It is Holiday time once Again

... and I would like to wish everyone the best of holidays.  This is a season of joy and tears all mixed up in the hurriedness of shopping, cooking, wrapping etc.  So much emotion all packed into a couple of months.  Maybe we are so busy not feeling the rest of the year that we have to get it all out in a short piece of time.  What ever the reason, it is here and we are zooming through it with the speed of light or we are sloughing through it wishing we didn't have to do this.  What ever is the result know that if you decide to take on a thing like walking the Camino, this too will be your experience.  This walk is a place to reflect on our natural ways.  Maybe even try to make some changes, but alas that is up to you.

For me, I am looking for the time to clean up the last parts of my 'house'.  Then I desire to replace the old mind/house with a new one.  IN this new one I am soft yet strong, wise with no need to let anyone know this, kind, considerate, able to SEE why people do things therefore in my compassion I help if it is requested and walk on for those not ready. Understand joy and be joy, understand laughter and be laughter, understand all-encompassing love and be all-encompassing love and last but not least be grateful in all of life's many happenings.

Douglas Everett sums it up very nicely:
  There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and  then there are those who turn one into the other.

Happy Holidays to one and all and may your dreams and reality unite into one world. 

                                                                                                                           
Barbara

Coyote Ridge Hike - A surprise at the top

Part of the view on top of Coyote Ridge

 I have been getting on meetup.com a lot to find groups to connect with as well as places to hike.  For those of you that have not connected with Meet Up, it is a wonderful site on the web that gives you lists of various types of local groups.  Pick the one or ones you wold like to interact with and click on them.  You usually have to join.  Easy thing.  They will email you events and gatherings. 

As I searched for upcoming activities, with new groups,I found a site that is a group of hikers.  O! How I would love to do this, and will when I am a bit faster.  These people have been hiking for a long time.  My measly shuffle would leave me behind in a matter of minutes.  BUT!  They had scheduled a night time hike.

This intrigued me.  I wasn't sure if I was up for a hike in the dark so I decided to head out in the day time and check out the trail.  My research brought good news.  The hike is a straight line from the back of our home, across some prairie.  Driving directions took me around the prairie and another development.  In a matter of minutes I was at the trail head.  Just what I have wanted, easy quick access.

This is the reverse view from the top of Coyote Ridge - my car is back near the homes and there are 3 ridges and 3 valleys to go over to get to the top of Coyote Ridge

I stepped out of my car, looked across the prairie and said, "I can do that."  Attaching my car keys to my waist loop, grabbing my water bottle and slipping on my back pack, out I headed.  I had on shorts, t-shirt and a sweat shirt.  It wasn't long before I was taking the sweat shirt off.  I think Colorado is a big, no  huge projection on the earth.  Why? You ask.  Because it is November, the temps are in the 40's and sometimes the 50's and I am hot.  The sun beats down so strongly here that even in winter temps you can hike in shorts and a t-shirt.  For a person who was born and brought up in Vermont I am finding this a bit weird.  I leave the house with all my cold gear, just in case (the reason for the back pack).  Alas, I never seem to use it unless I am still out when the sun goes down.

In school I read about the prairie and the desert.  They kept saying it was hot in the day and cold at night.  I would repeat this bit of information with great gusto, feeling like I knew what I was talking about.  I never had a hint as to the actual truth.  I had no idea what it was truly like. I could only relate it to my life in Vermont and Florida.  Never shall the twain meet, their is no resemblance in any way, shape or manner.

Lugging my winter clothes off I went.  Today it is in the low 40's.  My first adventure was a field full of Prairie Dogs.  They are so cute.  Here is a pic:

Prairie Dogs Ft Collins, CO

 They were everywhere.  Their cute little bodies pretending they are a pile of sand, standing as still as a statue waiting for you to walk on by.  As soon as you leave their sight they begin to talk to each other.  It is so cute.  One would speak, silence and then another would answer.  This kept going for the duration of my travel across the FIRST prairie.  Yes, the first prairie, You read that correctly.  I was in for a surprise as I continued.  The ground began to loop up and I thought, "This was an easy walk, I can do this in the dark."  Such an innocent I am. 

I crested the first ridge to find another valley and another ridge.  'O, okay,  I need to cross this valley and go up there.'  I thought as I walked along the first ridge.  I had met several people coming back from the walk, never thinking I should ask questions.  Being the 'seasoned' hiker I was, I headed down the trail confident I can do this.  Across the valley, I found myself in the yard of a home.  Hummnm,  with an outdoor privy.  I guess I'll just borrow that for a moment.  Slipping quietly in the door giving thanks that I didn't have to pee on the prairie, once again I was ready to hike on.  No one was around so I just walked on through the yard and up the trail I found behind the house.  It was getting a bit steeper. 

Then it turned sharply to the left and walked up and around the corner of the ridge straight into a big mud pit.

