Here we are with the first week of post Easter. Lent was meaningful and most worthwhile but now have the slightly lost feeling when the party is over, and now what? We have a reentry going on. Wednesday I was talking about reentry from the Camino with Karen who was here with her sister Robin. And Robin I feel is 98% talked into going to walk herself soon.
But reentry is something to consider. It can be no small thing to suddenly be left alone with your memories and not having a handle on how to proceed. Or perhaps too many ways to proceed. Well, anyway, not a stable situation. We are steeping in the richness of our experience and wondering how to integrate that into our “back at home” lives.
My reentry from Spain in the Autumn of 2014 was a huge deal for me that took several months to complete. This Caminoheads blog had some great writing back in September and October of that year. It was an amazing and difficult period but worth it in the end.
But here we are almost four years later and working on this reentry. The best thing that has come out of this week is the idea of “Camino dust”. And there must be “Easter dust” as well. It is a notion in my head that occurred after talking with Karen and Robin. One was freshly back from Spain and the other was contemplating going soon. So there was this differential happening there between them.
So back to Camino dust. If I derived benefit from pretending I am on the Camino. And if we as veterans of walking in Spain can influence someone to go and do that walk. Then isn’t there something that is being passed around between us that is this inspirational dust that just happens. There is this buzz, this energy that is palpable.
Can we transport this dust and will it be potent when removed from any props that we have used in the past? Am I making sense here? Is it a commodity that just is? Is it a glow or a glint? Do we have to go back to the Camino to get more? Is there some along Phil’s Camino? Or can we get it from each other?
Well, obviously more to sort out. Thank you Karen and Robin for your influence. Off again here in a moment. Am going to try and visit Kelly today. He has had a new hip put in recently and is receiving visitors. OK, the best to you all, love, Felipe.
Hola Felipe,
Strictly talking, the Easter is not over… and these weeks after the Easter Sunday are quite essential to the whole thing… maybe is a bit as you said in your post today… these days are about “passing on the Camino Dust”…
I was just thinking as I read… Caminoheads is all about “figuring out”!!! All these questions you have and made… wow… too much for a Friday night after having a terrible day at work, but, I am still up to share my 2 -South American- cents 🙂
I think that the Camino Dust is not in the Camino but in the pilgrimage. Clearly what changed us was “going to the Camino”, because when we planned that, we were not aware that the whole thing was about becoming pilgrims, we just knew about this route in Spain, but the route itself, despite I truly deeply honor its ancestry and all the feet that walked it and all the energy it has, little would have done to me if I wouldn’t have allowed this transformation into a pilgrim.
The next thing is that one we are a pilgrim, we are a pilgrim forever. And for me this means a lot of things, qualities and actions, and interestingly enough, I find myself being “more and more” a pilgrim as days go by… even I was in the Camino in 2014. So, to the question is whether we need to go back to the Camino to get more (of being a pilgrim) or not, I honestly think we don’t need to -although, when the call calls, it would be great to come back-. However, I do think that it is essential to have a “pilgrims support group” that can help to keep the values and beatitudes of the pilgrims fresh in mind, and a table where to sit to continuously “figuring out”.
I think it is more of a glow than a glint -again, once a pilgrim, you are a pilgrim forever- and I think it increases as we give it away -as we sat to this table like the one at Caminoheads-, and definitely, we become “more and more” pilgrims as we interact with others -as we do here, at your table in Caminoheads-.
The Camino offered us the conditions to become pilgrims in 35 days -sounds like a commercial-, but indeed it did! To me, it meant no cell phone, no contact with my home, no social media, no TV or news, no comforts as the ones I had at home and that I was always thinking how to improve them, how to make my life more comfortable, it was all about having less and the consciousness of the unnecessary things I was carrying with me -when at home it seemed that all was about having more; also I noticed how we were sharing the little and very humble little we had (sometimes half of half an apple), when at home I thought I had to have a delicatessen pantry to welcome my guests… and I can continue, but the point I am trying to make is that the experience of the Camino simplified my life and my being, and that simplification is a quality of the pilgrims. Without acquiring that quality, I don’t think we are pilgrims.
I hope I did not miss the point of your comment! Happy Easter!
Pilgrims Love,
Cris
Hola Pilgrim Cris,
You are a “glow” on the horizon of daily life! I truly do identify myself now as a Pilgrim, and it’s not just in adopting the name as part of my persona. I had to justify to myself just what I was planning on doing in preparation of my Camino in 2013. A magical part of that prep was in seeing how much the Church referred to itself, and us as believers, as a Pilgrim Church. We are reminded of it in every celebration of the Mass. You have described it so well in your post today, on just what it means. What a lovely heart and soul you possess, and what a happy “life coincidence” that our paths have at least metaphorically crossed as we tag along in Pilgrim Felipe’s wanderings. You are an Easter Blessing to me.
