Coincidence is all in the timing

Your journey is JUST beginning and the small challenges u face now are just a moment in time, so small and so insignificant. Keep your eyes on the light, move forward with grace, confidence and integrity. Know that you are creating as u so desired long ago and that our paths are exactly where they are suppose to be in this NOW moment. A Facebook friend...TG. She also posted previously a Four Agreements reminder which I really appreciate: Agreement 1: Be impeccable with your word.Speak with Integrity Agreement 2: Don't take anything personal.Nothing others do is because of you. Agreement 3: Don't make assumptions. Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Agreement 4: Always do your best. Your best will change from moment to moment. By Don Miguel Ruiz. I have to keep these in front and read them often. She also quoted: "It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there s no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power." Alan Cohen

Love, fate, and the way of the pilgrim

Today my heart is torn by what might have been. I’ve followed such a lost and lonely path in my life. So much pain and angst. What if my life had taken a different path? What would have been the possibilities? Where would I be now if I had diverged then? I have been very lucky in my life in one respect: I have known many types of love. And even if those whom I have loved take a new direction, choose a different path, for a time their way was mine and we shared something that I realize now was unique to us. Each of these friends has given me a gift and I hope that I have in some way returned their generosity. This I have been able to take with me on my journey, this love stays with me. Fate and free will are funny bedfellows in life. We each make choices that at the time we cannot imagine the possibilities or effects of in the future. There is no one way to know that you are on the right path. You are on the path that you have chosen, willingly or unknowingly. As such, it is the right path. I can see the ‘what ifs’ and follow their trajectory to a myriad of other possibilities. I have a vibrant imagination. And in another life they would also be the ‘right’ path. I wonder if the many paths might, for some people, converge? What would come of the joining of multiple trajectories of fate? Anyway, for me the journey has been long, often disappointing, yet rewarding to know that I have been loved and have loved many times and that I have the capacity to love still and again. This is part of the journey in life and it is a lesson most emphasized by the pilgrimage. We are all pilgrims and to know and recognize the power of love is really the greatest gift of all. I have been loved by someone. Thank you. If I didn't know then, I know now that it has always been.

Plantar fasciitis keeps on

I've been waking up a night this past week or so needing to stretch my legs in bed. I'm not sure if this need is what wakes me up but it is persistent. Yet if I stretch with my toes pointed I have been getting a hyper-contracted calf muscle that is so painful it sits me right up in bed wanting to scream. The pain is so incredibly bad and it is very difficult to get it to subside that I'm becoming afraid of it. Last night it started in my left calf; initially I have experienced it only on my right side. A little research online suggests this is probably a result of my plantar fasciitis. And, as I have been increasing the number of days I walk to town again, and working more where I have to stand all day, my feet have been hurting more. The simple solution is to stretch more, especially before I walk, and probably not to walk so far. I keep thinking that September will be a busy month for me and I will have to cut back on the amount of time I spend walking. Perhaps the muscle contractions will decrease as well. I guess I haven't given the plantar fasciitis time to heal since my camino. It is hard not to keep on walking. I can't seem to find a suitable balance.

Moist heat

What can you say when it is so hot and the air is so laden with moisture that it is oppressive and heavy to breathe? Shocking compared to having worn a winter sweater only last week. It saps my body of energy and rather than hibernate in winter I seek summer hibernation from the heat. Of course it doesn't help that I can't sleep at night. I wake up because of the heat and can't cool off. The mosquitoes bite me so fiercely I showered a second time last night to get some relief from the itching. I must be very sweet to them because I think I brought at least a half dozen in on my ankles alone when I stepped out on the deck to let the dog back in. Soon enough the cool air will return and I will be very happy to greet it warmly. A few trees have already begun to change to their fall colors from the chilly weather last week yet they too must be suffering in this temperature inversion. When I walked the meseta last year it was supposed to be unbearably hot. It had been for friends who had walked on ahead while I took a side trip to the sea with some other friends. Then when Chantal and I began to cross the flat plains of northern Spain the weather was merely summery. I cannot imagine what it must have been like for those who walked it in the high heat. My blood must be thick to appreciate the chilling winter here more than the hot summer but I can't imagine, anymore, living without some sort of cooling conditioner for long hot summer days. I was happy to go to work to get out of the heat. Somehow, though, when you spend every day in it, exerting yourself against the weather and other elements while walking, all seems to be a part of the daily effort, neither excessive nor impossible and while perhaps unbearable for the moment, like mosquito bites on my ankles it passes easily with cool water and a little soap.

Just when you need it most

It makes me laugh as much as it makes me blush. Just when I needed it a fisherman came up to buy a map tonight and asked me why I am not married. I said I do not have much luck with men. He responded saying that he didn't have much luck with women either, but "don't let anyone tell you differently, you're gorgeous". Wow. Not sure that has ever happened to me before. How funny.

Time beyond

Autumn passed and winter set in. I walked in the bitter cold and for a time tried to forget my pilgrimage. With the spring the American Camino group I follow began to have numerous postings of people planning their trips and exchanging information. It has made me think and remember. I keep in touch with a couple of my pilgrim friends. Anthony has become a monk. Chantal became very sick in Morrocco and returned to Canada, later taking a trip to the South Pacific before returning to her job. I haven't heard from her since she returned to work. I interviewed for the museum job I applied for then when they asked for a second, in-person interview I declined. I was not ready to leave the north country nor have I come to believe that I can return to South Dakota anytime soon. I applied for and was hired for a couple summer jobs and completely enjoyed reconnecting with the human race after being quiet for so many months. The lively challenges of a job encouraged me and in June I began looking for a more permanent type of a job which brings me closer to my son, yet not back to SD. There turned out to be more opportunities than I expected. I am still waiting and hoping that a very promising one will come through. I am ready to try something new I think. I am very restless these days and cannot seem to enjoy my cabin on the lake. I still need my private space and the cabins nearby have been so busy that it disturbs my peace to the point where I am unhappy in a place I have long wanted to find. To me this tells me it is perhaps time to move on. My plans to continue on to a PhD have also redirected back to obtaining another Master's degree, this time in Library Science. I was previously accepted at the University of Arizona and they have happily reopened my admission to the program. I have realized, however, that it is a very expensive program, almost 3.5 times what my current program costs, and I will have to work while I take these courses. In the end I should be very marketable as a library director in a larger system. And the opportunity as it presented itself seems akin to walking a path that leads down the right road no matter which way you take - the idea that I want to write history and first have the degree to write, then the understanding of history; then the need to have a job to support my hobby, in a field in which I have proven my ability and attained previous success seems fortuitous. As other things the path that the psychic foretold seems to, at times, be continuing to unfold before my eyes. And my pilgrimage is still with me.