Remnants of my forerunners, bike ruts as deep as my ankles are tall, foot prints showing suction holes, and snow.  Yes, it snowed a couple of weeks ago and it was still on this trail.  I hadn't thought of mud or snow and was in my sneakers, not my boots.  For the first time I experienced the feel of huge clumps of mud adhered to my shoes.  I felt like Frankenstein with his thick soled boots.  The added weight made me clumsy, sharpening my nerves as I slipped along the trail with a wall of stone on my left and a cliff on my right.  One 'ophs' and I would be sliding down a raven. The stories of lost hikers flew through my brain as I realized I hadn't told anyone where I was going.

Just then a policeman came along on his bike and all thoughts of tragedy disappeared.  We chatted about the trail and how safe it was for me to walk by myself anywhere around here.  I only had to watch out for the bears and rattlesnakes.  Now, I don't know about you, but which would you rather have a hoodlum or a bear or a rattlesnake?  I am thinking I might fair better with the hoodlum.  Hummmm!

I did ask him about the trail.  I had to go around the ridge, cross another valley and climb the last ridge.  The last ridge had a long switchback.  This part was pure rock, yes rocks not boulders or big things but little ones that like to turn your ankles and see if they can scratch them all up at the same time.  I missed a lot of the view in this part as I dared not take my eyes off the trail, that's how I bumped into, or almost, a man on a bike, would you believe, riding down these rocks.  Yes, riding down this steep trail filled with rocks on a bike.  That must be why his hair was white, he scared all the color out of it.  Smile

Shortly after that a little lady with hiking poles walked past me.  She was no where to be seen and suddenly she was passing me.  I looked incredulously at her.  She smiled and said she hikes this area a lot.  She had on a shirt that had a circle with a big 75 in it.  Apparently she is 75 or older and the member of a hiking group for those 75 and older.  I wanted to hang my head down and bury it between my legs.  I was so ashamed of my lack of athleticism. She shook my hand.  I have never felt such power in a hand before, not from a male or a female.  This woman is who I would want around if I got in trouble.  She was a good example for me and I will keep her in my mind to remember where I want to be.

That is ridge 2, I am standing on ridge 1

Looking out from Coyote Ridge across the next valley and beginning to see the Rockies in the distance.

 

 

 

The trip was a bit longer than I had anticipated but well worth it.  I look forward to walking this trail again, with my boots this time.  Also, next time I don't want to be short of time.  I want to stay on the top of the ridge for a while and just take in the beauty.  A city girl gone wild,  before long I will be riding horses and roping cattle.  Chuckle!  Chuckle!.

Ultreya buen camino
b

An Interview of Paulo Coehlo about the Camino

The Spanish Camino on the left and the French Camino on the Right

As you can see their are many paths to complete the Camino in France. They all join with the original Camino in Spain.  Today, the many roads traveled in Spain to get to the Camino, are now Camino walks all in themselves.  They come from the north, south and west or Portugal.   Many have reverted to these trails, once used as a way to the Camino, for their Camino, as there are less people traveling them.  The Camino Frances or the Original goes over the Pyrenees from St Jean Pied de Port, into Spain and  across northern Spain to Santiago de Compestella.  It is said to be the burial place of the Apostle St James, son of Zebedee, one of Jesus' first disciples

Here is an interview with Paulo Coehlo from Newsweek:

The City: Santiago de Compostela

Nov 6, 2011 10:00 AM EST

Paulo Coelho undertakes a pilgrimage to a sacred, starlit Spanish site. 

 Yes, today we have many wondrous means of transportation. Airplane tickets are cheaper than ever, while driving Europe’s new highways can be a delight. But of all the cities in the world I know, Santiago de Compostela is the only one where the most agreeable way to arrive is…on foot.

 

Just as each Muslim is required, at least once in his life, to retrace the Prophet Muhammad’s footsteps from Mecca to Medina, first-millennium Christians knew that blessings and indulgences awaited those who made at least one of the three sacred pilgrimages of the faith. The first led to Saint Peter’s grave in Rome, by which travelers—or Romeros—bore the symbol of the cross. On the second route, worshipers took palm fronds to Christ’s tomb in Jerusalem, just as the ancients did nearly two millennia ago to greet Jesus as he arrived in the holy city. Finally, there was the road to the grave of Saint Tiago—known in English as Saint James—whose mortal remains were said to be buried in the Iberian Peninsula on the night that a shepherd envisioned a field under brilliant starlight.

Not just Tiago but also the Virgin Mary were believed to have gone to the site shortly after the death of Christ to spread the Gospel and convert souls to Christianity. The place was called Compostela—the starlit field—and soon a city was born there. It became a magnet for worshipers from all over Christendom; known as pilgrims, their symbol was a conch shell. In its heyday in the 16th century, the road to Santiago de Compostela drew more than a million pilgrims a year, from all over Europe, who guided themselves by the light of the Milky Way. On their heels came believers humble and exalted, including Charles the Great, Saint Francis of Assisi, and Isabel de Castilla.

