Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Walking my Camino in Colorado. Simply, I love to walk. It is truly a gift for my body and soul.
In-Syncness
Been home for ten days now, and the re-entry process continues to deepen. Each day I am more here, more present in my body. I got to spend time with Grace, my youngest, on Saturday. It felt as though we had to come back into sync with each other. We started off somewhat at odds with each other, not quite sure what to do or how to even decide what to do. Fortunately, by the end of our time together, we felt aligned and open with each other, and were laughing and enjoying ourselves.
This experience with Grace helped me to name the state of being "in sync" with someone, or even something. It can just be the way it is with someone and usually that person becomes one of our dearest friends or partners. Sometimes, you have to create it with someone, or re-create it. Grace and I are usually very in sync with each other. Yet, given my 5 week absence from her, we have to cultivate our in-syncness again. Nothing wrong, but very important to recognize and honor that my 9 year old daughter has had to learn how to be okay with me around her, calibrating her rhythm, her energy, her being. And so our need to simply spend time together, focused on each other and our relationship, and to get back in sync.
In sync. Dictionary.com defines sync as "harmony or harmonious relationship." It feels good to be in sync with others - these are the people whom I am drawn to and want to be with.
Who are you in sync with? Who are you not?
Going away for 5 weeks gives me the opportunity to confront this. I notice that it can be something I take for granted, sometimes something I long for with someone but can't quite seem to find; at other times may have with someone and then lose it, and am then not sure how to get it back.
As I reflect on this, being in syncness is something I spend a lot of time on, and is one of my prime motivators. Hmm...perhaps we all do. Perhaps not. It seems that being in relationship is so important and necessary for all of us.
While I walked on the Camino, I felt very in sync with myself. Something in the very act and process of walking supports and connects me so that I experience an in-syncness that is comfortable, harmonious, and nourishing, both on a physical and a soul level. I realize that I crave this feeling. I long to walk for hours every day. I love to walk for hours every day. While there are certain terrains and environments that I prefer, I also am happy to just walk. On the Camino, I loved the wide open meseta as much as I loved the rolling green hills of Galicia. Perhaps each occurred at exactly the right time for me, and part of walking is the acceptance of transition and change, even as reflected in the environment around you.
When I walk, I move at a speed that is natural and aligned with my body. I move only as fast as my body can move. I could run, but there is something about the speed of walking that feels inherently "right" for me. The contrast of this is when I fly in an airplane. My body is moving so fast with the help of another vehicle, and I cannot keep up with it. So I arrive at my destination and I have to come back into my body. You then add time on top of that and you have jet lag! Part of the in-syncness for me in walking is that I move with my body and stay connected. For me, walking is connecting and deepening. I actually deepen my connection with my Self and my body. I do not have to re-connect when I am done walking at the end of the day. The oppposite is true - I am more connected and in sync with myself.
This experience with Grace helped me to name the state of being "in sync" with someone, or even something. It can just be the way it is with someone and usually that person becomes one of our dearest friends or partners. Sometimes, you have to create it with someone, or re-create it. Grace and I are usually very in sync with each other. Yet, given my 5 week absence from her, we have to cultivate our in-syncness again. Nothing wrong, but very important to recognize and honor that my 9 year old daughter has had to learn how to be okay with me around her, calibrating her rhythm, her energy, her being. And so our need to simply spend time together, focused on each other and our relationship, and to get back in sync.
In sync. Dictionary.com defines sync as "harmony or harmonious relationship." It feels good to be in sync with others - these are the people whom I am drawn to and want to be with.
Who are you in sync with? Who are you not?
Going away for 5 weeks gives me the opportunity to confront this. I notice that it can be something I take for granted, sometimes something I long for with someone but can't quite seem to find; at other times may have with someone and then lose it, and am then not sure how to get it back.
As I reflect on this, being in syncness is something I spend a lot of time on, and is one of my prime motivators. Hmm...perhaps we all do. Perhaps not. It seems that being in relationship is so important and necessary for all of us.
While I walked on the Camino, I felt very in sync with myself. Something in the very act and process of walking supports and connects me so that I experience an in-syncness that is comfortable, harmonious, and nourishing, both on a physical and a soul level. I realize that I crave this feeling. I long to walk for hours every day. I love to walk for hours every day. While there are certain terrains and environments that I prefer, I also am happy to just walk. On the Camino, I loved the wide open meseta as much as I loved the rolling green hills of Galicia. Perhaps each occurred at exactly the right time for me, and part of walking is the acceptance of transition and change, even as reflected in the environment around you.
