So here we are, approaching the end of the year in the week of Christmas, mentally and physically preparing for, anticipating, joyously awaiting, ignoring or dreading the arrival of The Big Day. And how we´re feeling will, no doubt, have been shaped by our life experience up to this point, and by the circumstances of… Continue reading The Advent Calendar of Life…
The day will come when you and I will cease to be. And all that was said, and thought, and done will melt to nothing. And in that moment of returning to the earth again, as water, - Heaven sent, momentary, lingering ... in this space that lies between - some of us may pause… Continue reading The Melt
Angels lend their wings to the seeker of knowledge - Moorish proverb A young man knocked at the door of the (still closed) church hostel this week and asked if he could stay. He was Julien, a French pilgrim who has spent the last few years living in Japan and is now walking the Camino… Continue reading Where there´s a will…
Two people inspired me to start writing my blog again this week and they did it subtly and unintentionally, just by telling me their stories, which came straight from their hearts. Talking to both of them felt a little bit like looking in a mirror because, although we had different views and experiences in relation… Continue reading “Start here, start now…”
Who am I to tell you how to seek and find the all-confounding, all-demanding, all-providing and glorious God that is Love? Who am I to offer guidance or reassurance that might help you stumble blindly into it, as I have, over the self-inflicted wreckage of fantasy, frustration, false images, failures, hidden frailties and forlorn hope?… Continue reading Who am I to tell you…?
It’s just over two months since my Korean flatmates left Logroño, carried away into the darkness one morning in a taxi bound for Barcelona airport and then onwards, by plane, back to Seoul, family, friends and home. It’s amazing how quickly that time has passed and how things have changed, both for me and for the… Continue reading Why not take all of Me?
"Always speak the truth, even if your voice shakes" It’s more than two weeks since my last blog post and what a two weeks it’s been - in all of our lives. How quickly the world and our experience of it can change. How effectively Life teaches us to embrace the contradictions of our humanness: fragile and… Continue reading Fear is the Key…
Early this morning the clocks sprang forward one hour, symbolically reflecting this time of change and our forward movement into Spring. I hear birdsong all around me (all the more audible for the lack of vehicle hum and city noise that usually fills the streets here). I frequently see storks overhead, making their way to the… Continue reading Home thoughts from abroad…
I’ve written a number of blog posts during the last week, since stopping the Camino de Santiago and going into ‘lock-down’ isolation with 3 fellow pilgrims here in Northern Spain. But my silent inner voice has shaken its head and rejected them all. I don’t know why, which is not unusual, but I know enough to… Continue reading The Clearing…
I bought a new pair of walking boots yesterday. The perfect pair to fit my growing feet. Feet that seem to keep growing, with each long walk that I do. I start my next Camino de Santiago (an old friend, a Camino I've walked three times before) in less than a week. And it's currently… Continue reading New Boots…
La Casa de Paz 