mind

Preparing for the Camino, and Santiago The Journey Within

/ antonioyrocinante / 2 Comments

If you type “preparing for the Camino” on the Interweb you are going to get hundreds, maybe thousands of articles and videos on what to pack for the Camino, how to get in shape for the Camino -guilty as charged, even I have written about this. What you are less likely to find is how to really prepare for the Camino, not for the exterior journey, folks in the Middle Ages did it without Gore-Tex, superhightech gear, and without cellphones, but for the interior journey, the one you do not need any gear for.

Yes, there is some overlap: the less you pack, the happier your body will be and not surprisingly, the happier your soul, you, are going to be.

Basically you want to get your mind and your soul (your mind, unfortunately- if you have cleared your head and are living in the present moment, good for you!). So if you have to ask forgiveness, do so before you leave, if you have to settle things, try to do so beforehand. Again, the lighter you travel, the better.

Back in the Middle Ages, there were some guidelines about preparing for the spiritual journey, which have been lost, since the Camino became a bit of a hippie, gofindyourself trek in the early eighties.

My dear Richard Rohr recently wrote about pilgrimage in his daily meditations (if you are not yet receiving them sign up here) and he mentioned the Medieval tradition:

First of all, you had to make amends with everyone you had ever wronged. Also, if you went on pilgrimage holding any kind of unforgiveness, it could not be a good pilgrimage. You couldn’t leave your town until you’d forgiven everyone who’d ever wronged you. Certainly, this is an attitude that we can pray for at the beginning of any pilgrimage: that God would keep our hearts open and loving, because a pilgrimage can’t just be a tourist trip. The meaning of a pilgrimage is an interior journey. Primarily, it’s an interior journey enacted exteriorly.”

Secondly, and a practical, interesting thing, is that if they were going to go on pilgrimage, pilgrims had first to ask permission of their wife, husband, and family. The idea was that they had to leave everything in right relationship at home. If they had any material debts, they also had to pay those before they left. They couldn’t go on pilgrimage until their spiritual and physical debts were paid, and they had permission from all the right people.

Next, they had to go to confession before leaving. Sometime in the course of a pilgrimage, celebrating some kind of reconciliation was deemed very appropriate. Again, there’s that cleansing, that letting go. Perhaps those of us who’ve already been down to the Grotto [1] have seen the basin of water on the far end with the words that Mary spoke to Bernadette. It states, “Go wash your face and cleanse your soul.” What a symbol of reconciliation! It’s a prayer. Above all else, pilgrimage is praying with your body, and it’s praying with your feet. It’s an exterior prayer, and the exterior prayer keeps calling you into the interior prayer.

Rohr writes a week’s worth of content which you can check out here.

As I was thinking about this blog post, my students invited me to see Santiago The Journey Within, a reflection more than a documentary on the Camino. The film, led by Bishop Donald J. Hying, has beautiful photography and music, but sadly lacks a narrative, a connecting thread, which makes it difficult to immerse oneself in the film. Also the last 45 minutes of the film is just Bishop Hying talking about the Camino at a university conference. Beautiful words, but less than gripping action.

There you have it. Make sure your mind is ready as much -if not more- than your backpack!

¡Buen Camino!

PS: If you are really into this, you can read Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture by Victor Turner and Edith Turner.

You should be practicing yoga, an update

/ antonioyrocinante / 2 Comments

In the Western world we think of yoga as a bunch of exercises to improve your fitness and flexibility. That is only true in a very small part. The truth is that Yoga means yoke or union and it is the uniting of body, mind, and spirit.

So, what was my surprise when a teacher basically berated a student at the studio I used to go to (I will not name them, but you can read about it here). Being a teacher myself I immediately told the management and asked for the cancellation of my subscription and for the return of my money.

Some fresh research led me to Casa Manabliss, also down the road from me in Delray Beach. I signed up for Yin Yoga on Sunday evening. Yin Yoga is a slower paced practice, with asanas held over a longer period of time, which allows the tissues to “heal” better. Sure it can be a bit uncomfortable, but isn´t that the key to life?

