Throughout my pilgrimage, I’ve been very conscious of the principle that pilgrims carry only the essentials.

The question that of course follows from that principle is: What is essential?

I recently completed the 2021 Autumn Alignment Kit (get your free download here), and it was about that question.

It contains reflections on:

• The essence of you
• The essentials of your life
• Taking essential action

But it didn’t address STUFF, and what, of our stuff, is essential.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been feeling a strong urge to confront the essential nature (or not) of my stuff, in my mind and heart, as well as in action, so I have launched campaign to clear all non-essential stuff from my life.

But, and it’s a big but: how do you decide what’s essential?

The answer to that question isn’t as obvious as it might first appear, and it may differ individually.

There’s no shortage of advice out there on that issue.

I read a few books, each with a different perspective.

The one that resonated most strongly with me was the Marie Kondo approach of “Does it spark joy?”

However, when I began clearing, it rapidly became apparent that approach wasn’t working for me, and that the criteria were different for me.

What’s important to me to decide are:

• Is it “me” now?
• Does it support me in being me?
• Does it support me in what I’m up to in my life?
• Will I treasure it with my love and attention?

I’m picking up every item I own, and deciding whether to keep it or re-home it, based on these criteria.

At first glance, it may seem like this is an overly complicated approach, but I quickly developed an ability to intuitively sense whether an item meets those criteria.

How do you decide what is essential for you?

A good life happens when you stop and are grateful for the ordinary moments.

Brene Brown

I like having a theme for writing my blog, like this pilgrimage.

It gives me a place to start that is more specific than the amorphous “what’s going on in my inner world and how it intersects with my outer world,” which is really what my blog is about.

However, a longer running blog theme, like the pilgrimage, does have its downside.

There aren’t always Smashing Insights that appear on schedule, every week.

It’s different from when I used to write just when something appeared that I wanted to share.

This week was one of those weeks, with no Smashing Insights appearing in time to write the blog.

I have been “just walking” and doing my best to be present to the moments.

But then I realized that in doing that, my week was filled with extraordinary ordinary moments.

The ordinary can be quite extraordinary when we pay attention to it.

On Sunday, Harold and I took our dog Bella to a favorite park for a walk.

We had been there only 4 days prior, but about 5 minutes into the walk, I realized that the whole landscape had transformed in the interim.

Large expanses of the brightest green grass had turned to a deep yellow ochre, heralding an early Autumn, and the opening of new possibilities.

One change in the color of the grass, and everything looked different. As I looked more closely, I could see more subtle changes in the colors of the leaves on the trees. There were some yellows mixed in with the greens, and things were definitely in transition.

I realized then, again, that life isn’t in the Smashing Insights.

Life is right now.

Joy can be discovered in the embracing of the ordinary.

Pilgrims know this, and I want to remember it.

How can you embrace the ordinary?

Autumn Equinox Greetings to you!

Autumn Equinox is on September 22 for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s the first day of Autumn.

You can download your free Autumn Alignment Kit for this year here.

Apologies to those of you who are also on my mailing list (different than the blog distribution list). You’ll receive two notifications. Think of it as twice the love. 🙂

Autumn energy is about harvesting, a gathering in.

The Kit this year is about harvesting what is most precious to us, and devoting our life energy to those things that really matter.

As we open to Autumn’s gifts, we can replenish our inner wells and recharge our energy.

Your soul knows whatever you need to know right now. Trust it, and access that inner wisdom.

Enjoy this conversation with your soul.

With much love to you, and many blessings for your well-being,

Lynne

This week I temporarily forgot that I was on a pilgrimage.

I was so focused on my myriad of commitments and activities that it slipped my mind.

Then I remembered my commitment to being on a pilgrimage and writing about it. And, even more importantly, I remembered my commitment to being a pilgrim.

As I remembered that, suddenly all of the other commitments and all of the activity slotted themselves back into proper context.

