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Reflections on My Camino

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pedestrian bridge to Bouziès

After 2+ weeks of walk­ing, leav­ing the Célé Val­ley

It’s Camino sea­son again, and it’s also long past time for me to write about my own expe­ri­ence along the Chemin de St. Jacques last year.

In 2016 (much like other pil­grims) I dis­cov­ered how liv­ing a slower and pared-down life, savored at walk­ing pace, can be a tran­for­ma­tive expe­ri­ence. It was such a pow­er­ful expe­ri­ence that it’s taken months to blog about it.

Last Sep­tem­ber I accom­pa­nied a friend on a 3-week trek along old pil­grim­age routes in south­west­ern France. We hiked a 150-mile seg­ment of the Via Podi­en­sis, a lit­tle-known set of trails in rural France (GR 65 and 651.)

We walked 10–15 miles a day, car­ry­ing just hik­ing poles, day­packs and the day’s sup­ply of water. We opted not to carry camp­ing gear or back­packs; instead we lux­u­ri­ated in a bag­gage ser­vice that shut­tled our duf­fels from one guest house to the next.

Was this pil­grim­age a truly life-chang­ing expe­ri­ence?
In many ways, yes…

Six months later I’m still think­ing through what I learned from this pil­grim­age, what the journey’s teach­ings sug­gest for the next phase of my life… Despite my joy in telling sto­ries or talk­ing about it, I’ve been unusu­ally chal­lenged in writ­ing down my reac­tions to this pro­found expe­ri­ence.

GR 651 sign­post in Bouz­iès

So what have I learned so far? Here are a few of my take-aways, listed in no par­tic­u­lar order:

  • Spend­ing lots of time and energy on a pro­fes­sional career has lost its attrac­tion.
  • Talk­ing with peo­ple, shar­ing expe­ri­ences — in per­son and face to face — is pow­er­fully com­pelling. Why have I allowed social media alter­na­tives to dis­tract me from those basic truths?
  • Long walks, in rain or shine, need to remain a reg­u­lar fea­ture of my life — if not daily, at least many miles walked through­out the week.
  • Suf­fer­ing and dis­com­fort are unavoid­able, but can be accepted and tran­scended. They do not need to be all-con­sum­ing.
  • I do not need so many things to be happy.

Walk­ing offers a life­long path to hap­pi­ness and well­be­ing — and as my sis­ter says, may help me stay “younger each year.”

Walk­ing 35 miles or more each week has become a won­der­ful com­ple­ment to my on-going yoga prac­tice. Walk­ing offers many med­i­ta­tive qual­i­ties, but it’s also eas­ier to share with my hus­band and friends than a yoga prac­tice.