When I walk, I move at a speed that is natural and aligned with my body. I move only as fast as my body can move. I could run, but there is something about the speed of walking that feels inherently "right" for me. The contrast of this is when I fly in an airplane. My body is moving so fast with the help of another vehicle, and I cannot keep up with it. So I arrive at my destination and I have to come back into my body. You then add time on top of that and you have jet lag! Part of the in-syncness for me in walking is that I move with my body and stay connected. For me, walking is connecting and deepening. I actually deepen my connection with my Self and my body. I do not have to re-connect when I am done walking at the end of the day. The oppposite is true - I am more connected and in sync with myself.
~ A true pilgrim is one who takes the lessons gained on pilgrimage and applies them to their lives when they return. ~
How do I bring home this deep rooted in-syncness? How do I continue to cultivate it? How do I be the pilgrim at home? How do I bring the essence of pilgrim into my life at home?
I walk.
I just realized that for me, a pilgrim is one who walks/moves to re-align, re-cognize, and re-connect with the truth, core, and essence of oneself. As we walk, we cultivate a very real experience of being in sync with ourselves, our Self, our Soul, God, the Divine. We get up, we walk; we eat, we walk; we share with others, we walk; we take care of our bodies, we walk; we sleep, we walk.
Every day I must walk. I may not get to walk for 6 or 8 hours. No matter. I must walk. I must allow myself to walk, no matter what.
How is that I can walk for hours a day on the Camino, and then I come home and can forget to walk everyday? The responsibilities of life at home; the more structured time; money; tending to others, the home, work - I allow all of this to call me away from walking, from myself.
Walking to re-align, re-cognize, and re-connect with the truth, core, and essence of oneself is what makes me a pilgrim, every day, no matter where I walk or for how long.
So I make this commitment right here and right now. Every day I walk as a pilgrim. Every day. No matter what. I walk with the intention to be in sync with mySelf. I have my boots, my walking sticks, my back pack with rain and snow gear, and most especially my pilgrim heart with me at all times, so that no matter where I am, I am prepared, ready and willing to walk.
Suseya!
Sahara
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Just Changed the Name and Address of this Blog
I just changed the name of this blog, and the url address as well. The title no longer felt right or appropriate, and it felt really important to have "Celtic Camino" as part of the title and the address. So now the url for this blog is http://celticcamino-pilgrimage.blogspot.com.
Thanks for bearing with these changes.
Thanks for bearing with these changes.
Each stage is only accomplished after an appropriate period of intense and spiritual preparation.
How does "Asking New Questions - Creating New Answers" relate to the Camino?
My intention for this fall was to walk the first leg of the Celtic Camino, from Santiago to Toulouse, which also reflected walking from the first chakra (Santiago) to the second chakra (Toulouse). In walking this journey, I would begin to heal the split that starts in my first chakra and metaphorically continues all the way up to my seventh, or crown chakra. As I have mentioned many times, I have a physical split in my belly that begins right around my second chakra and goes up above my third chakra.
The book that inspired the journey of the Celtic Camino, Rosslyn - Guardian of the Secrets of the Holy Grail, written my Tim Wallace-Murphy and Marilyn Hopkins, describes the journey as a sacred pilgrimage of initiation.
While I thought that I was walking to Toulouse this fall, I know that it was perfect for me to only walk a part of the way, and also to walk the Camino Frances to St. Jean Pied de Port, rather than walk to Toulouse via the Camino Aragones and Somport Pass. I have not yet completed the "appropriate period of intense and spiritual preparation" to be fully initiated into the second chakra. I was not ready to walk all the way to Toulouse.
What I was prepared for was to walk from Santiago, and to move up along the path toward the second chakra. All the work that I have been engaged with over the past eighteen months or so, and with fully engaging and committing to healing the split has been the intense emotional and spiritual preparation for the journey I have just returned home from.
Carolyn Myss (www.myss.com) talks about the first chakra as the foundation for emotional and mental health, and about how our connection to traditional familial beliefs support the formation of identity and our sense of belonging to a group. The issues that can often come up out of first chakra imbalances usually have to do with a concern about belonging, and a fear of abandonment, and also an ability to provide for life's necessities and to stand up for oneself. The sacred truth of the first chakra is that "All is One" and that you are connected to all life.
