A JOURNEY COMPLETED
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Hello Friends! As you can see from my photos, I completed my pilgrimage from St. Jean de Pied de Port in France, to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. An 800 km walk, it took me 7 weeks to complete, and with immense gratitude in my heart, I am also able to say that I walked every step of the way without serious injury. I walked into Santiago de Compostela on the 21st June, an immense sense of peace settling around my heart. Every day, it terrified me that I would not be able to finish. Not once did I take it for granted that I would. The camino determines what you will accomplish, based on the human story that lies in your soul. Sometimes we start out and cannot finish, and sometimes we complete what we were meant to do. All that occurs speaks to us about who we are and what our priorities in life are. I took each step aware of my human weaknesses, and with a prayer that somehow I would overcome them and that I would make the journey to Santiago. I will feel forever blessed that I walked this path, and I intend to honour its lessons all the days that I walk this earth.
For me, a physical pilgrimage is a transformational journey into the soul. Along the way, one gets to confront the truth about oneself, and in so doing, are able to move into a different relationship with the world, and with the True Self (some call this aspect God)). Walking the Way of St. James was one of the hardest journeys I’ve ever had to make. It was also one of the most spiritually beautiful. It was an intense experience, one in which the focus was on the Divine aspects of the self, and the purpose of human life. It changed everything for me, and I now walk with a light in my heart that did not exist before. Over time, I will share different facets of the journey. It is one in which for me, the reverberations will be felt all the days of my life, and one I will relive through my various forms of writing. |
Though I am tempted to recommend this journey to you, it is not my place to do so. It is the task of the camino to call on you. Talking to many others along the way, people who were aware of the deeper movements of the spirit, it became obvious that the camino is so much more than the physical journey that many think it is. Once that call is heard, you will have no power to resist it. Though I heard the call long ago, it took thirteen years for the camino to prepare me to receive its lessons, and for me to embark on its journey. I heard similar stories along the way, one man being prepared for forty years before his chance to actually walk arose. Others walked only weeks after the call. Many walk without being aware that they were called at all. Even the most spiritually unaware walkers spoke about the spirit of the camino and how it got under their skin. The camino takes you from your every day life and places you in a dimension of experience that has its own set of rules. It takes you into a heaven of natural outer beauty, and into the hells of your own inner world. The camino takes no prisoners, and people who walk it emerge transformed.
It has been a number of months now since my return, and since time has healed my ravaged feet and aching body, I find that I long to walk those roads again. I feel the camino calling once more, and I can only wonder how long it will be before I find myself back in that beautiful dream of the spirit.
It has been a number of months now since my return, and since time has healed my ravaged feet and aching body, I find that I long to walk those roads again. I feel the camino calling once more, and I can only wonder how long it will be before I find myself back in that beautiful dream of the spirit.