It has been a bit more then three years since I have finished walking my first pilgrimage, the French Camino de Santiago de Compostela, in Spain.
Yet, the lessons I have learned there still pop into my mind and help me to understand myself and teach me how to go through life.
Out there you spend your days walking, sometimes for five hours maybe even eight. You set your own pace and final destination for the day.
You can stop, have as many breaks as you want, you can take detours, you can change plans. You are free.
You talk to people you have never met before and open up in a few minutes, or you just have a trivial conversation and keep on moving, ahead always ahead.
It is your place, it is your time — you have no obligations, only choices, as in life, and there your main choice is to walk, the rest just happens, as you feel, as you wish.
By walking , you enter a meditative state that brings you to the present moment.
You have no worries on what is to come ahead, you have no worries of what was left behind — you are living and experiencing the actual moment. Life gains meaning, be it by staring at a field of flowers or just by talking to a stranger.
However there are some moments when your body asks for a break, you are soaring, tired and all the high you felt a few minutes ago are gone — suddenly in the blink of an eye your mood changes — you get angry at yourself- maybe for being there, for not knowing why you are there or maybe for feeling pain.
That is when your final destination, your aim of reaching the city of Santiago de Compostela and completing the pilgrimage, kicks in — you want to finish the Camino, you know where you are heading to and that is how you get the necessary strength to keep on going and not quitting, the strength to push yourself a bit more, just a bit more, step by step.
Yes, life is about the journey. To savor every experience, pay attention and live every moment and interaction you have.
However bad times do come by from times to times and having an aim, be it reaching Santiago, walking 300 Kms, or simply making to the next town, is what keeps you moving. It is what gives you the push, energy and persistence needed when you feel lost, meaningless. If no target was to be reached, you would just seat there adrift, waiting for life to pass. You need motivation and direction when the present moment makes you feel weak, defeated and lost.
Just like in the Camino, when life is joyful it does not seem necessary to have a direction- you just dance with what it is offering you. You look at flowers, enjoy the colors, watch the sky and keep on walking.
However some other days, your body and your mind remind you that you are human and that if you have no aim to walk towards to, the present moment can become insignificant, pointless and a burden to carry.
Yes let’s have the present moment as our most precious possession but let’s not forget that in order to advance thru foggy times we all need to envision our own Santiago de Compostela.
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This post was previously published on Change Becomes You and is republished here with permission from the author.
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Photo credit: Marcella Bonicelli