Leading up to my pilgrimage this fall, I got to confront my first chakra imbalances and challenges. My commitment to undertake this journey triggered events in my life so that I could address these issues. I confronted my making decisions that people I cared about had issues and judgement around. I made a decision that was for me, and did not include others to come along and be a part of. I had to confront my fears of being abandoned, unloved and unaccepted in making this decision to go on the Camino, again. I got to stand up for myself. I got to experience that even though I may make unpopular choices and decisions, and even though this may make me different from others, that underneath it all, WE ARE ALL ONE. This fundamental, sacred truth of the first chakra is actually what supports us to be fully ourselves and to express our uniqueness, because no matter what, we are connected to each other, we are one, and even bigger than that, ALL IS ONE. That every choice I make and every belief I hold exerts an influence on the whole of life, and given this influence, don't I want to contribute with the most positive, loving, compassionate, and creative choices and decisions that I can make?
This is what propelled me from Santiago to St. Jean!
I got to live into, actually walk into, this understanding and this healing. I have come home feeling more clear, and more able to communicate directly and clearly. I have written a few emails that have required some direct communications, and I have been able to write what I really wanted and needed to write. No not saying what I need to say, no apologies, and yet done with love and respect. I am not sure that I would have done that before the Camino. I am also more clear about what I truly desire, and what I want and need to do and accomplish. I have moved more deeply into owning both my dreams and responsibilities, and I standing up for myself as well as my ability to provide for life's necessities and life's dreams and desires. I am excited to be home and to get to step into fulfilling all of this.
In the walking, I also knew that I was not ready to walk the Camino Aragones over Somport Pass to the Via Tolosana to Toulouse. I could feel my resistance and fear to undertaking this part of the journey, especially so late in the season when albergues were closing for the season and snow was likely to be in the Pyrenees, especially at the higher altitudes. It wasn't just fear and resistance. It felt more like I was being guided to let go of what I thought it would/should look like and allow the authentic, and "rightful" journey to be walked. When I listened to and allowed this picture to emerge, everything fell back into balance and into flow again. The Camino guided and provided every step of the way. My commitment was to listen, honor and heed this guidance.
Coming home the next challenges and preparations are revealing themselves. I am being prepared for the next journey, this time to Toulouse and the site of the second chakra.
Visiting by car and getting to touch and see the Eglise Notre Dame la Dalbade in Toulouse sewed the seed for this next leg of the initiation. I knew it was perfect that I had missed the hours when the Church would be open. The sacred places that have been closed when I arrived there are calling me like magnets to come back another time, when I am prepared and ready to receive their gifts. I specifically think of Ermite de San Nicolas, the Church at Eunate, Camino Aragones, Via Tolosana, and Toulouse and the Eglise Notre Dame la Dalbade itself.
Toulouse is calling me, the second chakra is calling me...
Carolyn Myss says that your second chakra is your center for personal power, creativity, sexuality, finances and one-on-one relationships. The sacred truth of the second chakra is to "Honor One Another" and to recognize that every relationship I develop, from casual to intimate, helps me to become more conscious. No union is without its spiritual value.
How perfect that Steve and I are opening to asking new questions and to co-creating our relationship and our lives in a more balanced, co-creative and actually more intimate way...all the issues of the second chakra, of course! Through Steve, I am actually being invited into all the issues of the second chakra, and that I get to deepen and develop my relationship with him, money and work, and ultimately, with myself, and my creativity, sexuality, and power.
The journey continues...as my dear pilgrim sister, Sue Kenney, has so wisely said, "When the Camino ends, the journey begins."
The next leg of the Celtic Camino journey begins. And I choose to continue on the path of this sacred pilgrimage of initiation. Thank you, Celtic Camino. Thank you, Spirit.
Suseya!
Sarah
My intention for this fall was to walk the first leg of the Celtic Camino, from Santiago to Toulouse, which also reflected walking from the first chakra (Santiago) to the second chakra (Toulouse). In walking this journey, I would begin to heal the split that starts in my first chakra and metaphorically continues all the way up to my seventh, or crown chakra. As I have mentioned many times, I have a physical split in my belly that begins right around my second chakra and goes up above my third chakra.
The book that inspired the journey of the Celtic Camino, Rosslyn - Guardian of the Secrets of the Holy Grail, written my Tim Wallace-Murphy and Marilyn Hopkins, describes the journey as a sacred pilgrimage of initiation.
Celtic pilgrims who worshipped the Earth goddess journeyed from Iberia to Scotland via the seven planetary oracles, associating the alignment of the spirit senses within themselves to the corresponding alignment of the Earth chakras...The pilgrimage is not simply one journey encompassing each of the seven sites, but a series of journeys made in a predetermined order, starting with the Druidic oracle at Compostela, representing the base chakra, then moving northwards to each site in the alignment before culminating in Rosslyn, representing the crown chakra. Each stage is only accomplished after an appropriate period of intense and spiritual preparation.I italicized the last sentence because of its pertinence to my experience.