For centuries, seekers have walked the dusty roads to Santiago de Compostela in search of enlightenment., Peter Marlow / Magnum

When I set out for Santiago nearly 30 years ago, starlight was the last thing on my mind. But one afternoon, there I was, in a café in León, surrounded by chattering travelers alight with stories about their trek. The town of Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port was miles behind me, and I was already better than halfway to Santiago. In a matter of days, I would turn 39, and though I had no idea at the time, from that moment on nothing in my life would be the same. But here, on the road, the landscape ahead looked monotonous and flat. Behind me was no different, except for my own boot prints etched in the dust, which the wind would erase by nightfall. Everything seemed surreal. “What am I doing here?” I asked myself.

That question would haunt me in the days and weeks to come. How absurd, making a pilgrimage by foot at the turn of the 21st century! OK, so I was chasing my dream. Ever since I was a child I’d wanted to become a writer. But was I really ready to do what it took? After all, it’s so much more comfortable and far less risky to have a dream; but trying to live that dream could bring frustration or defeat. Besides, I was no longer a child.

Despite my doubts, I pressed on. My trek to Santiago would become my first book, The Pilgrimage, and open the door to many others.

You can do a lot of writing and rewriting in your head over 25 days and 800 kilometers. Along the way, I passed a number of guesthouses and pilgrims of all ages, each carrying the telltale conch. I met couples celebrating their golden anniversaries and chatted with stressed-out business executives who’d decided to take a month off to chill and rethink their lives. Everywhere I turned, there were students, young people who were just learning the gift of meeting and mingling with others like themselves, from all over the world.

A day’s walk from Santiago, I recall the small hill, Mons Gaudí, that pilgrims can scale to get their first glimpse of the iconic city and its immense cathedral at the end of the Milky Way, those torches that have been beckoning them through each incredible day of their journey. In the mid-1980s, a mere 400 people a year completed the walk to Santiago as I did. By 2010, some 450 were streaming into Santiago every day.

The stone church is the same as it has been for centuries, but by the journey’s end, it is the pilgrim who has been indelibly changed. Along the way, each traveler discovers how little he really needs to get along in life. After three days’ walking, everyone ends up shedding half the weight in his backpack. Lighten the load, preserve the body, and tend the soul. Those are the lessons of Santiago de Compostela, the city at the end of the road best taken on foot, as it has been for centuries, one step at a time.

 

 Paulo Coelho’s most recent book is Aleph.

 

The End

 Ultreya and Buen Camino

b

 

My First Inspiration for Walking the Camino

I was walking through a bookstore when a book caught my eye.  It was The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.  He, at the time, was new to America being a Brazilian author.  It was his first translated book, as far as I knew.  Riveting!  I just sat there and read and read and read until it was finished, but not without many markings, turned down pages and explanations of my own.  It became a text book of sorts at the time.  I was new to the world of "create your own life" (at least consciously) and soaked up everything I could.  I was entirely focused in remaking my world, dramatically.  I no longer wanted to be where I had wallowed for so long.  Little did I know how long it would take me to really make a difference and how much my mind, subconscious beliefs, were running my life.  I had periods where I was on top of it and doing well then it would suddenly rear it's head and The Old would pop back in in a new disguise.  One day I was an angel and the next I was a coyote, the trickster, really messing up my life. 

I fell in love with Paulo 's writing and searched out more translations.  Soon I was devouring his words.   Then I found The Pilgrimage.  I sat down and began a whole new journey in my life.  I found a great big bag of fear hidden in me.  It slowly opened up, kind of like a Pandora's box.  I thought I was really moving forward and making all the changes I wanted in my life and creating this new fun existence.  Suddenly this box brought in a whole new set of poooo.  This poooo smelled awful and I felt ashamed.  I had been teaching what I had been learning.  You know, learn, give, get more routine.  The path had been guiding me well until I found this hidden pile of poooo.  I think it had been hidden for many centuries because it was a smell so great that it would knock you out with just a wiff.

It was when I knew I needed to walk, get into nature, meditate etc to clean out this box within me.  BUT, life got in the way.  Along with life I made a few misjudgements for myself and off I was lost in a tangent.  One of my real life problems, keeping focused on what I truly wanted.  My family could just whisper and I would change my life in an instant for them.  They didn't have to ask for anything, I just would notice a need and give up my life and change for what I thought they wanted.  Such  a crazy lady.  I actually had a problem doing what I wanted and had to fight to do it.  I would always acquiesce. These bad habits put me in a place where I was unable to do the walk and I became lost in my own rabbit hole.  Constantly wishing I could find a way to get out and go for my walk.  I worked at it for years but for some reason beyond me, I kept hitting walls, not just walls but thick stone walls.  It was as if I was trapped in a stone box and try as I might no one would come help me and I couldn't seem to get out.

