This is a Waymark for the Camino de Santiago.

It’s very timely message for me right now is: Keep Going and Don’t Look Back, and Keep Your Eyes on the Trail Right in Front of You.

I am realizing that, duh, Commitment is an ongoing renewal of my vows to myself on this pilgrimage. Commitment is not a moment in time where I promise something to myself and then it’s done and I move on.

It is not enough to say that I am committed to Waking Up to my life, or to being present to each Now moment.

This is a commitment that I live into, through my decisions and actions in every moment. As I walk.

I choose, in every moment, to come to it fully awake, to be mindful. To keep my mind focused in the Now. To pay attention to the sights and sounds and to the trail that is right in front of me. And, especially, to release thoughts that aren’t relevant right now.

I find this amazingly difficult, and yet, in those moments in which I am able to do it, a palpable sense of peace, harmony, and well-being infuses me and I am renewed and energized.

And, when I do this, the Presence within me becomes palpable, and I live feeling connected. I feel my intuition; I sense my way.

I am committed to practicing this way of life, this way of walking my Way. This mindful practice is my true Waymark,

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

I bring a fall leaf with me, from home. At the trail head, I let it go, allowing it to symbolize my release into this journey. I leave what I don’t need behind, and I travel with only the essentials. It feels at this moment like I am traveling with far less than I need, but I think that is the nature of a pilgrimage. A pilgrimage asks us to shed our beliefs about what we think we need.

When I used to backpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains, I was very limited in what I could take for 10 days or two weeks. Granted, it was a short period of time, but I was always amazed at the freedom that came from carrying everything I needed on my back. And, in the days before cell phones! In committing to the journey, I was trusting life to provide.

Now, on my pilgrimage, I am letting go, And, I know not what. I let go of whatever I don’t need anymore in my life, and whatever I do not need for this journey. I don’t know what all of these things are, but what seems important at this moment is my willingness to let them go and my readiness to travel without them.

I am reminded of the four words that came to me in my reflection time when I was first called to this pilgrimage: Intention, Commitment, Willingness and Readiness. They keep coming back. Now I am beginning to learn about them. This journey will teach me.

As I embark on my pilgrimage, I wonder if I am prepared enough.

I wanted to re-read The Art of Pilgrimage before I started, so I would know what I am getting myself into. 🙂 What is a pilgrimage, and what does it ask of me? What does it require of me?

I wanted to read personal memoirs, of people who have come before me on this walk, so I would have some sense of the reality of it. Again, of what will be demanded of me? What questions I “should” be asking of myself?

I definitely wanted to work out my itinerary. (This, with respect to the Camino de Santiago, is particularly laughable.)

But this morning I woke up and knew that it was time to begin, without knowing all of those things. It is time.

This is such a metaphor for my life and for my work, especially as a self-employed person. Do I ever know enough to do what I want to do? How do I even know what is enough? And how do I embark anyway, trusting that either I know enough or I will be given what I need as I go along?

It seems to me that at some point, every one of us is asked by life to trust the unfolding. To trust that we are enough and that we will find our way, that the journey itself will give us what we need.

This is that moment.

It seems to me that the question is not “Am I prepared?”.  Instead, it is “Am I prepared to trust the unfolding of my life?”

Pilgrims on the Camino have to trust lots of things. That they will find their way (even when they go off course), that they will find food and lodging, that they will be given what they need as they go along.

There is an expression on the Camino: “Trust the Camino.” Or, alternatively, “The Camino will provide.” The Way will provide. Now it is time to trust that.

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.