Living life as a pilgrimage grounds everything in proper perspective.

I was walking every day, but I had unconsciously focused my attention on the outcome, on getting it done, and on getting somewhere.

I don’t want my walking to be about getting it done or getting somewhere.

When I remembered to be a pilgrim, walking became about putting one foot in front of the other and discovering what is being given to me in each moment.

Walking as a pilgrim is a practice of being present to my life experience and really taking in each moment.

Stepping back into “pilgrim” helped me to hold all of my other commitments more lightly and playfully, too.

It is all just walking.

What is walking, to you?

This week I am touching back on that question that I had as I sat in the doctor’s office, waiting for my x-ray results that would tell me the extent of my injury: “What is a pilgrimage when I can’t walk?”

The answer to that question is clear now: Be a pilgrim anyway.

So I’ve spent the last nine weeks discovering what that means. It’s been a chance to begin to embody the qualities of being a pilgrim, beyond just being aware of them mentally.

This time has given me an opportunity to explore Life as a Pilgrimage: What would be available to us if we thought of ourselves as pilgrims in our everyday life?

Being a pilgrim acknowledges that you are going to get stopped, and you are going to get detoured. This is true of our lives, and for pilgrims, it is an accepted part of the journey. It’s unexpected when it happens, but not necessarily bad.

Pilgrims carry only what is essential. People who use walker carry only what is essential too. This quality of stripping life down to its essentials is calling strongly to me at this time in my life. At this moment, I don’t have a clear idea of how to best go about it for myself, but I will find out. I’m feeling a strong pull towards the freedom that it would yield.

As I mentioned in a few recent blog posts, I’m finding my own rhythm, as each pilgrim does. For me, it’s the rhythm of my daily living. As I discover more about that, I am finding freedom and wisdom in right rhythm.

Pilgrims learn to trust their path, and they learn that there is a deeper, abiding well-being beyond the appearance of events and circumstances. I feel there is a deep peace when I trust my path in the way that pilgrims learn to do. For me, it is learning to flow creatively with the unfolding of my life, rather than trying to stick to plans that become outmoded the moment that I make them.

Oh, the joy and wonder that is available in a mindful walk! As a pilgrim of life, I want to cultivate mindful attention in my walking. It is so simple, and, it seems, so easy to forget or neglect.

I’ve mentioned how important it is for pilgrims to remain open and receptive, as they walk in unknown territory. Their circumstances are constantly changing, and they need to listen inwardly, to respond with their intuition and deeper wisdom. This is how they keep their equilibrium in the outer events of their walk. This period of convalescence has brought home to me, again, how a good chunk of daily “listening” time and space is vital to my own well-being and creativity.

And, speaking of creativity, pilgrims respond to life creatively. It’s probably because they are so present. The quality of their walk depends on their ability to take what life gives them each day and respond to it with initiative, innovation, and heart. I admire that ability and I aspire to cultivate it in my own life. I’ve been reminded in just the short period of recovering from my injury that we all have a resilience and an ability to respond creatively to unforeseen circumstances. We can surely apply all of that to our own lives as well as to a pilgrimage.

So, I guess the curve ball that life threw me has helped me begin to understand a lot more about myself as a pilgrim, and about our lives as a pilgrimage. For that, I am grateful.

I know that I will learn a lot more as I walk.

What have you learned about being a pilgrim? Or, about your life as a pilgrimage?

“Who am I? Where have I been, and where am I going?”

Carl Sandburg

I have been cleared to walk outdoors again, for very modest amounts. This is a milestone and a celebration, because I have spent most of the summer “on the bench,” recovering from a knee fracture.

At the beginning of my recovery, I mentioned that it felt like this injury and the subsequent healing process was a “factory reset”, meant to bring me back to my “original condition.” At the time, I didn’t really understand what that might mean, but it felt true of my experience.