Then one day I found a bit of stone that was disintegrating.  I grabbed it and worked it until out I popped.  Now I am out and have come up with another idea of how I can manage to do this walk.  If this works out I will be walking next year.  This is my inner journey that I have sought to attain for many years.  Those demons from the Pandora's box have been doing a good job on me.  This blog is my public way of making things happen.  Remember fear is all part of the ethereal area, it really doesn't exist unless I allow it to be there.  But this old lady has been allowing it to run me, without even knowing I was doing such a thing.  The walk puts the fear hidden in the box right out front, ready for me to face.  I have tried walking at home but the duration is never long enough.  Remember, I have become very efficient over the centuries at hiding and pretending it doesn't really exist.  It doesn't exist, but because I hide it I give it validity.  Forced to walk for 6 weeks and deal with every day to day challenge in a foreign country where I do not know the language (and I will be in areas where they do not speak or know English) will bring out this hidden Beelzebub and I will be able to take back my power once and for ever.

Ultreya, buen camino

b

Catching up!

Isn't the fall the most beautiful thing?  Yes, the colors are amazing and next comes snow.  Wha hooooo!

It has been a real experience moving to Colorado.  I haven't been able to keep up with my postings as life has been very scattered lately.  Starting off with ending up in the emergency room the next day after I arrived to having an operation 4 weeks later.  The blood loss really did a job on me.  When I was in college I had an extreme blood loss but recovered quickly enough that I did not really notice it.  BUT, once you are over 60 it seems to be a new agenda.  I was down and out for a few weeks.  I did go out and try to hold up a happy face but ooooooooooo so little energy.  Then, the blood loss caused an iron deficiency.  I didn't find out about that until after the operation.  It takes a bit longer to get blood test results here. So off to the health food store to get some Hemaplex.  Then I realized I needed more oxygen and ordered some liquid oxygen to put into my water.  This threw off my magnesium so I added this.  After all this stuff I am finally not aching all the time.  I am at my best right now, since this all started.

I have been walking in my neighborhood, with my new found walking buddies, and have started to work with the Wii.  I am excited about my reduction in my weight and have begun focusing myself to drop into a new 10s before thanksgiving.  I am now back to my 1998 weight.  Yeaaaa.  Today I started the Wii fitness to back up the walking.  I need more exercise with my upper body.  I did my waist today.  I started a Yoga class last Thursday and hope to continue (the teacher said she will be off and on available for the next 2 months due to classes she is taking).  I am also job hunting and networking at events to find a job. 

All of this activity plus having family around more than I have had in 15 years, has been keeping me busy.  My goal is still for my walk, I just don't know if I can make it next spring, may have to be next fall.  One thing about all these changes in my life is I seem to be more flexible about when I go.  Before it had to be in cool weather and no rain and now I am shifting to 'whenever'.  I love this new flexibility.  I am also  experiencing positive and negative thoughts.  I have always been a person who may bitch a bit but always went back to the positive shortly.  So I maintained a positive belief system.   But there has been an underlying fear that has brought about things I would prefer to not have in my life.  I have been struggling with changing this for a few years now.  This trip is part of this.  I am scared to take off to a foreign country all by myself and try to make all the things happen that has to happen to be able to walk the Camino.  I have traveled a lot but always with others (in foreign countries).  There was a sense of safety with another person along, whether it is true or not I believed it.  But now I am going to hit 3 countries and walk all by myself and find my way by myself.  I am scared I will walk so slow that the Albergues will be full by the time I reach them and then I am scared I will have to sleep on the ground outside by myself with nothing but a sleeping bag.  More stuff running around my head and creating subconscious belief systems and messing up my life.

Sunday I visited the Unity Church here in Ft Collins.  They have a hilarious minister named Lynn.  She keeps you in stitches as she shares each week.  This week she talked about the time in her life when she was lost in negative thinking.  Hummm  synchronicity?!  Well she told the story of her dumping all her stuff on a minister friend and at the end of her tirade the minister looked away from her towards the window and smiling said. "O look, the geese are flying."  And, she just smiled and continued to enjoy the geese flying over head.  Lynn said it took her a bit to get what she was trying to teacher her.  But suddenly she understood the the minister was trying to tell her to refocus.  Something about her story and all the laughter, it hit home.  I am now practicing re focusing every time I think a negative thought or I hear a negative thought.  If this works I will be slim, trim, vibrant, healthy, youthful and athletic by spring and will have income, time to take the walk and a special man in my life.  I don't want much do I?  Smile.  It is about time I get some good loving in my life.

Buen Camino
b