I leave for the Camino in 11 days. I am excited. I am nervous. I am scared. I am blessed. I am grateful. I don't want to leave my family, yet I do want to walk the Celtic Camino. Why am I even doing this? Why am I being called? Life is good here. I love my family. I love my home. I love my life. Even as I type this, I can feel that I love all of this because I am simultaneously aware and responding to the calling. I can be more present here, more grateful because I am returning to the Camino. I say returning but really it is not returning. I may be going back to the same places (at least for the first 2 weeks) but they are not the same. I am not the same. I am responding to the call of the Celtic Camino. It has called me for years. It first came in the form of the Camino de Santiago calling me. As I got closer to actually going on it, the Camino became more specific with me, and let me know that my journey is the Celtic Camino, the sacred pilgrimage of initiation from Santiago up through France to Scotland. First by train. Now by foot. I am to walk the Celtic Camino.
In two weeks, I begin the pilgrimage in Santiago, Earth's root chakra, and begin the journey to Toulouse, the second or sacral chakra. We will walk the Camino de Santiago "al contrairio" for the first 28 days and then we will turn south onto the Camino Aragonés through the Aragon Valley of Spain, and Via Tolosana through France to Toulouse.
I am walking with my soul sister, Sharon Sofia. I am so blessed and honored that she wants to walk with me. In August, Sharon shared with me that she woke up one morning, knowing that she was to walk the Camino this fall. This was the invitation from the Camino. I knew as soon as she shared this with me that we were to walk together this fall, not at some later, safer, more distant date in the future. This invitation brought the Camino right in to the present.
I said "yes" and here I am, 11 days out from leaving all that is familiar and safe to embark on a journey into the unknown, into walking over 1100 kilometers/725 miles, into an intimate and immediate journeying on the pilgrimage of initiation.
In 2009, I traveled this journey by train with my daughter. We traveled it for about 10 days. It was like an introductory visit, and yet was an initiation in and of itself. I often asked what I was being initiated into. I knew that I had been guided to make this journey, but I was not completely sure why. I trusted the impulse and the invitation, and I accepted. Yet to travel by train felt like a skimming over the path, rather than a direct engaging with the path itself.
Even still, I had initiated the initiation.
From where I sit, and stand today, my understanding is that I was initiated into the journey to "heal the split" for myself, for humanity, for the Earth, and for the cosmos. I just realized that I began the physical healing of the split back in the beginning of January, 9 months ago. Nine months, the gestation period. I am now getting ready to birth into the next level of healing. For the past 9 months, I have focused on healing the split in my belly, first through Pilates, and for the past 5 months with an intuitive physical therapist, Lynn Leech (www.IntuitiveHandsPT.com) to strengthen the transverse muscle and pull the muscles back together. When I started working with Lynn, my split was more than 3 fingers wide and deep. Now, after daily exercises along with deep inner work, I am less than 2 fingers wide with the lower part of the split healed and only 1 finger wide at the top. I am smiling just at the recognition that my split is healing and I am starting to feel my core strengthen!
Now healing the split expands from my belly into my legs and my entire body, as I will be walking and carrying a 20 pound pack for over 40 days for an average of 25 to 30 kilometers a day. Very physical. I have walked at most 10 days and 170 kilometers when I walked the Camino last year. This year I am being asked to expand and do something I have not done before, again. Last year truly was the preparation for the journey I am undertaking this year. Last year's journey gave me the confidence, familiarity, foundation and map for my pilgrimage that I begin this year.
My intention is to heal the split as I walk from one chakra to the next. I imagine that as I walk, I deepen the physical healing of the split in my belly, I deepen the connection with my Self, I cultivate my connection to the Sacred Feminine and the Black Madonna, and that this is both internal and external. Internal in that I connect deeply with the sacred feminine within myself; external in that I will get to experience ancient sacred Black Madonna art objects in Santiago and Toulouse, as well as places in between, and that I will be walking the ancient ley line of the Camino that follows or reflects the Milky Way. I have this deep sense that the Camino is an ancient feminine path. Images of the feminine are all along the Camino, even if the Catholic Church has taken them over and claimed them for their own. My intention is to "have eyes to see, and ears to hear" Her, and to recognize these images and symbols for what they really are and to unearth, or uncover the truth of their feminine origins. I keep feeling this impulse to bring the feminine into the light, without cutting her off from her roots. So perhaps more accurately, my intention is to connect with the underground feminine current of this path, to receive its guidance, impulse, and nourishment, and through my walking and my presence, bring this beauty and power into the light. This path has been walked from the top down with the Catholic ideas of Heaven, God, spiritual power or enlightenment. I want to walk it from the Earth up. With each and every step, my intention is to connect with the core of the Earth, its Heart, the Heart of the Feminine, the Body, the pulses, currents and energy of the Earth and infuse the Camino with Her energy, love and beauty.
This is in part why I have had to heal my own split, so that I can be a cohered container, a chalice, for this immense energy of the feminine. I need to be able to contain this energy as I walk, actually as I live. In my containment of the energy is the possibility of the Feminine engaging with the masculine, the light from above, through me, as I walk this sacred path. It is actually possible in and through all of us...I am simply one person aligning with her path and choosing this as my intention.
Suseya!
Sarah
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