From my Journal

  12/26/2007

Najera – Santo Domingo della Calzada, Spain

Today the walk wasn’t so long, only 22 Km but all under the rain, I am in the Rioja region where the path is very muddy, and after a while is like walking with weights at my ankles. Nobody is around, last night I slept all alone in Najera as the day before in Logrono. I really hope that tonight I will meet someone at the next stop to talk with; maybe we could share a meal together or at least a glass of this great Rioja wine.

I arrived at the Rifugio of Santo Domingo and with great surprise I see other 4 pilgrims. A couple from Barcellona. a very nice German guy, Heiko, who is an actor and then there is an old guy from Madrid. I am not really sure what is the deal with him, he says he is living on the Camino, walking back and forth all alone, but when I talk to others they say that nobody has ever seen him actually walking, maybe he is a homeless and by pretending to be a pilgrim he can sleep in the refuges. I really cannot care less if this is the true or not, actually, if he is really a homeless, I commend him for having found a dignify way to get a roof on his head. He is friendly and we start talking. I offer him wine and I share my dinner that he accepted with a smile (especially for the good wine). He asks me why I do the Camino, and why I choose to come to Spain. I explain to him that this is not my first time on the Camino. And I explain to him, that although I am from Boston, I know very well Spain… Then I add that I do it also as a way to raise money for A Bridge of Roses. 

with Frere Romain, Tom and Winifred in front of our project "Atelier Ponte Rosa", Madagascar

Europeans do not really understand the concept of raising money for charities. In Europe people tend to rely more on the government, they pay higher taxes and the government supports what in US it is instead often supported through personal donations, like cultural projects, education, and charities… So it took a while for me to explain him the entire project.

He listened carefully but at the end, with a very blunt comment, he replied:

“I feel you do all this as respond for felling guilt of being rich!”.

I am stunned; even from a European perspective such a blunt comment, if made by a stranger, would be considered rude. So I almost stood up and left him there with the bottle of wine, but instead I engaged him in a conversation (also I wasn’t finished with drinking my wine… J)

True is that I believe I was actually explaining to myself, more than to him, the real reasons behind my desire to found my charity.

         In Madagascar giving away puppets handmade by a very good friend of mine, Katarina 

- First, I replied, I am not rich. Well of course I am better off than people who live with two dollars budget a day, or people without a job or a house, or people who live in a country at war, or people who have lost everything under an earthquake… Of course I am better off than them. And I do consider myself rich, as I have a great family, a fantastic partner, a very nice life, a great job that I love and great support from my friends. So, I am not poor.

But do I feel guilty for all this? Not really.

Why should I?

I wake up every morning and work, and I try all my best to reach out to others.

Each of us has his own Camino…

I leave the feelings of guiltiness to the ones who fall asleep, and the ones who do not try to elevate themselves, the ones that are just “passing by”, and finally the ones that enough is never enough.

But if, in the small or in the big, with little or with a lot one try his best to share his own Camino with the others, if one, with all the mistakes people can make, try his best to help, to reach out… Well, I do not see why this person should have any sense of guilt.

Can I do more? YES!

Then I tell him: -“Have you seen the movie Schindler’s List? At the end Oskar Schindler says something very touching… “Look this watch, it is worth so much, I could have sold it and save two more lives, and by selling this pin: one more live, and this coat: two more… I could have done more, much more!”

Yes, I can do more. But… for the moment, this is what I can do. It is that simple. And at that point I left him there.

Unfortunately, it is not that simple… because, deeply in my heart, I know I can do more.

                                            Tom with one of our little friends 

Project in Madagascar

This morning I got an e.mail from Madagascar with some pictures from the Centre Fitiavana in Mahajanga. The school is one of the projects A Bridge of Roses supports. We provide 120 meals three times a week to the 120 children. The school is the only school in the region for children with mental disabilities. And these meals are, in some cases, the only meals the children get.

The Centre, to thank us for our support has just dedicated and named a classroom to A Bridge of Roses. It is in memory of Jane Lynch Crowley, Tom's mother.

Thank you to all the people who have helped me and are helping me in this dream to help children in Madagascar to have a better future. 
I could not have done it without you!

