I am Not at Finisterre!

​Walking The Camino de Frances I had planned on 7 weeks to walk the 550 miles to Santiago de Compostela then on to the Sea at Finisterre.

This pilgrimage walk is also called
The Way.

As with life…
Often walking The Way
looks very different
​ than we anticipated. 

​

The bones are good!

About now, in these few days before the full moon in May, is when I planned to arrive in Finisterre… I visioned stretching out on the cliffs there, with my feet towards the ocean. With a surrender to and a clear direction of: What is next on my path? My life? What is my service?

I am not at Finisterre…. Not even close. Later today… I will be stretched out in a very different kind of surrender when I have surgery on my left knee for a torn meniscus. Taking a nap and allowing others to have full control over the body, even to breathe for me, evokes a strange bit of confidence. Yet, I do have confidence in western medicine’s excellent ability to ‘fix’ broken parts of structure. Broken other ‘parts’, no so much, but I digress…

Tomorrow, I will begin my Journey of healing and rehabilitation in which I will apply all of the wisdom of Integrative Healing. While finding the meniscus tear, the MRI’s and X-rays showed that the overall health and function of my knee is excellent! Good news since someday, I will return to the place I stopped walking The Camino and continue on to The Sea.

When I planned walking The Camino, I set an intent for my inner Journey. It was to be a profound personal Journey and because it is what I do… I would transform the personal into the next expression of my professional work. To create a way to assist others. 

And Now… (Of course). I recognize that on a much different path… Exactly that has occurred. 

In the last many years I have explored and worked with grief and loss or what I call ‘Passionate Sadness’ and integrating the wounds of a lifetime or what I call ‘Shadow Dancing’. Yet even in just the last 6 months, for me personally, another ‘grief’ has emerged. The need to look at, understand and ultimately integrate the ‘unfinished business’ of life. The roads never taken or completed… The precious dreams lost. I call them ‘Ghost Bridges’. The abandoned bridges to a desired destination.

​A couple days before my knee injury, I told myself (and stated on this blog) I was going to ‘go quiet’ to more deeply explore my own personal Ghost Bridges.

Then walking The Camino itself became a Ghost Bridge. 

Walking The Camino the presence of Mary, The Divine Feminine, strongly emerged all around me. She is everywhere in Spain, wearing many different guises. My experiences, chance meetings and even dreams were full of information and Mary’s gentle and at times not so gentle voice. She finally said: 

Stop moving. Stop running. Go. Home. 
Your Ghost Bridges are not in Spain.

I have been back in Portland almost 3 weeks. Unable to walk far, unable to work. I can do a bit of digging in my garden. 

I continue to ‘walk’ The Way. The Way is not marked by shells and yellow arrows. It is the Journey of Heart & Spirit. Almost every morning, as I wander from dream to waking… The dream time is of being on The Camino. Even now, I still wake slightly surprised to be in my own bed. 

Using my disappointment and frustration of not being on The Camino as an entry point, I ask myself… What are these Ghost Bridges I can not walk? What unfinished business resides in my own haunted house?

I have been struggling with how it all connects… What is the weaving pattern that informs the structure and then invites the Journey to healing? How do I take ideas and create a tangible route to integration? What is the language? What is MY personal relationship to it all? 

Sunday morning I woke from a dream of The Camino, sat to meditate then got back in bed to drift. In that drifting and writing and playing with words. Something began to click… The pattern… The connection emerged. 

Mary (or was it Glinda the good Witch) said… ‘You had it all along.’ Here in the cocoon of your own bed. hOMe. 

Passionate Sadness, Dancing with Shadows, Walking Ghost Bridges. The three pathways of integration. The beautiful rooms and gardens of the house, the home, the center… The Triple Spiral into a vibrant, whole, complete… Flowing…

Heart… Open Wide. 

​The last part of the book and how it connects… My expression… My service… Appeared.
I have a lot of writing to do this summer.
I have never written a book.
​I feel quite intimidated and incompetent.

Hmmmm…
Perhaps a Shadow Dance
on a Ghost Bridge?! 

​Deep Gratitude to my muse(s)… Seen and unseen.

And all of my dear friends who listen as I talk in circles…
Searching.

Oh… And the Bald Eagle…

More to follow… 
​(I have to go take a little nap!)