This is St. Jean de Pied de Port, in France. It is the departure point for the Camino Frances, the particular Camino de Santiago route that I am traveling virtually.

The first day is no walk in the park or day at the beach. It is 25 km (15.6 miles) over the Pyrenees, from France into Roncesvalles, Spain.

The walk today is a shock into awareness and it demands my attention. I am Here Now.

I’m on the threshold of my door, and the moment has come for me to depart on my pilgrimage.

I drew this picture to remind me of home, of what I am leaving.

And, in the way of all brilliant synchronicities, there is cosmic irony in this one. Even though I am going on an inner pilgrimage, rather than literally leaving my home, this view of the fall color is very temporary. I may not be leaving it, but it is certainly leaving me, and soon there will be bare trees and grey landscapes out my window. There is a palpable sense of loss and moving on, as I draw this view.

This departure feels very real to me, a mix of excitement and trepidation. Of leaving things behind and discovering new landscapes, adventures and journeys.

Leaving the familiar, and setting off into the unknown, is always an act of faith. And it never seems easy for me, even when I am clear that I have chosen it.

I have been happy immersing myself in preparations for my pilgrimage, rather than actually going on it. It’s been exciting but theoretical until this moment.

Now, at this point, like all pilgrims, I am being asked to release into Not Knowing what this is all about, or what I will discover, or what will be called of me (or demanded) as I go along.

What is it to consciously release into Not Knowing?

As a virtual pilgrim, I obviously take different things than a person who is walking the physical trail.

However, I have been called to this inner pilgrimage.

Any of us who are called to a pilgrimage, inner and/or outer, are faced with the same questions before we depart:

What do I take?
What do I leave behind?

These questions, while they seem very simple, have a profound influence on our journey, and are much bigger questions than they may first appear.

Think of any life transition that you may be going through right now, and ask yourself:
What do I take?
What do I leave behind?

As I think of the next phase of my life, I am asking those questions of myself. I expect that my pilgrimage will have some answers for me.

The Camino de Santiago Pilgrimage, also known as The Way of St. James, has existed for over a thousand years, and was an important Christian pilgrimage during medieval times.

Today, tens of thousands of pilgrims walk the Camino de Santiago every year, and many of them, if not most, walk it for other-than-religious purposes. However, it is common for many pilgrims to have a sense that there is a spiritual dimension to their pilgrimage, even though they may not be able to identify it specifically.

The most common route (there are many) begins in St. Jean de Pied Port, in France, and concludes at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, where the remains of St. James are said to be buried. The route is 780 km, or about 500 miles long. This is the route that I will be traveling, virtually.

A Google search of “Camino de Santiago” yields over 8 million results, so there is plenty of information for you to discover if this pilgrimage piques your interest.

I will be writing and drawing about my own experience of making this pilgrimage. Although my pilgrimage is an inner one, I am very conscious that I am coming to it with the honor, reverence, and respect that any “real” pilgrimage deserves.

In my own heart, I am on pilgrimage, and, like all pilgrims, I will discover what that means as I go along. The Way will tell me.

“The call of the sacred journey your heart longs for won’t come by expectation and will not arrive in a logical way.” – Phil Cousineau, The Art of Pilgrimage, page 39

For me, the call of this pilgrimage is To Walk.

My call surprised me, and, as Phil Cousineau said, it didn’t arrive in a logical way. I didn’t think it. It thought me.

My logical mind thought that this pilgrimage would be for me to “figure out” what the next phase of my life and work would look like.

Instead, it is To Walk.

To me, “To Walk” means to live in the present moment and to take each step consciously and deliberately.

To be aware.

To be mindful and attentive.

To be Here Now, fully, mind, body, spirit, emotions.

A pilgrimage demands this conscious attention of us. Without it, I may fall down or get lost. But even more important, to me, a pilgrimage is an intentional journey with purpose.

I have spent so many of my present moments in motion to the next thing, with my mind thinking about the next thing I have to do.

Often, when I am walking my dogs in the morning, my body is there, going through the motions, but my mind is busy organizing the rest of my day.

