an ease in moving through my life, and an increased trust that the answers will reveal themselves as I need them.

Cultivating inner spaciousness is what many pilgrims do, intentionally, on their walks. They empty their minds to become present to the Now moment, and in that, many begin to strongly trust that their needs will always be met, at exactly the right time.

“Pilgrims are persons in motion passing through territories not their own, seeking something we might call completion, or perhaps clarity will do as well, a goal to which only spirit’s compass points the way.”

H. Richard Niebuhr

So, cultivating inner space is becoming an enduring part of being a pilgrim for me, and it is what makes my spirit’s compass points available to me.

This week I made another discovery about what it is to be a pilgrim.

Under various circumstances, I started asking the question: What would a pilgrim do?

Here’s an example of that practice.

I woke up on Monday to a list of undesirable administrative tasks, a mile long. I so wanted to convince myself that I was ill and needed rest, or just need a huge amount of self-care, in service of taking good care of myself.

But that wasn’t true, so I was just stuck with a huge inertia, resisting doing the list.

Then, I suddenly remembered that I am a pilgrim.

What would a pilgrim do, if they woke up, and didn’t feel like walking?

They would walk anyway.

So, I walked. All day I walked through that list, ticking off each item as I went.

And whenever I lost desire or momentum to do the list, I just remembered to ask: What would a pilgrim do? A pilgrim would keep walking.

That day I got an amazing amount done. And, even better, it felt really good, because I honored my commitment to being a pilgrim.

So if you get stuck this week, ask yourself “What would a pilgrim do?” and see what happens.