The path toward yourself. The wisdom of the Camino de Santiago

Di Valentina Garozzo

Il Cammino di Santiago de Compostela, da secoli calcato dai passi di migliaia di pellegrini, ancora oggi per molti rappresenta una potente chiamata interiore, a cui non sempre, o non immediatamente, si ha il coraggio di rispondere. Questo libro, frutto dell'esperienza dell'autrice come pellegrina sul percorso francese dell'autunno 2017, è un dialogo aperto e sincero sugli insegnamenti più profondi che è possibile apprendere lungo la strada per Santiago. È un colloquio sulla saggezza del Cammino con un futuro pellegrino: qualcuno che sta pensando di intraprendere la rotta iacobea, ma ancora non trova il coraggio o la motivazione per decidersi a partire. È un invito gentile ad uscire dalle proprie zone comfort, per liberarsi delle paure di "non farcela" e assumersi la responsabilità di realizzare i propri sogni; per riuscire così finalmente a mettersi in marcia sulla rotta che porta verso Santiago e verso se stessi.

• Lingua: Italiano
• Editore: Youcanprint
• Data di uscita: 25 lug 2019
• ISBN: 9788831631792

Anteprima del libro

centuries

INTRODUCTION

The first time I heard about the Camino de Santiago I was fifteen. I remember it very well. At that precise moment an idea came into my mind and from there it didn’t move for twenty-two years. The mantra ran through my head:

I want to do the Camino de Santiago, I need to do the Camino de Santiago, I have to do the Camino de Santiago…

After years of mulling it over, in 2014, I finally took the fateful decision: Now I'm going to do the Camino, and I'm going there alone.

One night I had a dream. It was one of those visions that is hard to forget when you wake up in the morning. A book I desired materialized at will through a waterfall in the middle of a shining forest. I saw everything from the window of a bright white apartment. I was in the company of a silent woman, with long hair and iridescent skin, she did not have a human beauty - she seemed a fairy being. When I woke up, I thought, Maybe it's a sign. Maybe after the pilgrimage I have to write a book about the Camino de Santiago…

Having done what was necessary to request a long-term vacation, I began to train seriously. But, shortly, a series of events beyond my control conspired, kept me from following through.

2014 - absolutely no way for my Camino!

Probably it was not the right time; I don’t know how many times after that I said to myself, I’m so stupid for abandoning my purpose and for not listening to myself. Never again will I change my mind to follow other people's ideas, instead of listening to what I feel deep inside!

From that moment my life completely changed. In 2016, I took a one month trip to India.

Upon my return, I published the diary of my journey and dedicated part of the sales for a fundraiser for Auroville, an international community in Tamil Nadu, India.

I thought, "Maybe my unforgettable dream referred to this book and not to a hypothetical book about Santiago".

Things continued to develop. In the summer of 2017, I gave up everything. Left it all. I quit my job that I had for ten years, left the apartment I was renting, closed the yoga association I had founded with friends - all this to leave for Auroville and to gain experience in other communities around the world. I no longer wished to live by the conditions imposed by societal common sense.

At that moment, the door to Santiago was opened wide again:

I have three months before going back to India. I have the time and I also have some money aside. If I don’t take advantage of it now, I will not go on the Camino at all! Valentina! No distractions. Take the opportunity and this time, now!

What intrigued me most in undertaking this adventure was to be able to find out why. Why did I have this connection with the Camino de Santiago from an early age? Why had I spent all these years thinking about it? So… I arrived on the Way with the very strong intention of observing and studying.

During the Camino I wrote a blog about my experience as a pilgrim walking from morning to late afternoon in the rain and sun. This took a lot of discipline. Every day at the end of the walk, I reported everything on my mobile phone, indifferent to the dysfunctional WI-FI connections and the early curfew in the dorms.

During the walking of the journey I was reminded of my idea to write a book on the Camino de Santiago. Along the pilgrimage the structure of the book and the perspective came to me.

I don’t want that this book to be just an account of the episodes I experienced. I want to observe and deepen what is developing at a more subtle level along the Way.

I did not want to publish another diary. Instead, I wanted to start from scratch with something new: an open and sincere dialogue on the deepest teachings of the Camino with a fictional future pilgrim, someone who is thinking of making the Camino de Santiago, but does not find the courage or the motivation to do it.

Writing this book was like giving birth.

It was a long process.

(Another full Camino in itself!)

I started writing the book as soon as I finished the pilgrimage in Portugal. 

I wrote… Deleted... Rewrote… Struggled… Rewrote.  Redeleted … Started again.  Wrote it again.  After the Camino, I was completely unbalanced. I was done.

I returned to Italy and I had no inspiration. I was stuck, miserably. I counted on my stay in Auroville with the idea that I could find the time, and the space and the good vibration to make the narration move on. But for some reason, something didn’t flow. After a few months of intense reflections and many exercises aimed at creative writing on the theme Closing the Chapters, finally, the lid that blocked the text let loose and the book, after taking greater and greater shape, has seen the light!

It was just another time, yet again (who knows how many other times I'll fall in the future). Finally, I was centered again. Through it all the motivation of this effort was:

Your flecha amarilla (yellow arrow) doesn’t point in the correct direction, by which it means toward your Sacred Center, your Inner Santiago.

We humans are recurring beings, we love to bang our head on the same identical topics every time,