Come Walk with Me - Camino Frances 2023
After a four-year hiatus, Suzanne will return to The Camino De Santiago De Compostella in August 2023. It has been a long-awaited return, delayed by the Covid response, but now we are free to walk and dedicate ourselves to communing with Spirit and God.
Camino Frances 2023 is Suzanne’s, Seventh Camino. So far she has walked the Camino Frances, once from Leon, (Spain), once from Burgos, (Spain), and Twice from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, (France). She has walked the English route once. And the Portuguese route once from Lisbon. This time again, it will be the Camino Frances from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, 500 miles in the blazing Spanish sun of August.
Having walked a number of Camino, one might think that Suzanne might claim some form of expertise… But no such thing exists. The Camino is different each time you walk it because you are different.
One might ask, why walk it again and again? Well, a good book is a good book no matter how many times you read it. At each reading, the difference in you makes a difference in it. You experience it differently. You notice different things. It inspires you in different ways. And thus it is Camino… An interactive play in which the players are different each time.
The privilege of being able to stop work and walk for a month is a wonderful thing that few do after their student years and before their retirement. Mindful of this, Suzanne always takes full advantage of the opportunity despite the daily struggles in the heat, illness, sore feet, blisters, psychological and emotional struggles and baggage, and general fatigue.
The Camino presents an opportunity to review and focus followed by an opportunity to review and focus followed by … It is Spiritual Process in its rawest form and a process one must submit to if one is to complete the 500 miles.
Conclusion
I will begin this with the conclusion of my 2023 Camino Frances. Some of the insights gained, delusions abandoned, and journey made. Hopefully, this might inspire you to look at a few pictures below and perhaps undertake such a journey yourself.
Walking Camino, at least for me, is both a spiritual and personal development journey, spread across a month and 500 gruelling miles. An intensive training boot camp concentrating potentially perhaps years of work into a matter of weeks.
The Camino can be brutal and exhausting for those willing to fully engage, but also, heartwarming and filled with hope and sometimes synchronicity and revelation.
Each time one walks the ‘Way’ – The Camino De Santiago – one has an opportunity to engage with a process that has a history spanning thousands of years. The Way itself, especially the Camino Frances, is a spiritual place where you may experience yourself more deeply than ever before.
Process – Walking Camino is a process of breaking down and building up. It is the same with all spiritual processes including the development of Mediumship. One must be willing to let go of all that impeeds us to make way for that which will uplift us. But this is not easy for any of us. We are attached to the deceit that we tell ourselves, which deludes us into comfort and stagnation. Such attachments lead to Resistance and thereby the denial and limiting of the process. It is therefore not uncommon for people to fall in and out of process, their Spiritual and Personal development ebbing and flowing.
My Process – I will try and be as candid as I can, however, much of my process is very personal and I will keep that between myself, spirit and God.
The First Two Weeks – It began badly. I had forgotten the lessons of the past and had disregarded my reality. I am older and less fit than before but imagined myself bouncing along doing 40km days and then arranged my itinerary with that in mind. And that did not go well. From day one, overestimating my ability almost killed me… Forgive the hyperbole… It was just awful.
Overestimating one’s ability in any field, especially that of spiritual and personal development will block all such development because one cannot journey from a place that one is not. That is to say, if one intends to journey from A to C and one actual starting position is B then one will fail. The route from A to C is different to that from B to C. Furthermore, if one overestimates one’s skill, ability, or development, one’s attachment to the idea of it, one’s Ego, will create a resistance to the process which will make it even worse.
So my process on Camino began by destroying my delusions about my physical ability… Sorry, Suzanne, you are not a nimble 20-year-old and have not been that for quite a while.
But it did not end there. While ‘only’ a month, the days are long. If one does not distract oneself with music, or constant chatter, and I do neither, the effect of walking eight hours ostensibly in silence is to engage in an eight-hour walking meditation for 30 ish days.
Spirit connections come and go, the mind focuses and wanders and all manner of ‘stuff’ comes up.
Each Camino is its own process. You are different each time and your needs are different. We are all human: harbouring frailty, foolishness, confusion, and much more besides. The Camino provides, not what you want, but what you need. This time for me, for the first two weeks, the focus was on Fear, Blame and Resentment and it was difficult. Obviously, I am not going to reveal the specifics in a public place, but suffice to say, the journey was hard, the revelation painful, but the weight lifted was great. I allowed spirit to guide me and God’s Love to support me.
