Hello to you listening from wherever your feet touch the ground. And, Happy Birthday, Patrice from wherever your feet are touching our Jersey Girl ground!
As I have done at this time every year I retrieve a cardboard box from a shelf in my closet, set it on the diningroom table, open the top, and take out a spiral notebook, a guidebook, and a few tokens. The notebook is the journal I kept as I walked 500 miles across Spain on the Camino de Santiago. I was a pilgrim. The guidebook helped to shepherd me from place to place, score a clean albergue for the night, and find a low-cost pilgrim meal. The tokens remind me of who I met or something very special I stumbled upon.
From now until the 1st of November I’ll be rereading my words jotted at the end of a long day of walking, maybe 15, 20 or 25 miles. Hot sun or cold rain, flat concrete sidewalks or rocky mountain passes. The walk is the path. The walk is the journey. The walk is the destination back home to self.
But I had to learn this truth. It took long days before my head and heart and feet began to harmonize. I had to stop myself in the middle of the path because I was running ahead, chasing my shadow. I wanted to be there first, wherever there was.
The cost of the chase was high. All around me was beauty, people, landscapes, animals, vistas, grapes ripening on vines, men harvesting in fields, and old ladies clustered together shelling peas into bowls and trading gossip. My mind was miles ahead of my body.
l had to stop, intentionally and practice something my teacher Thich Nhat Hanh always preached: mindful walking. Take a step and breathe in. Take a step and breathe out. Keep going. Mindfully. In this way I got where I needed to get. I slept where I needed to sleep. I met who I needed to meet. Because I had arrived in each moment of walking.
I chose this podcast image from Deer Park Monastery where I often went on retreat. It’s my cell phone shot of the sign I anticipated seeing as I drove down a narrow road to the parking lot below the hill where the monastery was situated. As soon as I saw the words, I Have Arrived, my breathing slowed, my shoulders relaxed, and everything about me seemed to melt. Arrived. Arrived. At home, I am at home.
We clamor to know what’s next and what if and how soon and when will we arrive. We chase the future in the hope that we will arrive at happiness. Here’s the thing about chasing arrival: When we get what we have been racing toward it rarely feels the way we expected. An inner voice whispers, “Somehow I imagined this experience would be more rewarding.”
Story Prompt: If you stopped right now, stopped chasing your life, and imagined yourself being present right inside your life, right where you belong, what might happen next? Write that story and share it out loud.
And, as always, thank you for listening to “the music of the spoken word.”
YOU'RE INVITED: “Come for the stories - stay for the magic!” Speaking of magic, subscribe & spread this episode with a generous 5-star Apple podcast review & comment—it helps us all—& join us next time!
STOP BY my newly re-imagined Quarter Moon Story Arts website
ARRANGE ----> a no-obligation Discovery Call
STAY CURRENT with me as Diane Wyzga / Quarter Moon Story Arts on Substack
Stories From Women Who Walk Production Team
Podcaster: Diane F Wyzga & Quarter Moon Story Arts
Music: Entering Erdenheim by Steve Schuch & Night Heron Music
ALL content and image © 2019 to Present Quarter Moon Story Arts. All rights reserved. Enjoy my work? Share & attribute it to Diane Wyzga of Stories From Women Who Walk podcast with a link back to the original source.
Otros episodios de "Stories From Women Who Walk"
No te pierdas ningún episodio de “Stories From Women Who Walk”. Síguelo en la aplicación gratuita de GetPodcast.
