Dear Caminoheads,

7 years ago today, I was sleeping in St. Jean Pied de Port, France, to start walking the Camino Francés in complete. I was about to be 40, exactly what I thought when I was 17 and I was at mass at the local church at home and heard about the Camino for the first time without having any idea what the Camino was other than it was a mean to get a “plenary indulgence”. Back then I thought I would do it for my mother who died to liver cancer when I was 5. Who knows why I had that thought, but I am glad I did as walking the Camino has lived in my mind for all those years since.

 

As always, if you want to make God laugh you just need to tell him your plans, when I arrived to St. Jean 7 years ago, 3 months away to be 40 years old, my life wasn’t even 0,0001 inch close to what I had envisioned it would be “at 40” when I was 17 and I had that thought, and I must admit: while I didn’t walk it with the purposes of getting any plenary indulgence, I got one of the most transformative experiences of my life, which might be the same…

 

We often talk about the arrival to Santiago which is great, but to me, setting out at St. Jean was even greater…

 

Every time you leave home,
Another road takes you
Into a world you were never in.

New strangers on other paths await.
New places that have never seen you
Will startle a little at your entry.
Old places that know you well
Will pretend nothing
Changed since your last visit.

When you travel, you find yourself
Alone in a different way,
More attentive now
To the self you bring along,
Your more subtle eye watching
You abroad; and how what meets you
Touches that part of the heart
That lies low at home:

How you unexpectedly attune
To the timbre in some voice,
Opening in conversation
You want to take in
To where your longing
Has pressed hard enough
Inward, on some unsaid dark,
To create a crystal of insight
You could not have known
You needed
To illuminate
Your way.

When you travel,
A new silence
Goes with you,
And if you listen,
You will hear
What your heart would
Love to say.

A journey can become a sacred thing:
Make sure, before you go,
To take the time
To bless your going forth,
To free your heart of ballast
So that the compass of your soul
Might direct you toward
The territories of spirit
Where you will discover
More of your hidden life,
And the urgencies
That deserve to claim you.

May you travel in an awakened way,
Gathered wisely into your inner ground;
That you may not waste the invitations
Which wait along the way to transform you.

May you travel safely, arrive refreshed,
And live your time away to its fullest;
Return home more enriched, and free
To balance the gift of days which call you.

~ John O’Donohue ~ Blessing for a traveler

 

Buen Camino,

Cris