Last week I visited Poland for the first time. I went there to talk at a travel festival... ...and this was my presentation: "I first met Tomasz (who's organised this festival) 10 years ago on the Camino de Santiago in Spain. We met in a misty wood the evening before we both arrived in Santiago. … Continue reading Signposts for Another Way
Five years ago I posted a blog piece entitled 'Home thoughts from abroad'. At the time I was confined to an AirBnB apartment in the city of Logroño, on the Camino de Santiago in Spain. I was confined because it was the first Covid lockdown of 2020, I was waiting to continue my camino and,… Continue reading Home thoughts from abroad: Take 2
In March 2020 the Camino brought me to the city of Logroño in Spain, and the COVID lockdown kept me here until the end of June that year. That happenstance, coincidence or act of Divine Providence (depending on how we view life and what happens to us within it) enabled me to meet and spend… Continue reading Path of Peace…
Allow yourself to be gentle, to be kind.No need to force, no need to rush.Allow yourself to be, and to feel, different every day...to be human.Try to greet that difference with patience, acceptance and a pinch of curiosity. Allow your priorities and focusto be different every day but, always,with an underlying awarenessof the central purpose… Continue reading Just because it felt worth sharing…
As we move towards the end of the year, and the season of Advent, I've been reflecting on how this year began for me, when I spent 3 months living in (and taking care of) the home of a friend in the tiny village of Molinaseca on the Camino de Santiago in Spain. That settled… Continue reading Where no-one is harried and nothing is forced…
We're experiencing a heatwave in Spain at the moment, with record temperatures announced each day in the town where I'm currently living, and a 'record-record' reached yesterday, as we tipped over into the 40-degree-plus celsius realm. The mornings are still comparatively cool (in the low 20's) but, from 2pm onwards, the temperature gradually climbs, shutters… Continue reading Why I go down to the river…
Yesterday I received, not for the first time, a life-giving lesson in the powerful and ever-present reality of the quality of Grace. How it lives within each of us. How each of us has the power to use it gently, kindly, wisely, consciously, as part of our own way of being, through our own choice… Continue reading The Rosebush…
This is the transcript of a video made by 'Green Renaissance', as part of their mission to capture personal stories on film that encourage us to see, explore, recognise and value our shared humanity. A link to the video and the Green Renaissance YouTube channel appears at the end of this blog. I heartily recommend… Continue reading Those places in need of healing…
Today I plucked a book of Christian teachings by an American Pastor off the bookshelf of a friend. I was waiting for the kettle to boil and, as I'd been wrestling with a writing project for a few days, I hoped I might find a bit of spontaneous inspiration by leafing through its pages. I… Continue reading This business of happiness…
Yesterday morning a dear friend sent me a link to a televised Mass from a Catholic church in Ireland, which she'd tuned into by chance, because she wanted me to see how the Mass had started. She knows me well, and she knows that the way in which Catholic Masses traditionally begin (verbally acknowledging that… Continue reading A Prayer for the Possible…
La Casa de Paz 