I hope my Camino in pictures finds you with a bit of joy in your day. While Spain is getting colder and wetter, the beautiful walk continues. As walking conditions change, so does the inner dialogue and the call to pay attention to what arises. I am listening.
Processing thoughts and emotions while walking long distances are as natural as walking and breathing. I’ve been reflecting in my solitude for some clarity of purpose in these crazy times. What continues to arise is that the most profound and desperately needed thing we can do is learn to be love. Not be loved, not learn to love, but learn to ‘be love’. I asked myself what that looked like.
It seems that the first step is to clear and declutter everything that blocks us from feeling. I remember listening to an interview on CBC radio years ago that really stayed with me. It was with Alan Clements, an American Buddhist monk living endangered in Burma. He said “Enlightenment is a relentless willingness to feel.” and “the only way we can survive as a human race, is if we all drop our dogma low enough to embrace each other.”
So how amazing would it be if we could see one another in such a way:
I want to look into your eyes, past your insecurities, past your wisdom, past your sense of self, past your woes and your accolades and straight into the core of your heart where there is a bright flame, and that flame is the same as the one in me, and in all of us. I do believe that place is love, unadulterated. It is the place where we can support one another’s journey, without conditions or judgement. We deserve this, no?
To your path from mine, with love to be love, a lotus and a smile,
