A beginning

How nerve wracking - a beginning.

I'm learning to travel the information superhighway in a new way in preparation for my walking trip.  I'm heading off on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela but, unlike the pilgrims that have been walking The Way for over a thousand years, my preparation includes the technology to stay connected!  Nothing like getting involved in the extremely complex in preparation for the extremely simple.  You would think that deciding to walk from Point A (St Jean Pied de Port, France) to Point B (Santiago de Compostela, Spain) would be simple - after all I've been walking all my life.  Instead I have been preparing for almost a year in order to leave Australia at the end of August, 2011. 

So when is the beginning? How do we recognise them? And when is this beginning the middle of something else?  I've been asked a few times when did I hear about the Camino but I honestly can't remember.  I do remember that last year, after my 50th birthday, I decided it was time and that was what I wanted to do. 

I am fascinated by the combination of the physical, the historical and the spiritual that I am expecting to find.  I'm not expecting to be rewarded with a free trip to heaven or a free pass through purgatory, but I am expecting to be rewarded.  It's odd to not know exactly what I expect that reward to be but to head for the goal anyway.

Buen Camino!  Ultreya!