Thanksgiving

                                                Camino de Santiago, 2007
We experience your abundance,
your light,
in our summer.
In our autumn we feast on the harvest, 
the fruits of your love,
even as we store them
for future nourishment and savoring
in the cellars of our memories and feelings.
We prepare for cold,
coming darkness and dormancy,
our winter, with our roots deeply embedded
in the ground of your love.
We await 
the resurrection and healing
of our spring.
All in all,


Thank you.
                                                      Written by my friend Tim P. Kochems

Stones

How is it that Elephants can walk across the Namibian desert every year knowing where to go, following the same path? Or million of birds, without compass, can go south in the Winter and north in the Summer, returning every time to the same nest left months before? But we, human beings, need signs, maps, guides, and GPS to not get lost? Usually on Pilgrimage pilgrims follow yellow arrows, they mark at every intersection the way to go. They are a great help, a great comfort to all of us that walk, and very soon they turn into friends that at every corner wait patiently to you to wave where to go. How in the ancient time pilgrims could do without them?

Probably the biggest fear for a pilgrim is to get lost, and also the most common thing people ask about a pilgrimage: “did you follow a trail? Was it well marked? Did you get lost? Was it hard to find your way?”

                               My partner Tom - Following Saint Francis's Footprints - Spello, Italy, 2009

Paths are marked. Mostly very well marked. And rarely one gets lost. When you are in these kind of situations, when you rely mostly only on yourself, on a guidebook and on a path to follow all your senses awake, little signs that before you will never have noticed now will not passed unnoticed. On the first couple of days you still find yourself reading over and over again your guidebook, but after a while, you put it away in the backpack. And you just start to trust yourself and the path.

The funny thing is those fears will come back on the last days of your pilgrimage when you will start wondering how you will cope once you return to the ‘real’ world, where the signs that you have to follow are not longer simple arrows, gentle friends waiting at the corner to wave to you. 

But like on a trail also life is full of signs for us, the problem is that we have become almost immune to seeing them. We often miss the signs that have been in place for generations to show us, to guide us the correct and honorable way to go through life. They are around us, but somehow we keep missing them. And when it happens, the rare times that we let us be guided by our intuitions, we call it: coincidences or luck instead of giving credit to ourselves for having recognized a sign and have follow it.

We are also afraid to adventure all alone. We prefer to follow others. We call them hero or leaders, they are the ones who adventure into unknown territories, the rest of us are the seconds, the pack that prefers to take the backset.

When you walk on the Camino of Santiago you cannot miss to notice neat piles of stones placed on the edge of the path, you can soon figure out that this is part of a ritual in which almost everybody participate. The stones are not placed to show you the path, although they help you to understand that yes, you are following the right direction. The real meaning of those little minarets is different. It is said, if you pick up a stone and put some of your sorrow into it, when you place the stone down you leave your sorrow behind. And leaving your sorrow on the Camino you create more space in your heart for love.

                                                           Camino de Santiago, Spain 2007

One year later when I was walking in Madagascar on the mountain of Zafimarany I noticed the same piles of stones. I stopped and show them to Tom, who had already noticed them and wondered what they meant, I asked to our guide if he knew what they meant and told him the Spaniard belief. The meaning here was different.

Malagasy belief in the existence of close ties between the living and the dead. Malagasy peoples have traditionally accepted the existence of a supreme God, known commonly as Zanahary (Creator) or Andriamanitra (Sweet, or Fragrant, Lord). The dead have been conceived as playing the role of intermediary between this supreme God and humankind and are viewed as having the power to affect the fortunes of the living for good or evil. The spirits of our ancestors populate our lives. They live all around us and influence our lives. When you walk on the top of a mountain you are more likely to meet them. They most of the time do not like you disturb them by passing by. So you hold in your hand a stone and start talking to them, letting them know that you come in peace and that you will leave them in peace, then you put down the stone on the path as symbol of peace and leave it behind you.

                                                                       Madagascar, 2008

I picked up a stone, and started to converse with my ancestors. And like other before me I put it down leaving it behind. After this very simple gesture I felt light. The day was a beautiful sunny day; the breeze on the top was refreshing, flowers were everywhere, the mountain was very green and the view was just unbelievable.

We continued to the poorest village I have ever visited. I was not expecting that day in that village I would have met and felt such sadness in my heart.

The level of poverty, the lack of everything: education, hygiene, privacy, respect for life and development of it was overwhelming. I felt the situation was hopeless, and that day, that beautiful sunny day, full of blooming flowers I felt such sadness in my heart.

On my way back I took another stone in my hands… this time I did not asked to any ancestors permission to pass I, instead, try to put all my sorrow into it to leave them behind. Unsuccessfully. 

