About the Camino
The Camino's Invitation
Every journey, if the spirit is willing, even though the flesh is weak, turns into an interior voyage, a shift to the self, to true being. Every journey which comes about with awareness, a loving openness, serene attention and sensory vivacity, becomes transformative. In sum, every journey, tracks the constellation of one’s life, where each instant is open to surprise, where the unexpected and unpredictable are faced, where sometimes wise caution is needed, and sometimes a good dose of fearlessness.
Each step counts, each moment has its own specific weight, all emerges and fades away, seizes and leaves behind, grabs and drops, and flows and nothing remains as the pilgrim moves along under the Milky Way into the depths of the Camino, into the depths of soul, in an encounter with oneself and others on the Camino.
The journey becomes an existential journey within the longest journey of our life. We live our solitude walking along with the solitude of many other human beings. As an oriental mentor said, "A thousand people walking together: a thousand solitudes walking together." The Camino offers us the opportunity, not only of acquiring inspiring experiences of new places and people, but also of ridding ourselves of old ways of thinking and embracing a “new mind” that can flourish with the awareness that each step on the Camino has a beginning and an end and that each moment arises and vanishes. Everything flows. Nothing stays. Life is not a still photo. It is kinetic. It is dynamic. (translated from the introduction by Ramiro Caller to "Practica los Caminos. Caminnado Hacia la Impermanencia")