the camino found me

camino sustantivo

path, road; journey; way.

I had no idea that when grief meets you on life’s Camino that it moves through your entire body and requires physicality to process it.  I learned this late in the fall of 2017 when we moved off the acreage into an old house we renovated, our twins flew the coop for college, and Mike’s and my marriage of 30 years ended, leaving me and the cat staring at one another in a very empty home.

While somatic healing was something I had not heard of at the time, I was keenly aware of how my 4 a.m. part-time shift at Fed Ex loading boxes onto trucks was saving my life.  The bodily movement was absolutely essential to process stress and grief.  

During the fall of 2018, my daughter prepared for her Spring 2019 semester of studies in Oviedo, Spain.  I remembered a friend who had walked 500 miles on the Camino de Santiago across Spain with his adult children.  Hmmm, how close was the Camino to Oviedo, I wondered?  This kind of walking could be good for healing. After some research, I excitedly began to plan an adventure that I thought I had found. Little did I know that the Camino had found me.

I didn’t have a month’s vacation in which to walk the entire 500 mile French Route of the Camino, and besides, I wanted to spend time with Sara while I was there.  So, I spent five months at home preparing for the Camino in order to walk five days from Sarria to Santiago on the Camino.  400 miles of walking a camino around my own community, backpack and all, from December through April, and the final 100 miles walking the Camino in Spain in May 2019.   

It was 5 years ago when I began that pilgrimage, and it has provided so many insights for my capital P Pilgrimage…this journey of life we are all on together.   I've done 2 more Caminos in Spain since 2019, and I'm training with a group right now for another one in September. I wrote several blog posts about my very first Camino, and I had them on a blog that I shut down. Because we hope to continue to lead Camino trips through Travel Wholehearted in the future, I will spend some time this summer sharing those posts right here! Right foot, Left foot, Pilgrims!