The Rose Bush

 A good friend of mine wrote a very nice entry on her blog. I loved it so much that I wanted to add some reflections to it.

-        On the the sidewalk of a walk there was a beautiful rose bush, she (Angela) was enjoying watch it blooming. Everyday she was going to the spot where the rose bush was growing with her camera in her hands, waiting for the perfect moment to take a picture. She loved that rose, she was talking and smiling at this plant and felt the plant was smiling back. It was a true relationship. Yes, we can have relationships with a rose bush… (my neighbor Dani, who has an amazing garden, talks about her plants with the same fervor parents talk about their children, she knows the latin name of each flower who grows in her garden and even the latin name of each weed). But one day the bush rose was gone… some tourist who passed by had cut it down to make a bouquet to bring to the refuge where Angela was working at… Furious and hurt Angela told to the tourist that she had just killed something that belonged to everybody. The discussion escalated where the  tourist’s attitude was kind of “How do you dare? You servant, to tell me that I killed something…?

I think this story is very touching and deserves to reflect on.

First I hate people who go around picking up flowers, wild flowers especially, to make bouquets… Why????? For God sake, if you want a centerpiece for your table go to Kabloom and buy it!!!!!! Wild flowers whom can last for days in the field, once one cuts them they will die in a couple of hours.  What a waste of life is that?????

                                          Madagascar, 2008

But beside this point the real point is much deeper. It is how people behave in front of life, life that is not a human being.  When we were children our pre-school teachers thought us that a flower has life, feelings, that a worm or a spider deserves to live as much as we do… We all listened to them and deeply believed in them. Try to kill a bug in front of a child and you will see the reaction… So what goes wrong when we grow up? 

Unfortunately human being never grow out of the “this is mine” phase. We think that only children, toddler in particular, are ego-centrist… But isn’t true, actually the older we grow the more we feel the need of possession. So if I see a flower on the side of the path… well it is mine! If I see a bug crawling crossing my path I turn into the Imperator Cesar and play the old game of giving permission of life or sentence death to him.  A tree is just there to give me fruits or some kind of shade, and if I do not need any shade… Well I cut it down, not big deal!

                                      Celle Macra, Italy 2008

But it is also, in a bigger picture, how people behave in front of beauty. Beauty also is mine… I consider that rose nice: I let it grow, or I will posses her, bring it home for my own pleasure. I consider that bug creepy I kill it. 

Ten years ago in Montreal, Tom and I took a walk on the isle (Iles de Bouchervill) … Where we saw a mother with two young children chopping a cherry tree to make bouquets that, of course, did not last 2 minutes in the hands of her 3 years sons, I could not resisted I stopped and started to argue with the woman telling her that the tree was everybody’s property, that what she was doing was a shamed and it was a terrible example for a mother to show… She trying to play the game: “I don’t understand you… I speak only French” basically answering me “Qua? Qua? Qua?…”. And so she got me! I truly gave her a piece of my mind (in French!) starting with  -Do NOT dare to give me your silly “Qua? Qua? Qua?”

I was teenager and I was in Paris to study ballet. Poor as a student can be. My mother, who at that time did not see my going into ballet so happily, had given me a round trip train ticket, a phone card and some money saying “ This is it! When the money is over do NOT call me for more. You will come back home. And do NOT dare to do any stupid things, I will NOT bail you out!” I went to Paris, find a friend where to stay for free, ate bread and butter, I was quite talented in ballet so I got a scholarship to a beautiful and good dance school, But I want to take some very expensive master classes with a Russian teacher and I needed money to keep going so I decided to dance in the street. Every afternoons, after class, with a friend of mine I went in front of the Beaubourg (Centre Pompidou) turned on a boom-box and danced while my friend was walking thru the crowd with a hat asking for donations. We did very well, actually so well that not only we were able to spend a full Summer in Paris taking classes with the expensive Russian teacher, but also were able to improve our regime from bread and butter to French patisseries! We loved to go to eat our lunch in front of Notre Dame Cathedral. It is such a lovely spot. One day my friend Virginia eating her croissant and starring, as usual, to the beautiful façade out of the blue said: “Oh my God look Luciano, look how beautiful is this façade. I could spend hours watching it and I am never tired to do it, I always find something new to watch, some new little details that I missed to watch yesterday. It is so beautiful that if it would be possible I would love to run into it and turn into one of the stone that form this merveille!” – I know that my translation doesn’t do any justice to her words, neither to the expression in her eyes. She was sincerely in love and touched by the beauty of the moment. But I got it! I totally understood what she meant with that: “I would love to run into it and turn into one of the stone that form this merveille!”.