Thanks,
PFJ
Querido Juan,
One thing I love about “this whole thing” is that we really become family. I once listened to Martin Sheen saying that when he was lining up to receive communion, he would look at the crow, and recognize so powerfully that “he was one of them”. I think this “Camino/Pilgrims/Dust/table” is something similar, it is something that brings us in common union, and there is an inner joy when we recognize ourselves as a member of whatever that is and that these others members are essential to us (even if we haven’t met… in person, I mean… and yet!!!)
Gracias Juan for your kind words!
Fellow pilgrim Love,
Cris
Dear Cris, you are so beloved. Thank you for your thoughtfulness on this. My many questions are a manifestation of my curiosity. What are we dealing with, I keep asking? And how does it work? And if it is a good thing how do we increase it? More questions, sorry.
But it is something! But. I feel like a haphazard sort of practitioner. It is like knowing enough about electricity to be dangerous. Hehe.
I like your image of the Caminoheads table. A place where we can inspire each other. Yes, that is nice. A pilgrimage support group. We can’t make a pilgrim but we can maintain one is the idea. I often think that it is a little flame that we keep burning.
And I like your thoughts on comfort and stuff. Those were very good. We were very happy with our half of a half of an apple, weren’t we? As always, Felipe.x
Thanks so much, Phil! The feeling is mutual!
I listened and watched today to a youtube video of Dr. Dan Siegel that brought some “enlightenment” to this whole thing of the “dust/table/Camino/pilgrims” topic… and I didn’t watch it or search for it on purpose, I was watching something else and it just followed. Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zF8nBDKxAQI (it is a 30 min talk.)
The video just starts in the most fenomenal way… it starts talking about life as a journey (and to add to the synchronicity, he quotes John O’Donohue too).
So, it does seem that we got the thing right!!! yeah!!! If we are able to talk about each of us as MWE instead of “ME and/or WE”, as a way to recognize that who the other is, makes me who I am, then we have gotten the lesson right.
And he tells an anecdote of a conversation he had with a person from Namibia when he was there. He asked the translation to ask one of these persons how was it that after having suffered the famine, the draught, the wars, as he observed them, they were happy. And this person answered with the word “belonging”. This person said that despite all, they belonged to the earth and their ancestors, and that they belonged to each other.
Probably there is one of these other keys… belonging… which resonates too with the “Camino Family” term that we have also used…
Dan Siegel said in this video that the understanding of this “MWE thing” is the most important tool to change the world… … … … … … … …
MWE Love,
Cris
OK Cris ~ will check out the UTube item. Thanks. Felipe.x
Hola, Amigo Felipe!
I think we “farm guys” get the “dust” connection more than most. Dust is just part of the continuous environment for we “diggers of dirt”. We expect it to be there. We know it hangs on to us and to our clothes and in our nostrils and hair and other body parts. It becomes part of us. We’d feel not quite complete without it.
I’m now nearly 5 years out from my gathering of the Camino Dust. I still feel its draw to come back and add another layer of French and Spanish soil. Time moves inexorably on and each of those “add on” years feels a little heavier now than it used to. My grandkids are totally linked to this return visit, and their young lives rocket on. My Cathy and I will have 50 years of wedded in May of 2019 and we are starting to dream about our “big get away celebration”. Don’t know what that will be just yet, but we both agree it should be epic. I think Europe will be included in it, but not as a Camino re-run.
I look forward to your daily posting good friend. “Methinks thou dost protest to much” about how significant or important each day’s offering is. Your loyal readers and followers consider them all Fairy Dust that clings to our daily lives.
Merci! Gracias! Thank You!
and Semper Fi,
PFJ
Juan ~ yes, if it is not dust of the soil it is dust of the product that we are producing. “We feel not quite complete without it.” Thanks. Perhaps we are at a place like that with our Camino dust. We know it, we live it, no need to go back. It is a great joy! Felipe.
Phil,
Coming back to read thru your blog more regularly. Will watch video above. Thank you for the thoughts you share~ so nice to connect and walk with you. Thank you again for welcoming us and sharing your parts of the feathery Camino dust. The dust is daily in the conscious breath and in each step.
A fellow duster,
?Karen
OK Karen, Alperfect. So, nice to meet you all. Come back when you get a chance. Dusty.x