Soggy But Spirited Stage 1

5/19/2019

Stage 1 of my Camino started May 19 from St Jean Pied de Port into the Pyrenees. Many pilgrims do the entire 1st stage in one day, but we divided ours into two days, to help prevent injury and more important - to focus on our inner journey. Our destiny was Orisson, only 8 km/5 miles. The skies dropped unrelenting freezing rain making it a soaked but not dispirited first day. I posted many of these pics on Facebook since I could not hold technological connections long enough to blog, but I’m adding this photo gallery again here, so my loved ones who are not on FB can see. We met many fellow travelers from every edge of the earth, including Northampton, Massachusetts. The dialogue with and sense of shared purpose with each propels us forward.

4 Comments

Becky

5/19/2019 06:09:22 pm

Your Day One is upon you.. Basho traveled his "Camino" in Japan in 1689 "The Narrow Road to Oku" writing in his travel diary - "at the crossway of parting in this dreamlike existence and wept tears of farewell" and composes this haiku:
Spring is passing by!
Birds are weeping and the eyes
Of fish fill with tears.

Mark

5/20/2019 05:11:56 pm

A great spiritual groove to move and breathe in.
The letting go of things illuminates the luminous virtue.
And with that HeartMind the spirit connects
To the spirits.
Ryan Bode Moriarty,
and all of our loved ones
Who have gone before us,
Remember love.

Bev

5/23/2019 08:42:46 am

So beautiful

Heather

5/24/2019 05:28:43 am

Patty, thank you. Not on FB but following every step here. 💜

May-June 2019:
My Camino

In May & June 2019, I walked el Camino de Santiago across the north of Spain. I walked the Camino for more than 1,000 kilometers (about 600 miles) from the foothills of the Pyrenees in France at St. Jean Pied de Porte, into Spain, to Santiago de Compostela, and then out to Finisterre and Muxia, the most Western tips of Spain. I walked to honor the entwining of the physical and spiritual in human experience, and to commemorate the memory of a loved one. I was on the Camino for 40 days, and my blog tells the launch only from my first 10 days of that journey. Two months after returning home, in September I gave a talk, which expands on perspectives that emerged throughout the entire journey. It is available here in this video of a narrated powerpoint.