Last week I "randomly" suggested we go camping the weekend, something we've not made time for this year. Turns out nothing is random... Come the following Monday and I feel very pensive, I start wondering where we had been on our travels last year this time. I refer to this blog and realize that "coincidentally" I had suggested our weekend break away just about (if not exactly) on the day we finished the Camino.
This year has been so different, so much change at work, home renovations, a re-discovery of art and just remembering who I am at my very essence. Still yet God is waking me up again... asking me if I'm being a pilgrim. In a more secular term, am I being a vagabond?
To be a pilgrim is to take only what you need. Rolf Potts says Vagabonding is about gaining the courage to loosen your grip on the so-called certainties of this world.
The most beautiful thing about travelling is how it makes you 5 years old again, says Bill Bryson: "You can't read anything, you have only the most rudimentary sense of how things work... Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses". Every sound, sight, smell and taste is new and filled with adventure.
Yet you cant have this gift if you don't live well below your means back home (saving), if you don't live below your means when you are travelling (to spend your saved money over significant time as to not be rushed) and if you dont travel light. Baggage and belongings weighs you down physically (muscle power) and mentally (planning power).
"From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines,
Going where I list, my own master total and absolute,
Listening to others, considering well what they say,
Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating,
Gently, but with undeniable will divesting myself of the holds that would hold me"
- WALT WHITMAN, "SONG OF THE OPEN ROAD"
Where to next...