Over one’s life, one accumulates all manner of ‘stuff’ that we may or may not be aware of. We get used to it being there, integrated into our thought processes and relationships as if it were a true part of ourselves. But it’s not. It’s just ill-fitting shoes that one compensates for in the way one walks. Something that one could cast off if one took the time to recognise it and to stop and change them.
(As an aside, it just occurred to me that the shoe metaphor was more than a metaphor for one previous Camino. Vanity – I have size four feet and my husband told me that I would have to wear size five whilst walking because one’s feet may swell up whilst walking. I chose to do otherwise … That was a huge and very painful mistake that severely damaged my feet. But that is a story from a different Camino. One tries to live and learn one’s lessons.)
It’s a cliche but true. Life is a journey, a Camino. Each day, each week, each month and each year presents an opportunity to journey.
Shadow – much is hidden in shadow, all that we deny and refuse to accept, our fears, resentments, everything we refuse to make peace with. Hidden, but not without power. Working in secret to hobble all aspects of our growth and development both personally and interpersonally. Undermining our relationships with ourselves, others, spirit and God. But little remains hidden on Camino and nothing is hidden from Spirit and God and if one is willing and open to it, much will spring forth.
Trust – But you are not alone. Trust in Spirit and trust in God. You will never be given more than you can manage. If one allows Truth to be one’s guiding light, then deception and confusion will feel like an anathema to oneself and one will happily take off the mask, and unburden oneself. No need to hide in fear. No need to carry such burdens. Spirit and God will help you see more clearly and support you with your strength and courage to change.
Future – The final weeks – following the unburdening of some Fear, Blame and Resentment, although not complete, and I am certain that there is still much to be done, was followed by a lightning of my spirit. I felt a freedom, clarity and acceptance that I had not felt in a long while which allowed me to see a possible future. It gave rise to an excitement for the future. My mind became filled with ideas for my work, my life and my relationships. A creative freedom that makes my work and my life my own. An expression of myself and trust in Spirit and God that people will come to me who wish to work with me.
With freedom came inspiration, a clearer channel to spiritual and divine inspiration.
My mind was filled with all sorts of ideas for courses to help others better realise their mediumistic potential and a desire to realise and improve my own.
The Final Day
Santiago De Compostella, I suppose, is the destination of the Camino De Santiago, but not really. It is, after all, not only a physical journey but an inner journey that never ends. For me, now more than ever, the journey was about removing earthly blockages and allowing a clearer connection with Spirit and the Divine. A renewal and deepening of my connection. Ultimately, Proof positive of the Spiritualist message; that We are spirit in the here and now, occupying physical forms, forever connected with the spirit world and belonging to the divine. Our lives and spirit neither come from us nor belong to us. All that we are and all that we have is given by the grace of God and remains with him forever. No need to fear or despair, God is always with us and if we are open to him and spirit we will be guided upon the right path.
Synchronicity – Strangely, whilst visiting the plethora of souvenir shops in Santiago that sell all the usual ‘stuff’, I came across a shop that sold something that I had never seen before. Yes, if one is so inclined, one can always explain away such things as coincidence or as I have done, realise the synchronicity of it and the message in it.
It is, as pictured a reproduction in wood of a medieval stone carving from a monastery depicting the risen Christ appearing before the Disciples. Notwithstanding it being ‘Christian’, I am a Spiritualist and a Medievalist, and the risen Christ here depicted is the medieval confirmation of the continuation of spirit beyond physical death.
Finding this piece, for me at least, was just good-humoured nod from the spirit world indicating that they are forever watchful and guiding us and will take the opportunity to confirm our spiritual existence.
It is a big item and the picture does not do it justice. Getting it home undamaged required some ingenuity, and a lot of duct tape. My yoga mat, which had accompanied us along the Way, was pressed into service and sacrificed to wrap and protect it. To be honest, my yoga mat was part of my delusion… I imagined myself walking 40km a day followed by a yoga session. I can laugh at my own foolishness. But the yoga mat did not go to waste.