While I thought that I was walking to Toulouse this fall, I know that it was perfect for me to only walk a part of the way, and also to walk the Camino Frances to St. Jean Pied de Port, rather than walk to Toulouse via the Camino Aragones and Somport Pass. I have not yet completed the "appropriate period of intense and spiritual preparation" to be fully initiated into the second chakra. I was not ready to walk all the way to Toulouse.
What I was prepared for was to walk from Santiago, and to move up along the path toward the second chakra. All the work that I have been engaged with over the past eighteen months or so, and with fully engaging and committing to healing the split has been the intense emotional and spiritual preparation for the journey I have just returned home from.
Carolyn Myss (www.myss.com) talks about the first chakra as the foundation for emotional and mental health, and about how our connection to traditional familial beliefs support the formation of identity and our sense of belonging to a group. The issues that can often come up out of first chakra imbalances usually have to do with a concern about belonging, and a fear of abandonment, and also an ability to provide for life's necessities and to stand up for oneself. The sacred truth of the first chakra is that "All is One" and that you are connected to all life.
Leading up to my pilgrimage this fall, I got to confront my first chakra imbalances and challenges. My commitment to undertake this journey triggered events in my life so that I could address these issues. I confronted my making decisions that people I cared about had issues and judgement around. I made a decision that was for me, and did not include others to come along and be a part of. I had to confront my fears of being abandoned, unloved and unaccepted in making this decision to go on the Camino, again. I got to stand up for myself. I got to experience that even though I may make unpopular choices and decisions, and even though this may make me different from others, that underneath it all, WE ARE ALL ONE. This fundamental, sacred truth of the first chakra is actually what supports us to be fully ourselves and to express our uniqueness, because no matter what, we are connected to each other, we are one, and even bigger than that, ALL IS ONE. That every choice I make and every belief I hold exerts an influence on the whole of life, and given this influence, don't I want to contribute with the most positive, loving, compassionate, and creative choices and decisions that I can make?
This is what propelled me from Santiago to St. Jean!
I got to live into, actually walk into, this understanding and this healing. I have come home feeling more clear, and more able to communicate directly and clearly. I have written a few emails that have required some direct communications, and I have been able to write what I really wanted and needed to write. No not saying what I need to say, no apologies, and yet done with love and respect. I am not sure that I would have done that before the Camino. I am also more clear about what I truly desire, and what I want and need to do and accomplish. I have moved more deeply into owning both my dreams and responsibilities, and I standing up for myself as well as my ability to provide for life's necessities and life's dreams and desires. I am excited to be home and to get to step into fulfilling all of this.
In the walking, I also knew that I was not ready to walk the Camino Aragones over Somport Pass to the Via Tolosana to Toulouse. I could feel my resistance and fear to undertaking this part of the journey, especially so late in the season when albergues were closing for the season and snow was likely to be in the Pyrenees, especially at the higher altitudes. It wasn't just fear and resistance. It felt more like I was being guided to let go of what I thought it would/should look like and allow the authentic, and "rightful" journey to be walked. When I listened to and allowed this picture to emerge, everything fell back into balance and into flow again. The Camino guided and provided every step of the way. My commitment was to listen, honor and heed this guidance.
Coming home the next challenges and preparations are revealing themselves. I am being prepared for the next journey, this time to Toulouse and the site of the second chakra.
Visiting by car and getting to touch and see the Eglise Notre Dame la Dalbade in Toulouse sewed the seed for this next leg of the initiation. I knew it was perfect that I had missed the hours when the Church would be open. The sacred places that have been closed when I arrived there are calling me like magnets to come back another time, when I am prepared and ready to receive their gifts. I specifically think of Ermite de San Nicolas, the Church at Eunate, Camino Aragones, Via Tolosana, and Toulouse and the Eglise Notre Dame la Dalbade itself.
Toulouse is calling me, the second chakra is calling me...
 | ||
| Eglise Notre Dame la Dalbade, Toulouse 2010 |
 | |
| Eglise Notre Dame la Dalbade, Toulouse, 2010 |
Carolyn Myss says that your second chakra is your center for personal power, creativity, sexuality, finances and one-on-one relationships. The sacred truth of the second chakra is to "Honor One Another" and to recognize that every relationship I develop, from casual to intimate, helps me to become more conscious. No union is without its spiritual value.
How perfect that Steve and I are opening to asking new questions and to co-creating our relationship and our lives in a more balanced, co-creative and actually more intimate way...all the issues of the second chakra, of course! Through Steve, I am actually being invited into all the issues of the second chakra, and that I get to deepen and develop my relationship with him, money and work, and ultimately, with myself, and my creativity, sexuality, and power.