When I think about being on a pilgrimage, the whole point is to walk: to get up and walk, every day, day after day.  It seems to me to be the perfect training for bringing my full attention into the present moment.

I wonder what my life will be when I come to it, fully awake and fully present.

Pilgrimage Check-In, #2

“I longed to travel deliberately, to encounter the essential things, venture somewhere strange and unknown, ancient and elemental.” – Henry David Thoreau, quoted in the Art of Pilgrimage page xvi

 

What do you long for?

I like this question because it has always felt to me like it goes right to something primal and elemental in us, almost as if the question itself bypasses our everyday minds and goes directly to our soul, to check-in.

To check-in about what now wants to come into fuller expression in our manifest lives.

I can feel something there, but the answer hasn’t surfaced yet. I will listen.

That’s the other thing about this question. It needs a quiet space to speak. Maybe it needs Soul Space. Maybe that is one thing that a pilgrimage gives us.

Special Note: I’m on a virtual pilgrimage this winter, on the Camino de Santiago in Northern Spain. If you’re new to my blog, a short background on my pilgrimage can be found here. If you’d like to read all of my Pilgrimage posts, just click on the category “Pilgrimage” at the end of this post. To subscribe by email to future posts, scroll down the right sidebar until you get to “Follow the Wayfinding Blog,” and sign up.

Pilgrimage Check-In, #1

 

“To set out on a pilgrimage is to throw down a challenge to everyday life.”  – Huston Smith, from the Forward of The Art of Pilgrimage, page xi

 

 

For a couple of years now, I’ve been pondering Aging. Not in a morose way, but in a questioning, challenging way.

I have been throwing down a challenge to our mainstream cultural beliefs that generally hold that Aging is a slow but steady process of physical and mental deterioration, diminishment of energy, and a dampening of our passion for life. Who wants to sign up for that?

And, why does it have to be that way? My clients, friends and colleagues are thriving examples of increasing creativity, contribution, and love-of-life in Aging.

As I was contemplating my intention for this pilgrimage, I had one of those Blinding Flashes of the Obvious. I choose. I choose.

I choose to Wither or Wake Up. This is a choice that I can make in every moment. I may not choose my life circumstances or events, but I do choose my response to them.

Pilgrimages don’t let us go to sleep. They demand Attention and Aliveness.

Wither or Wake Up. My intention for this pilgrimage is to Wake Up. To my life.

What do you want to wake up to?

Last year I spent my winter in Greece, in my imagination. Long story, but the essence is that I wanted to spend some time in the sun, color, and energy of the Greek Isles while the snow flew here. I read memoirs and did close to 30 small watercolor paintings, which I posted on my personal blog.

I enjoyed my experience so much that I was yearning to go on another virtual trip for the winter this year. I happened to mention it to one of my clients, and she recommended a pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago in Northern Spain. This is a pilgrimage that she is doing, live, next Spring.

Spending time in Northern Spain very much appeals to me, but what really resonated  was the idea of a pilgrimage. Something about that was calling to me strongly.

“A pilgrimage is a transformative journey to a sacred center.” – Phil Cousineau, The Art of Pilgrimage, page xxiii.

So I am going on pilgrimage for the winter on the Camino de Santiago. It will be an inner pilgrimage, but I will draw and paint from photographs of the route. I’ll be reading personal memoirs of the pilgrimage, and re-reading The Art of Pilgrimage, one of my all-time favorite books. Stay tuned for some juicy quotes from that book.

Questions are coming to me as I open the door to my pilgrimage:

What is a pilgrimage?
What is an inner pilgrimage?
How can a pilgrimage help us in our pressure-filled, rapidly-paced lives and environments?
What is calling me at this time?

So far, four words have bubbled up in my reflections: Intention, Commitment, Readiness, and Willingness. More to come about these.

I will share my reflections and watercolor drawings about my pilgrimage on this blog. In addition to any other intentions or transformations, I am hoping that I will get better at drawing pilgrims!