And that is how we should all see beauty. We should all try to harmonically be part of it. And I repeat harmonically, because that is the key word of what I want to say here.

                                              Madagascar, 2008

Why Everest?

Many people asked me: -Why have you decided to go on Mount Everest? What does this have to do with a project in Madagascar?

Well if we think only geographically: yes, Mount Everest has nothing to do with Madagascar and apparently there is no link between climbing a mountain and helping children to get a better education. And I understand that for so many it looks just like a great vacation.

The link lies in the symbolic aspect of climbing a mountain.

        2008 Celle Macra, Italy - Hiking with my family to the village where my father was born

When I founded A Bridge of Roses, my idea was very simple as I explained on my web site ABridgeofRoses.com:

-“I will do 4 challenges and ask to family, friends and all who I know to sponsor me. I pay for my trips and expenses and all the donations will go to the project.”

Then I started to think at which challenges to do. From that very first moment I decided that Mount Everest should have been the last challenge.

Why? Very simple: it is the tallest mountain in the world. And to climb it is, symbolically, the ultimate challenge.

I am actually not attempting to climb to the top but only to Base Camp (5,360 metres - 17,590 ft).

                                          2008, Mamma Rosa hiking

The first person with whom I spoke about A Bridge of Roses and the challenges was, of course, Tom. He loved it and supported me. Then I wrote a letter to my brother in Italy asking his support and to join me on this last challenge.

My brother and I, although we have very different personalities, we are very close. My father died when I was young. When we were children he not only took his role of big brother very seriously, but many times he substituted that father that I did not have. He was, and he still is, my special mentor. So it was natural to ask him to help me to raise money to build a school in honor of our mother Ponte Rosa (Rose Bridge). In that letter, while explaining him why I wanted to do this ABridgeofRoses project and why to climb the Everest, I wrote him this:

… I just finished to read a fantastic book, so many things touched me in this book but one more than anything else: -Thousand of children from the shore see a boat crossing the horizon, but only one asks himself where does it go? And only that child one day will try to find the answer.  I like to think I am that child.

-Since I was a child I ask myself the same question: What am I looking for? I am still looking for an answer. Sometimes I feel like I got it, but then I have doubts again and the question arises again in my mind.

I hope you can understand me. And deep in my heart I know that even if from a different experience… you understand me. You had always understood me. I know it. For this reason I asked you to join me to climb the Everest, and for this reason I am hoping you will agree to come with me.

So many times I saw you “climbing” the mountains of your life, so many times I tried to follow your steps. I always admired you and I always knew you where looking at me when I was “climbing” the mountains of my life. For once let’s climb together and let’s chose the highest: the Everest.

Will we finally see the “other side” when we will have reached the top? Will we see what is hiding in the other side? Will we see where the boat comes from? I am afraid not, but maybe, maybe yes. And it is that possibility: the hope to see finally where the boat comes from and where it goes that will give us the strength to climb, as it always did.

Love, Luciano

So Mount Everest will be!

             Rome, 2006 - My family: Luciano, Tom, Luciana, Giorgio, Cesare e Mamma Rosa

Olive Trees

12/24/2007

Los Arcos – Logrono, Spain

Today I passed fields full of olive trees, in between few abandoned houses. Kilometers and Kilometers of olives trees. They are full of beautiful ripe olives, ready to be picked. Finally it is sunny after two days of rain, and birds are everywhere, hiding between the branches or flying and playing, all singing so happy. Peace is around me, no urban noises, no cars, no airplanes, no people talking, no tic tac of watches or clocks, only the sound of the wind, and the birds, sometimes I can hear a dog barking far away, and I can hear the sound of my steps. I feel I am part of a beautiful orchestra.

Olive trees. They are the symbol of peace. And here I can feel Peace.

                 Following Saint Francis's Footprints, 2009 - Olive Trees in Trevi

Once in a while I can hear hunters shooting far away, the peace is broken, this beautiful harmony get destabilized for a while, the birds get scared, but then… it all comes back.

Here I start to think that peace is a gift that we, humans, have lost. We are the ones that disturb it, destroy it, and break it. We are the one that cannot live with the harmony that surrounds us.

How can humans claim peace back?