What a refreshing surprise, it turns out I have been doing yoga wrong for over seven years. Yoga is not a workout; it is not a physical endeavor. In the West, we have twisted yoga to make it a physical, body only exercise. Go to the studio or gym, get a good workout, sweat, and hit the shower.

Yoga is a way of life, a philosophy. I am blessed to have found my teacher Paritosh, who was trained in the ashrams of India. His lessons center on the breath to focus mind, body, and spirit. He is gentle, caring, and hilarious, if you enjoy corny jokes, like (to a student showing off her fancy new mat):

Yoga teaches you to have attachment to your mat.

Paritosh

Bottom line, this is what yoga should be like: a meditative practice that clears the mind while healing the body.

I am thrilled to have found Paritosh at Casa Manabliss and I could not recommend them more!

Mind, body and soul, exercise, yoga and meditation

/ antonioyrocinante / 1 Comment

Baking brownies for the Ronald McDonald Family Room
Accept yourself
Giving your time is awesome therapy
The French way has a strong spiritual charge
Conversing with brother Eulogio, a Benedictine monk
A quiet garden to meditate in near my house
Richard Rohr’s wonderful lessons
Practicing Yoga on the Camino, wonderful session!

For a few years, since 2010 to be precise, I have been actively seeking inner peace, not just talking about it with a drink in one hand and a cigar in the other staring at a sunset. It is only with breakage that one slowly lets go of the ego and matures through Kierkegaard’s three stages that we have seen before (the aesthetic, the ethic and the spiritual). With my divorce and the life changes brought about by that trauma, I started seeking solace and understanding. My first, basically subconscious moves were to exercise, to work with a therapist (the amazing Dr. Nemser), I went to church on Sunday – and have not missed a Sunday since (maybe a couple but only for reasons of force majeure), and volunteering. I started reading Scripture every night, then I got hooked on Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditations, I tried to find inspiring readings, revisiting Tolstoy’s The death of Ivan Illich, Milton, Jalics, etc. With time I started meditating, then I started yoga, then came walking the pilgrimage to Santiago…

Little by little I started realizing in my body, mind and spirit that all these things were connected, that working with one affected the other two. Yoga, even weightlifting quieted my mind, meditating relaxed my body and spirit. Breathing helped me stretch during yoga. I realized that while we are made up of many different things, we are in fact one totality of being with a single energy.

I started yoga lessons in North Carolina about six years ago. It was the perfect thing for saturdays after friday night soccer games. And just like that I was hooked. I normally find a gym or a studio that has lessons, but in a pinch I use an app called Down Dog which is very scalable!

For meditation, I usually wait until the end of the day so I have nothing left to do that day. Or I parcel out a time to mediate. I sit and breathe, focussing on my breathing for twenty minutes. I use a great app called Insight timer where I can time myself, take courses, dial into guided meditations – and it keeps track of your progress!

Then I started using these techniques with my athletes when I coached, most recently and successfully the tennis players at the Hun School. Yoga on days in between games, a bit of meditation before games, it all translated to happier, less injured, more understanding players.

Volunteering has been a key factor in my recent growth and maturity. First at Community Servings in Boston cooking for sick, homebound families. In Chapel Hill I volunteered every monday night for four years at the Ronald McDonald House. In Naples I helped out the St. Vincent de Paul charities. Now in Madrid I’m helping at the Ronald McDonald Family Room at the La Paz Hospital in Madrid, for families with premature babies.

My second pilgrimage to Santiago I really focused on walking, meditating, stopping at churches for contemplation, doing yoga after the day’s walk. It really was magical, and I noticed a holistic improvement!

Healing is a long process that there is no way to rush. Acceptance, gratitude, patience, forgiveness, compassion, perspective, humility, understanding, generosity, none of these knock on your door overnight. One must consciously work at healing, it is slowly working for me, give it a try!