The journey continues...as my dear pilgrim sister, Sue Kenney, has so wisely said, "When the Camino ends, the journey begins."
The next leg of the Celtic Camino journey begins. And I choose to continue on the path of this sacred pilgrimage of initiation. Thank you, Celtic Camino. Thank you, Spirit.
Suseya!
Sarah
Asking New Questions - Creating New Answers
Every day that I am home from the Camino, I am stepping more fully back into my life here with my family, Steve, work, and finances. Yesterday Steve and I got to spend the day together. We walked into town, ate breakfast at Lucille's, strolled on the Pearl Street Mall, walked home via North Boulder Park, where we lay in the grass and looked up at the clear blue sky until we fell asleep. So nourishing to just get to be together for a chunk of time during the day. For us, being together during the day means we get to be with each other at our best awake hours, and when we like to be with other people. For me, I like to be alone in the early morning hours to sit quietly, write and read. At night, I am just ready to go to sleep. So daytime dates are a new thing for us and I really enjoy them. We are talking about how to create this for ourselves on a weekly basis.
One of Steve's take-aways from my being gone was that he really wants us to become better partners in creating and living our lives. We are both independent people and we now know that we can do just fine and manage our lives, and the kids' lives, without the other one there. In some ways, it's actually easier. The bigger challenge is how do we co-create together? This must sound so funny. I mean, we have been married for nearly 24 years and shouldn't we have figured this out years ago?!
Many years ago a psychic shared an image of us as parallel train tracks who live with the illusion that off in the future and distant horizon, the tracks merge and come together. So we just keep doing what we've been doing in the hopes of that one day, some day, our tracks will cross and we will experience true partnership and intimacy.
We have lived side-by-side for a long time, and it has been comfortable and acceptable for both of us. Somehow, it's what we've known how to do. Most likely, it was modeled for us by our parents. It has been fine, especially since we were both immersed in it. It has been the water we have been swimming in for all this time. But my going away for five weeks creates an opening and a shift, and both a possibility and an opportunity for change.
Steve's request to transform what and how we co-create, co-manage, co-parent, co-habitate provides us with the context to re-enter with each other differently. His speaking it created a new question for us to live into.
Have you ever heard that our lives are a reflection of the answers to the questions we are asking. I love this, and realize that this opening is changing the question that Steve and I have been asking for the past 20 plus years.
It could be so easy to just fall back into the unconscious questions that we have been asking and what is known and familiar, but we both know we want something different. While I had not yet put into words what Steve voiced yesterday, I knew as soon as he started to talk about it that we were on the same page. I even told him that at breakfast. We are coming to this page from different perspectives and experiences, but we do both want the same thing, or at the very least, are both open to asking some new questions about our relationship and the lives we are creating together.
The funny thing is we had talked about co-creating something different for ourselves and our marriage 24 years ago when we first got married, and again when we were pregnant with our first child. And then life happened, and our baby was born, and more babies were born and without realizing it, we fell into what was known, what was safe, and what had been modeled for us.
I know for myself that my maternal instinct and hormones took over as soon as I became pregnant. I had always assumed that I would be a working mother when I had children, but while I was pregnant, I worked in a daycare center for babies and toddlers. This experience radically altered my whole perspective. No way was anyone else going to take care of my child(ren). I wanted be with him, take care of him myself, and much to my own surprise, become a stay-at-home mother. I also wanted to nurse my baby, on demand, from my breast, without having to pump, do bottles and the whole gamut. My desire and mothering instincts took over, and any and all thoughts of Steve and I equally sharing the whole work/financial/child rearing thing went out the window.
All that was okay while we had babies and the children were young, and for us that was quite a while. Four children, born over a span of twelve years, had me being at home with young pre-school ages children, or pregnant and nursing for a long time. In 2000, just when I thought I would be going back "out into the world", I unexpectedly became pregnant with Gracie, and experienced myself pulling back into the home and the coccoon of pregnancy, nursing, being with a baby, then a toddler, then a pre-school aged child, as my other children were dealing with elementary school, then middle school, then high school.
Here we are - Andrew is nearly 21 years old, and Gracie is in fourth grade and in the midst of the 9 year change. She is growing up from a young child to a blossoming girl who's just on the very far edge of beginning to prepare to take the next leap into adolescence. Not a teenager yet, but also not a young 6 year old either.
So, the times they are a-changing. My children are growing up. Steve and I are growing up. I fully realized while on the Camino that I am no longer a younger person. I am now a woman in my 50's, and Steve is a man in his 50's. We are no longer in our 40's and it feels very different. Nothing wrong or bad, but important to acknowledge that our 50's are a new era for us to live into and own. The time is now to ask new questions and to give ourselves a new context out of which to co-create our lives.