I start to think at A Bridge of Roses, even if it is a project founded to help educational projects, it is also a project for peace a project to bring peace, to claim peace.

                       Camino di Santiago, 2007 - Olive Trees in Los Arcos

And the peace that I feel here, in this moment, between the olive trees it is the reward for having claimed my peace back.

This is it, each of us has to stand up and claim peace back. We should stop delegating others to work for it, but be part of the process instead. Peace can be restored, and yes it all starts with us. In us!

Simbi

I teach to children and I am always intrigued by how children act and think. I love to observe them and trying to understand their world.

We all seeing children dragging around their teddy bears, some of them have left only a single button eye, or they have dog-chewed ears, some have stuffing spilling out.

These teddies are the children’s friendly companions. Children entrust their pals with their secrets, their dreams and their pains. These pals would never betray or disappoint the children. They are the only ones that really get them.

Each child has one. We all had one. I still have mine: Simbi.

                             Simbi on the Camino of Santiago, Spain 2007

I am sure that every child deep inside knows very well that Little Teddy is not alive, but no child will admit it. And if you dare to put in question its ability to be alive they will look at you with that expression: “Are you crazy?!?!…

I learned fast in my early days of teaching to never question their ability to be alive, because if you do children will look at you thinking and telling you, sometime screaming at you, that you are just crazy

I always allow a child to bring in class their inseparable friend when they show up for class holding them in their arms. Actually I learned to treat them as part of my flock: I talk to them, I hold them, and I ask questions to the children about them.

Children love the fact I have one of my own. They know everything about my little friend: Simbi. They refer to him as one of us. And I truly believe that Simbi has helped me in many occasions. A child will more likely think that I am part of his tribe, because of Simbi. Simbi has become on many occasion my ambassador to them. He is definitive my lucky charm.

                             and he has is own shadow - Madagascar 2008

I found very funny that many adults think I am crazy, some adult think that I show a vulnerable side of myself by admitting that I have a little lion sleeping on the side of my bed and that I carry him everywhere I go. I found it funny because if you think well what are all those items? Lucky charms, lucky bracelets, favorite sweaters, crosses, pictures of this or that, images of Saints or Mary that we all carry around? Aren’t they a reflect, a habit, a ‘left-over’ of our forgotten teddy bears?

So yes, I have a little lion walking along me.

And the funny thing is that when I walk and carry him in the side pocket of the backpack with his head sticking out watching where we go, if I meet anybody they often ask me about Simbi and more than once have asked me to take a picture… no not with me with… him!

And often I am thinking am I his… sherpa?

Dr. Jung would analyze this story by saying: Simbi is the little child left in yourself… And I am fine with it. Actually not… I am happy with it. Really!

                  Simbi and Orsetto - Fallowing Saint Francis's Footprints, 2009

The Awakening

If you ask one hundred people who go on a Pilgrimage why they have decided to undertake such adventure you will get one hundred different answers.

Pamplona, 2007

Most of the time the idea to go on a Pilgrimage is like a flower, it blooms in one’s heart and most of the time one cannot say when and where the seed was planted: it just happened to have been flourished. For some the seed has been planted long ago, but it needed time to bloom. For others the desire is impulsive and they are able to leave everything behind and follow the instinct. 

It is true that people go on a Pilgrimage in search of an answer. And many times the question at the answer is so deep, so intimate that words cannot explain what the heart knows already.

But conscious or unconscious that the process can be, one knows that in order to find those answers he has to be alone. One has to take the time and to go away from the crowds and the noise. One needs to do what a peasant does: he ploughs the field to let the soil breathe, he weeds it and finally he harvests his fruits.

In a Pilgrimage the heart and the mind open up. It takes days, but it always happens. At the beginning the mind is still busy but after some days it surrenders to the silence. That is the point in which one finds the balance between the heart and the mind. And there is where heart and mind start a dialogue long due.

Following Saint Francis's Footprints, 2009

One of the most common comment people makes when you say: “I will walk alone for days” is “Oh my God, all alone? That must be so hard not to have anybody to talk to, so solitary”. Yes, of course it is hard and solitary but… that is exactly what every pilgrim wants and needs. Still on a pilgrimage you are never alone. In that privileged status of a deep contact with yourself your ears start to open up to a forgotten voice: the voice of your soul. Its voice resonates to you like an old song, it brings along old dreams, and old pleasures, and you turn into the child you were when you first discovered the world.