Like most things that might look like an unwanted or negative experience at first, this injury and recovery have had their gifts for me. The process has been teaching me what it means to be a pilgrim; not just a pilgrim on a pilgrimage, but a pilgrim of life.

The recovery has been teaching me how I want to live my life, during the next phase of my life journey.

I am not defined by my doing, however much it felt that way in the first couple of weeks of recovery.

I am defined by what life gives me and what I create with that raw material.

Over the last few weeks of recovery, I’ve been exploring what being a pilgrim means, and I’ve been reflecting on that in my blog posts.

It seems highly ironic that the period when I could not walk has taught me more about being a pilgrim than the first 8 weeks when I was walking.

These are the things that I’ve noticed, so far, about being a pilgrim:

Pilgrims get stopped.

Pilgrims get detoured.

And:

• They carry only the essentials.
• They find their own rhythm.
• They trust their path.
• They are mindful as they walk.
• They are open and receptive, and they listen.
• They meet life with creativity.

I don’t have any of these qualities embodied or integrated into my life as habitual practices or ways of being, but I am much more conscious of them than I was when I was first injured.

I aspire to live my life in the spirit of being a pilgrim, one who is all of these things.

I want to be one who meets what life gives me with a creative response.

How do you want to live your life?

In my last blog post, I talked about how I aspire to be more mindful, and to do less scurrying.

I know how to be mindful. That doesn’t mean I always practice it. I began to study mindfulness in the early 1990’s, and have practiced it to varying degrees since.

This week, as I thought about my commitment to live more mindfully, I pondered what conditions in my life would support me being more mindful.

Just like a gardener creates the conditions that best support the plants she wants to grow, I need to create the conditions in my life that will help me be more consistently mindful.

Pilgrims are mindful out of necessity.

While the Camino path from Saint Jean Pied de Port in France to Santiago de Compostela in Spain is known, the whole journey is unknown territory for each pilgrim.

Each pilgrim has a different journey (physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually) than any other pilgrim.

So, in order to meet life as it unfolds in this unknown territory, pilgrims are open and receptive, and they listen. They are mindful of their walk.

They sense and hear and use their intuition to meet the daily unfolding of changing circumstances and challenges.

As a pilgrim of life myself, I need to create the right conditions for me to sense and hear my own intuitions, in order to meet my own life unfolding in unexpected ways.

This week I have realized I have a Cart Before The Horse Problem. I have had it all wrong in how I have structured my life.

Essentially, my ratio of “doing” kind of time to “listening” kind of time is off.

I journal and meditate in the mornings, but at this time in my life, for whatever reasons, I need a lot more “listening” time, perhaps a couple of hours a day.

This would be radical, almost revolutionary for me.

But quiet inner time is where all of my ideas, insights, art, and products, like the Alignment Kits, comes from. It’s where everything I create comes from.

The inner well is our source of wisdom and creativity. It is often our most reliable locus of peace.

How can any amount of time be too much, if it is what allows us to connect with those essential gifts?

How do you connect with your inner well of wisdom, creativity, and peace?

I’m spending more time on our screened porch during the recovery from my knee injury, in compensation for lost park time.

I watch the chipmunks scurrying about, collecting and storing food for their winter hibernation. In Natureland, chipmunks are the Masters of Scurrying Around.

This week the orthopedic surgeon cleared me for walking in my house without a walker.

This gave me pause, because I immediately noticed how tempting it is for me to begin scurrying.

Right away, I picked up the pace as I moved about, with just this little bit of freedom. Old habits die hard.

Like the chipmunk, I was scurrying around, getting things done. The temptation to scurry was particularly strong, because after 5 weeks of inactivity, there was a lot of doing that needed being done.

However, as I mentioned before, that’s no longer how I want to live.

I like being present to my experience.

I like moving mindfully.

Life is so much richer and deeper when I am present to it.

I know how to be mindful; I just forget.

Pilgrims are mindful.