Suseya,
Sarah
One of Steve's take-aways from my being gone was that he really wants us to become better partners in creating and living our lives. We are both independent people and we now know that we can do just fine and manage our lives, and the kids' lives, without the other one there. In some ways, it's actually easier. The bigger challenge is how do we co-create together? This must sound so funny. I mean, we have been married for nearly 24 years and shouldn't we have figured this out years ago?!
Many years ago a psychic shared an image of us as parallel train tracks who live with the illusion that off in the future and distant horizon, the tracks merge and come together. So we just keep doing what we've been doing in the hopes of that one day, some day, our tracks will cross and we will experience true partnership and intimacy.
We have lived side-by-side for a long time, and it has been comfortable and acceptable for both of us. Somehow, it's what we've known how to do. Most likely, it was modeled for us by our parents. It has been fine, especially since we were both immersed in it. It has been the water we have been swimming in for all this time. But my going away for five weeks creates an opening and a shift, and both a possibility and an opportunity for change.
Steve's request to transform what and how we co-create, co-manage, co-parent, co-habitate provides us with the context to re-enter with each other differently. His speaking it created a new question for us to live into.
Have you ever heard that our lives are a reflection of the answers to the questions we are asking. I love this, and realize that this opening is changing the question that Steve and I have been asking for the past 20 plus years.
It could be so easy to just fall back into the unconscious questions that we have been asking and what is known and familiar, but we both know we want something different. While I had not yet put into words what Steve voiced yesterday, I knew as soon as he started to talk about it that we were on the same page. I even told him that at breakfast. We are coming to this page from different perspectives and experiences, but we do both want the same thing, or at the very least, are both open to asking some new questions about our relationship and the lives we are creating together.
The funny thing is we had talked about co-creating something different for ourselves and our marriage 24 years ago when we first got married, and again when we were pregnant with our first child. And then life happened, and our baby was born, and more babies were born and without realizing it, we fell into what was known, what was safe, and what had been modeled for us.
I know for myself that my maternal instinct and hormones took over as soon as I became pregnant. I had always assumed that I would be a working mother when I had children, but while I was pregnant, I worked in a daycare center for babies and toddlers. This experience radically altered my whole perspective. No way was anyone else going to take care of my child(ren). I wanted be with him, take care of him myself, and much to my own surprise, become a stay-at-home mother. I also wanted to nurse my baby, on demand, from my breast, without having to pump, do bottles and the whole gamut. My desire and mothering instincts took over, and any and all thoughts of Steve and I equally sharing the whole work/financial/child rearing thing went out the window.
All that was okay while we had babies and the children were young, and for us that was quite a while. Four children, born over a span of twelve years, had me being at home with young pre-school ages children, or pregnant and nursing for a long time. In 2000, just when I thought I would be going back "out into the world", I unexpectedly became pregnant with Gracie, and experienced myself pulling back into the home and the coccoon of pregnancy, nursing, being with a baby, then a toddler, then a pre-school aged child, as my other children were dealing with elementary school, then middle school, then high school.
Here we are - Andrew is nearly 21 years old, and Gracie is in fourth grade and in the midst of the 9 year change. She is growing up from a young child to a blossoming girl who's just on the very far edge of beginning to prepare to take the next leap into adolescence. Not a teenager yet, but also not a young 6 year old either.
So, the times they are a-changing. My children are growing up. Steve and I are growing up. I fully realized while on the Camino that I am no longer a younger person. I am now a woman in my 50's, and Steve is a man in his 50's. We are no longer in our 40's and it feels very different. Nothing wrong or bad, but important to acknowledge that our 50's are a new era for us to live into and own. The time is now to ask new questions and to give ourselves a new context out of which to co-create our lives.
Suseya,
Sarah
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
What I Bring Home from the Camino
Been home just over 3 days now. Yesterday I slept - I took a 3 plus hour nap during the afternoon, and then slept from 8:30 to nearly 4:30 this morning. The heaviness that was hanging on me since Thursday night has lifted. I feel more clear, more here. I am home!
