My Starting Point

My starting point on the Camino was St. Jean Pied-De-Port in France, this was the beginning of the French Way Camino. To complete the walk to Santiago De Compostela was eight hundred kilometers and on arrival in Santiago each person could register and receive a certificate of completion, on presentation of their stamped Pilgrim Credencial. You could began the walk in Pamplona, Burgos, Leon or the last place where you could start and obtain a certificate for having completed a recognized walk was Sarria, one hundred and fifteen kilometers before Sanitago. I met one lady in her eighties who was starting the walk at Sarria, her daughter, grand-daughter and great-grand-daughter, four generations, were walking it together, it was on her bucket list to walk the Camino and get a certificate of completion.

The point I want to make is you can pick your starting point anywhere along the French Way Trail and if you walk at least one hundred kilometers and have your Credencial stamped at least twice a day you were rewarded with a certificate of completion.

Life is like that as well, we all have the same starting point, and we all have the same destination. Later in life and after a number of not too pleasant knockdowns, I began to think there was more to life than just work and the day to day trials that had to be dealt with. I began to think there was a road to follow that had some markings on it, like the Camino, which would get me to my destination with a much greater feeling of self-awareness, comfort and above all a lack of fear. Fear can be such an inhibitor and cause a person to make a wrong decision with the greatest of ease. The journey for me now, is much better marked, and keeps me from getting off the trail and following a dead end. At my age it is the equivalent of starting my life journey in earnest at Sarria, but a person does not have to wait until they are older where the ego does not have the same control it had.

Ah, the ego, that can be a problem. We have to rise above our ego, but oh!, that can be a problem, which is like rising above myself, I think that is impossible, it is and it is not! If you are familiar with Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde, Mister Hyde is the ego, a definite problem if not checked, Doctor Jekyll was the alter-ego, a reformed ego. Doctor Jekyll thought in many ways he was performing for society, he was well liked but it was a release to be Mister Hyde. One gave him freedom but couldn’t be trusted, the other didn’t allow him freedom to be himself. Both gave him a problem.

The answer is the Super-Ego, this allows us to rise above ourselves, but it is the Super-Ego that lifts us up, it is not our effort, it is our faith in the Super-Ego that lifts us. The Super-Ego is the Neuromodulator, that Inner-Self that gets us walking the correct Camino without fear of getting lost or going the wrong way.

It is possible to start that journey at any age, the destination is the same, but the journey is so much more relaxing and enjoyable. Things that were important become less important, things that were not important become more important. It is almost as if our eyesight improves and we began to see things we never saw before, the beauty of the world begins to shine forth making the journey pleasant, relaxing and, most important, without fear.