Remembering this about pilgrims is how being a pilgrim can help me now, as I am granted more freedom to move.

How do you remain mindful?

I can’t walk yet, at least not pilgrimage walking. I am still relegated to absolutely necessary walking, indoors, with a walker.

This wasn’t what I had hoped for or anticipated for this week. I was hoping to be cleared to do some asphalt walking with my walker outdoors. This would have allowed me to get back to the park, within limits. It looks like it will be another few weeks until I am back to that.

“Disappointment takes adequate planning.”

Richard Bandler

When I explored how being a pilgrim might help me with this disappointment, I remembered that pilgrims trust their path to serve their highest good.

Remembering that, I began to relax into what life is giving me. I began to think about what it would be like to trust my path.

And in exploring that, I realized that I want my doing to originate from a different place.

What do I mean by that???

All my life I have been a planner. I make To Do Lists, daily schedules, project plans.

And as soon as I have all those in place, life shows up.

“Life is what happens when you plan something else.”

I didn’t make this up; but I couldn’t locate a citation.

Example: You begin a pilgrimage and you break your knee.

Plans do get my mind and heart in a receptive state to move forward.

Creating plans clarifies my intentions, which is always a good thing.

And when I create plans from what I best know is my soul’s desire, my mind is focused in the right direction.

But I cannot hold onto those plans; the plans cannot be where the doing comes from, as I move forward.

Circumstances change. I evolve. My understanding of what is mine to do deepens and changes and focuses.

In the past, as that unfolding happened, I would do the best I could to stick to the plan. No matter what happened, or what showed up, my response was to get back to the plan ASAP.

In that, I was creating a struggle. I was fighting life’s unfolding, growing, and evolving.

And I was missing the opportunity to respond creatively to what life was giving me in the moment.

Pilgrims trust their path.

I want to trust my path.

This means I want to make the plans and then release my expectations and attachment to how they will unfold.

“Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower

I want to meet life in what life gives me, and create my responses from there.

I want my doing to emerge from what life gives me in the moment. This is what I have been doing in the period of my healing from my injury.

Going forward, this means relaxing into what life is giving me, and finding my path through mindful attention.

“In seeking after what the soul desires, we become pilgrims with no home but the path the soul would have us follow.”

Michael Meade

How do you find your path?

“Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm, and harmony.”

Thomas Merton

I mentioned in a prior blog post that this knee fracture feels like a reset. I also mentioned that pilgrims find their own rhythms. The idea of a reset feels to me like an opportunity to find a new rhythm for my life.

In my forced slow-down, I’m asking myself questions about the rhythms I have been living. In particular, how much of what I live is busy-ness and filling time, and how much is essential and right movement?

I have an opportunity now to consciously choose: “What is the right rhythm?” rather than just continuing in my established habits.

When I started to ask myself these questions, I wasn’t even sure what I meant by “rhythm”. It just felt like the pace of my usual doing, and the spaces, or pauses, in my day, were “off”.

When you use a walker, you move through your life at a much different rhythm, or pace, than you usually do. You see things that you didn’t see before, because you are moving at a pace that you can “take them in”. Your rhythm is different.

It’s like the difference between walking and driving. When you walk instead of drive, you see so much more.

As I thought more about rhythm, I realized that although it is about pace and space, it is much more about presence.

In a way, it’s back to that question of what’s essential.

In paying attention to just what is essential, and in being present in each step, I am able to savor my experience.

It’s like being fully present to one beautifully prepared entree instead racing through a whole buffet. Somehow, that is right rhythm for me.

I’m beginning to see that in many ways, in my life, I vote for efficiency and volume: getting a lot done in the available time. Trying to make sure that I’m “making good use of time”.

I no longer want my life to be about pace, efficiency, or volume. I want my life to be about the essential, and presence.

When I come to my life from a state of being fully present, what I do will be the right thing at the right time.

And maybe that is right rhythm.

What’s your rhythm?