I went for my first walk since being home yesterday morning with Steve. Perfect timing in every way, and the sun was out. A golden autumn morning that turned into wind, dark clouds and rain right after we walked. As I walked, I could feel my body move within itself. What had become stagnant sitting on the plane for 12 hours, flying at superfast speeds, and then feeling jetlagged for 3 days, began to move and shift to release its grip. I felt even more tired when I got home from the walk, but I knew it was the stagnancy moving through. I love to walk. Have I shared that before?! I simply love to walk. Walking is my quiet space, my meditation, my home. I love to walk alone, and I love to walk with loved ones and friends. Getting to walk with Steve yesterday gave us a chance to have a deeper conversation about my Camino, for him to ask me good questions, and for me to ponder and reflect on what he was asking me. Walking slows us down, and allows us to move and travel at a speed that our bodies inherently and naturally move. I feel integrated, whole, and connected when I walk - to myself, my Self, the person(s) I am walking with, the Earth, and Spirit.
Steve asked me several really good questions, one of them being "What are you bringing home from the Camino?" Good question. What am I bringing home?
Wow...I just had to go and visit my emails, Facebook, and my calendar to let that question percolate. I could begin to answer it yesterday while walking, but to answer it here and now by writing it feels like a daunting task.
I may have to spiral around with thoughts and impulses that come up so that I can get to the core of the question and the core of my answer.
I am bringing home that I am a peregrina, a pilgrim. I love to walk. I love to walk the Camino. I love the Camino. I mentioned in an earlier blog that last year I fell in love with the Camino, and this year I got to develop a deeper relationship with it and cultivate a deep love. For me, the Camino is magical, profound, magnetic, resonant. I just love walking the Camino - every day in every way. It resonates deep within my body, and deep within my soul. It just does. It just is. I couldn't even begin to explain why or how. It just is.
This admission of my love for the Camino is opening up my desire, actually my Desire. Feeling into how I feel about the Camino is offering me the opportunity to feel, and know, and acknowledge, and own - what I truly, deeply desire from my heart and soul. I am re-connecting with my Desire.
For me, right now and in this very moment, this is the essence of what I am bringing home from the Camino. My Desire. The Desire and longing, and wanting, and dreaming, from inside of me, from my Self and my Soul. Not what others want for me, or what I should want, but what I want and Desire.
The split between me and what I desire is healing. I can now feel, and know what it is that I desire. I don't have to push it away, minimize it, disregard it. I can just accept and acknowledge it, actually allow it to just be.
Desire is how our Soul communicates to us. It is the guiding light that shines the next step on our divine path for us. Without Desire, we have no rudder to steer or keep us on our path. Each and all of us has a sacred path and task that is ours, and only ours, to fulfill. How can we truly know, deep within our bellies and our being, what our sacred task is without Desire? It shines the light and illuminates the path, the way to fulfill the sacred task(s).
More to be explored...
Suseya!
Sarah
I went for my first walk since being home yesterday morning with Steve. Perfect timing in every way, and the sun was out. A golden autumn morning that turned into wind, dark clouds and rain right after we walked. As I walked, I could feel my body move within itself. What had become stagnant sitting on the plane for 12 hours, flying at superfast speeds, and then feeling jetlagged for 3 days, began to move and shift to release its grip. I felt even more tired when I got home from the walk, but I knew it was the stagnancy moving through. I love to walk. Have I shared that before?! I simply love to walk. Walking is my quiet space, my meditation, my home. I love to walk alone, and I love to walk with loved ones and friends. Getting to walk with Steve yesterday gave us a chance to have a deeper conversation about my Camino, for him to ask me good questions, and for me to ponder and reflect on what he was asking me. Walking slows us down, and allows us to move and travel at a speed that our bodies inherently and naturally move. I feel integrated, whole, and connected when I walk - to myself, my Self, the person(s) I am walking with, the Earth, and Spirit.
Steve asked me several really good questions, one of them being "What are you bringing home from the Camino?" Good question. What am I bringing home?
Wow...I just had to go and visit my emails, Facebook, and my calendar to let that question percolate. I could begin to answer it yesterday while walking, but to answer it here and now by writing it feels like a daunting task.
I may have to spiral around with thoughts and impulses that come up so that I can get to the core of the question and the core of my answer.
I am bringing home that I am a peregrina, a pilgrim. I love to walk. I love to walk the Camino. I love the Camino. I mentioned in an earlier blog that last year I fell in love with the Camino, and this year I got to develop a deeper relationship with it and cultivate a deep love. For me, the Camino is magical, profound, magnetic, resonant. I just love walking the Camino - every day in every way. It resonates deep within my body, and deep within my soul. It just does. It just is. I couldn't even begin to explain why or how. It just is.
This admission of my love for the Camino is opening up my desire, actually my Desire. Feeling into how I feel about the Camino is offering me the opportunity to feel, and know, and acknowledge, and own - what I truly, deeply desire from my heart and soul. I am re-connecting with my Desire.