In every pilgrimage there is always the “turning point”: the awakening. It can happen on a early morning when you see the sunrise, or one late evening in front of a breathtaking sunset, or when a storm of birds sing at your passage, or when you meet someone that helps you or asks for your help, or when you finally see the sight of your destination after hours spent under the cold rain or the hot sun. The awakening hits you like a lightning, and you feel it with your entire whole. And most of the time your reaction to it will be just a simple smile. -“How simple was that!” those are the words that your mind will come up with in that moment. From that point on everything starts having a different flavor, and you start looking at things and feeling them for what they really are.

Sunset in Mahajanga, Madagascar 2008

I was in Spain on The Camino de Santiago, it was the day after Christmas. I have been walking for days, meeting very few people, sleeping in Albergues almost always alone, at that point my mind had already shut down, I had already started looking at things with different eyes, and hearing and smelling the life around me. I thought I had already hit the turning point, I thought I had already reached the mountain and start seeing the horizon in the other side when two days before I found myself talking to the birds… But not… I hadn’t, my awaking moment had yet to come.

- It was a beautiful morning I had been walking for hours, passing sleepy fields and not meeting anybody. Three hours earlier I had left behind the last small village and ahead I still had three more hours of walking before to call the day. Suddenly I saw a man sitting at the side of the Camino, he looked old, and he looked very tired. I stopped and asked him if he was OK? But he was German and I don’t speak German. Talking with signs I understands he doesn’t have water or food and that he is walking opposite direction. Wowww!!!!! He will have to walk three more hours before to find a resting point. I asked if he needed help, and without thinking I offered him all what I had: half bottle of water and some figs, when I walk I don’t carry much food or water with me, I tend not to need it and I don’t want to carry extra weight, now I was left without water. He accepted and then he signed me to go. He smiled and I smiled back wishing each other “Buen Camino!”. When I started walking again tears came down from my eyes, a sweet cry from the deep of my soul.

“…For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me…”

How simple is that!

The Shadows

The most common picture taken by pilgrims is their own shadow.

There are a lot of reasons why they do it, probably the simpler one is that the shadow, for who walks alone, it is the only companion. 

                                                  Los Arcos, Spain 2007

So me too I have several pictures of my own shadow walking along with me in my different travels. The funny thing is that once back in Boston... I forget about her, and I don’t look for her when I walk in the city. Why this?

In our culture the shadow is charged with so many symbolisms: so often is the heavy baggage and it represents our fears, the ones we carry along all our life. So many times we are unable to confront these fears and so we keep carry them around, trying to forget that they are on our shoulders.

                                          Cathedral of Burgos, Spain - 2007

Many people comment: “he/she went on a 800 Km walk to run away from something…” And probably this is true: many pilgrims walk as response to a need to get away, for a while at least, from the ordinary life. They put themselves in a situation so extreme that it will give them time and space to think or… not to think.

But Pilgrimage is not about thinking, it is instead about feeling.

Here, in this extreme situation, one has the time and the space to confront the fears and to revaluate the baggage. And funny enough the shadow becomes a friend, a companion. Pilgrimage is a journey, not an escape, it is a dialogue with yourself long due.

Not every pilgrim has shadows to confront… some have dreams. And some just feel that this is a privileged way to reconnect with their soul.

I was in one of my walk when I started to consider why I love so much to do these kind of journey. Why do I prefer to spend my Christmas vacation all alone and far away from home? Why instead of resting in front of the fireplace do I prefer to walk six or eight hours each day in the cold, and many times under the rain? Me... that I do not like the cold weather?!?! Why don't I spend my vacation in a Caribbean island instead?

Do I run away from something? What are the fears and the baggage that I carry along with me? And why do I love to walk alone?

The true is that I’ve never felt alone on a Pilgrimage. When I walk along these paths I feel part of a community. People have walked the same path before me, they left marks and signs behind themselves. I follow them.. and I feel reconnected with my traditions and culture. I feel that I pay respect to who I am and to whom I belong to. Here... I follow the footprints of my roots, my soul and... my people.

I cannot really express why I like to do it. But it is a need, a deep pleasure. I wait, I train and I prepare for months for these moments.

