We said that we would meet again when we parted from each other in Santiago on October 2, 2008. And so we did. Through many frequent e mail connections throughout the fall, we supported each other as we settled back into our lives again. We talked about planning a reunion in the fall of 2009 and by January, 2009, the date was set thanks to the perseverance of our organizer Alvina and so we committed to travelling to the Gaspe region in Quebec for a week of hiking together. As time approached, we talked more on e mail about what we would do with out time together and eventually left the program up to Alvina, who wanted to show us the beautiful mountain hiking trails near where she lives.
At the end of September, I flew from Toronto to the smallest airport in the country and there they were waiting for me. Barb and Linda had driven from near Ottawa, Kirsten, bless her heart, had flown from Denmark on her first journey to Canada and with Alvina, they had all piled into the car and driven for an hour to pick me up.
It was one of the most emotional greetings I have had in years. I can't describe what it felt like to see those faces again and to be so warmly surrounded by the love and warmth of my Camino Sisters. We cried and hugged each other with such reverance that is was not possible to be other than deeply moved by the love that oozed between us.
For 7 days, we talked and laughed and drank a lot of wine of course. We celebrated on the first evening, with a bottle of Rioja that Barb had purchased in Santiago for our reunion. We ate wonderful food together and created such a spiritual setting with candles and memories and just plain love and concern for each other.
We walked every day. We drove into the mountains of the Gaspe Provincial Park and spent 3 nights in a log cabin overlooking a lake. We were awakened each morning by beautiful music that Alvina and Kirsten had arranged in a portable tape recorder, just like in some of the best of the alberques. We cooked and ate together, wrote in our journals, talked about our lives and our hopes, challenges and dreams and relived the magic that is the Camino de Santiago.
One of the blessings of this reunion was that we all have a desire to walk again and so we are planning to walk the northern route next year, having an interest to walk into Santiago once again. So now we are investigating the options around walking the northern route.
From this wonderful time together with these very special women, I have regained once again the sense of human connectedness that was so prevalent on the Camino as we walked and talked with so many other people. There was a bond of caring based on generosity and sincerity and made me realize how great the world and life could be if this were only the way in which people operated in every day life.
I came home committed to developing new patterns in my life - waking up to my ipod playing beautiful music instead of the radio and its sensational news each morning, spending quiet time with candles and readings that are poetic and inspirational each evening and taking time to make connections with people in my life that embodies the values of care, sincerity and generosity that I find so fundamental in my life.
Life throws curve balls at us when we least expect it and so it has been with some great surprise that I find myself personally challenged in the past month, to stand up for values that are fundamental to my life and way of being as a person and as a professional. What I am learning from this is that life and the people that we encounter provide great opportunity to test out our personal boundaries and for me, at this stage, being able to take a stand for what is appropriate and what is not, has now altered the course of my life dramatically.
I think often about the Camino now, and go back in my mind to the way it felt to walk for hours on my own, through the woods and over mmountain trails, with only the sounds of the bells on the animals or the wind whistling through the trees. There is a great calming effect of being present to a higher energy and a greater way of being in the world than what an ordinary day might drag us into. I am calmed by my experience of walking the Camino, inspired my the authentic and wonderful relationships that it has brought to my life and confident about the path that I am walking.
I walk every morning now for at least an hour and as usual, the mental games in my head storm around until I have walked long enough for peace to find me. I am energised by the health of my body and the wisdom of my soul and charged with the notion that I can find my way into a new future through walking and relatedness with people who are inspired by a truly authentic way of living.
Walking the Camino gave me confidence and peace. A reunion with my Camino Sisters inspired me to relive the values that were so fundamental to a pilgrim on a long journey. Being a pilgrim in every day life is the way for me to access that which my heart longs for - which is simply love in all of its forms as is so aptly described in 1st Corinthians chapter 13.
Maggee