For me, right now and in this very moment, this is the essence of what I am bringing home from the Camino. My Desire. The Desire and longing, and wanting, and dreaming, from inside of me, from my Self and my Soul. Not what others want for me, or what I should want, but what I want and Desire.
The split between me and what I desire is healing. I can now feel, and know what it is that I desire. I don't have to push it away, minimize it, disregard it. I can just accept and acknowledge it, actually allow it to just be.
Desire is how our Soul communicates to us. It is the guiding light that shines the next step on our divine path for us. Without Desire, we have no rudder to steer or keep us on our path. Each and all of us has a sacred path and task that is ours, and only ours, to fulfill. How can we truly know, deep within our bellies and our being, what our sacred task is without Desire? It shines the light and illuminates the path, the way to fulfill the sacred task(s).
More to be explored...
Suseya!
Sarah
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
The pilgrimage shifts and changes, and continues to guide and provide.
When you come off the Camino, the pace of life inevitably picks up. For 25 days, we walked at most 25 or so kilometers a day, over 6 to 8 hours. Since we rented our little Renault car on Saturday evening, we've traveled about 600 or 700 kilometers in the same amount of time. We have driven down along the Pyrenees to the Mediterranean Sea, and now are over east of Marseilles. That's a lot of ground covered in a very short amount of time.
A very different pilgrimage from the Camino, but still a pilgrimage. What are we doing in France? We are following an inspired path to honor and explore the sacred feminine, yet in a different way from when we walked. Now, we are visiting specific sites that offer us a very specific connection to the sacred feminine. When we walked the Camino, every step was for the sacred feminine. It was a more inward journey. It felt like each step was an invitation and an invocation.
On the train to Paris:
Last year I walked the last 170 kilometers of El Camino de Santiago and then traveled by train the Celtic Camino. I traveled from Santiago up through France to Scotland in 9 days. This year I walked for nearly a month and only got to the border of Spain and France from Santiago! It's all so relative - time and distance wise.
When you travel on a pilgrimage by car or train, the destinations become what is important. The space in between is just somewhere to travel through. The pilgrimage becomes about the experience of being at the destination.
When you walk the pilgrimage path, the time and space inbetween is the pilgrimage. Walking slows the experience down to a pace that demands that the time and space expand to become the experience itself. Walking is the pilgrimage. The destination is a part of the experience, a guidepost along the way, and is not, cannot be the experience itself. You get up, you walk, you eat, you walk, you sleep, you walk. That's what you do, you walk. The journey is in the walking. You get up to walk. You eat to walk. You sleep to walk. You move to walk. It's so simple.
I love to walk. I loved getting to walk for 25 days. I. Just want to keep walking...and walking. I deeply appreciate the simple act of walking. I get to experience all of who I am when I walk - who I am as divine, who I am as human; my fears, doubts, and concerns - my love, faith, and trust; my thinking and my thoughts; my movement and my feelings; my aches and pains, my joys and gratitude. All of me shows up when I walk.
The walking creates the journey, and the journey is the pilgrimage. The space inbetween, the pause in between the breaths, is the journey.
Walking is a natural pace for our human bodies. Yes, we can run to move faster, but on a very basic level, we can only move as fast as our bodies can walk or run. This reality opens up the time-space dynamic so that we can experience what is occurring in the moment, both internally and externally, fully.
When we start to move more quickly than our bodies can move on their own, such as with the help of a bicycle, car, train or airplane, we have to focus on the destination. We cannot experience as fully the moment the more quickly we move. And the faster we move, the more important the destination becomes. Not to say that we cannot enjoy the travel, but travel is the means to the end, not the end in and of itself.
Getting to experience this dynamic of a walking pilgrimage immediately followed by a car/train pilgrimage now twice, I am profoundly aware of how different they feel to me. While I can appreciate the gifts and qualities of both, and have received so much from both.
So, for the past three days, we have been traveling by car from Saint Jean and Bayonne, to Lourdes (unexpected stop on the pilgrimage), Toulouse, Saintes Maries de la Mer, Arles, and Saint Maximin la Sainte-la Baume. The focus was certainly on the destinations, and the time is between fully supported our intention to be at these different wonderful places.
I will share what each of these places was about for us and why we chose to go to each of these places another time. As we head to Paris for the last leg of our journey, there is a perfection and a completion with our experiences over the past few days. We were blessed to still be guided and provided for by the Camino. Magic continued to occur, angels showed up just as and when we needed them, and awareness and understandings impulsed for both of us. Somehow, both pilgrimages were necessary for the whole experience. One without the other would have been incomplete. Two complementary aspects that are working together synergistically to create a more profound whole.
But that's for the next blog.
A bientot!
Suseya,
Sarah
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
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