In these situation your life get simpler, everything is about to walk, putting the right foot in front of the left one, and keep walking… day after day. In these kind of situations we lose all the frou-frous of the ordinary life. We feel the nature around; we feel our body (oh yeah!!!! you definitive feel the body). We connect with our past and our future, but we are so very much concentrate on the present: on putting that right foot in front of the left one. And so, maybe, that’s why our body grow a thickness that doesn’t have in the ordinary life. And maybe this is why here is where we notice that we have a shadow; here our body has a presence that ordinarily it doesn’t have it. And this is why our shadow becomes a friend: because it is not anymore the symbol of fears or baggage, but instead it is the real picture of who we are.

                                                      Spoleto, Italy - 2009

A Meditative Life vs An Active Life

Recently while reading a very nice book on Saint Francis’s life (Brother Francis of Assisi) I was reflecting about two different ways to dedicate our lives: the active one versus a meditative one. I was inspired by the differences between Saint Francis and Saint Clare of Assisi. Saint Francis went off walking all his life from town to town predicating about the Lord, advocating and teaching peace in the more pure way, while Saint Clara spent all her life in prayer and adoration of God in one small monastery. 

                                                         Saint Francis and Saint Clare of Assisi

My mother loves to use an Italian expression when she talks about me: “Every day a new train leaves the station called Luciano”, meaning that every day I have a new idea or a new project. And this is very true, but although I cannot deny that I cannot envision myself to retire on the top of a mountain in a hermitage with the only company of cats and goats spending my days praying and singing to God and eating vegetables grown in my own garden, at the same time I am fascinated and I have a lot of respect for people that make these kind of life choice and are able to detach themselves from the need of “to do” and to dedicate their lives to contemplation. 

Years ago I met in Belgium a beautiful old lady: Suzanne. She was the mother of 5 sons and daughters and I was dating the youngest of her sons. After have spent a life being a mother and a wife, running and working all day long, she just stopped everything and retired in her own little house in the suburbs of Antwerp. Everyday she got up at 5am and spent the day in prayer and meditation. In her prayer room she has few little papers with names of people written on, those were the ones who had a special place in her heart (I was lucky enough to be one of them), she had a couple of pictures of her spiritual Masters (Jesus and Muktananda), a bowl with fresh water and lilies, candles, incense and pillows, and a bowl with sand coming from an Indian temple site that I have brought to her as present from one of my trips. That was one of the most calm and warm places I had ever set in. 

What always struck me was that she referred to her praying as her “work”. So one day I asked her why she was saying that, she replied with simplicity and humility: “This is what God wants from me”. That answer felt so true, so genuine; with a smile I replied to her: “And this is what the world needs from you, thank you!”

So I started to come to the conclusion that this is my call: to walk, to keep going, to feel busy, to start every day a new project… to ride everyday a new train that leaves the station called Luciano.

I had several experiences of retreats, where silence and stillness are the only task that one has to perform and to search for. The most amazing was the 33 days Saint Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercises. But most of these retreats were a weekend long, almost all following the Christian tradition but also followed some more Eastern influences. Each time that I am in a retreat I feel so at home, so connected with the world, so open, so energized, so… empowered.

Most recently, in preparation of my Mount Everest walk I started a daily meditation, I sit for 10 minutes (the book advises 30 minutes, but I am not there yet…), I gently close my eyes and begin to recite a prayer-word, silently, interiorly throughout the time of my meditation: "Ma-ra-na-tha."

“Maranatha” is an Aramaic word (which is the language that Jesus spoke) and it means, "Come, Lord." It is found in the Scriptures and is one of the earliest prayers in the Christian tradition.

If you ask: “Why a meditation exercise to train to climb a mountain?” My answer would be: “Because climbing, as well as walking a pilgrimage, is a lot about determination, about training your body to endure difficulties, tiredness, adversities, but also training your mind to stay focused in one task: to put one foot in front of another and keep going.”

So maybe this is it, to walk for me is the balance between the need of “to go”, the need of “to feel to do something” and the gravitation toward the need to find the courage to stop and just allow ourselves to live the present and just to be.

                                          Mount Subasio, Italy 2009 - Following Saint Francis's Footprints

It is also a lot about faith: to believe that someone out there is looking after you, and to believe that you will with His help overcome your fears, your difficulties, your tiredness. It is about letting it go and believe in the greatness of the Providence. Allow yourself to believe in the Providence. Just like the solitary monk on the top of the mountain put his life into His hands, you, for the time of your Pilgrimage, allow Him to take care of you. You still have to do the walk, you are still the one that has to put one foot in front of the other, but He helps you in finding the way to your destination. 

Maranatha.

                                                 Camino de Santiago, Spain 2007