Camino Inspires Inner Balance

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Everyone who experiences the Camino de Santiago has their own personal reasons – their own inner desire to discover and enjoy – to heal –  There is something about this special time in nature that truly transforms.

“Before befriending others, you have to be your own friend. Before correcting others, you have to correct yourself. Before making others happy, you have to make yourself happy. It’s not called selfishness, it’s called personal development. Once you balance yourself, only then can you balance the world around you.” – Spiritual Awakenings

Thank you Spiritual Awakenings for your beautiful and inspiring photographs. For more information about Spiritual Awakening please visit Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Spiritual-Awakenings-ॐ/105433989565465

CAMINO Is The Best Metaphor For Living A Life Full Of Meaning!

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It is Memorial Day Weekend in USA and I am grateful for a new Facebook friendship of Paul and Deanna House.  We hear many times that once you do the Camino you will CAMINO for the rest of your life and also it is said that once you do the Camino your REAL CAMINO BEGING….

The Camino is a powerful metaphor for all our JOURNEYS in LIfe.  For me it is finding a way to share our God given gifts and talents working collaboratively together with others to find a way to make a difference in the world.  Deanna and Paul House are doing this with their amazing project House In The Woods – Military & Family Retreat – “an outdoor retreat program that honors our veterans and their families’ sacrifices and assists them in their JOURNEY towards healing the mental and physical pain of loss”.

When our country needed them, generations of brave men and women answered the call of duty to serve in our nation’s military. They sacrificed their family time, health, safety, and even their lives to protect ours. But with the return home, these soldiers bring with them life altering wounds and heartache which only their fellow brothers-in-arms can ever begin to understand. America can never restore what was lost, but at House in the Woods Military and Family Retreat, we offer an outdoor retreat program that honors their sacrifice and assists our veterans in the journey towards healing the mental and physical pain of loss.
House in the Woods, Inc. A Military and Family Retreat
Paul House is the father of Sgt. Joel A. House who was killed on June 23, 2007 in Taji, Iraq by a roadside bomb.  Paul has spent his life in the Maine woods, first as a woodsman and later as a Registered Maine Master Guide.  Shortly after Joel was killed, the House family went to the 1st Cav Memorial Service at Fort Hood, TX.  While there, Paul experienced first hand the comfort of being around other families who were going through the same loss and grief.  From that moment, Paul knew in his heart that he wanted to start a program using the Maine outdoors as a venue to bring military families together to help one another get through their shared experiences and challenges from service and sacrifice to America’s Armed Forces.
 Deanna “Dee” House is the daughter of Master Chief-ret. Eaton E. Lothrop and Nancy Lothrop.  Born at Portsmouth Naval Hospital in VA,  first childhood memories are from Key West, FL where her father was stationed during the tense years of the Cuban Bay Missile Crisis.  She currently teaches Spanish in two Eastern Maine high schools, Stearns in Millinocket and Schenk in East Millinocket.  She is a UMaine, College of Education graduate student currently working towards her C.A.S. in Educational Administration.  Her interests include writing and travel.  

 Mission Statement:

House in the Woods’ mission is to create a therapeutic, recreational, and educational retreat for our nation’s U.S. armed forces and their families by using outdoor wilderness activities in Maine to create comfortable and relaxing milieu for veterans, active duty military, and their families to come together to share their common challenges which come from the service and sacrifice of protecting our nation’s freedom and cherished democratic ideals.

House in the Woods Military & Family Retreat
MAFR
2819 Lee Rd.
Lee, Maine 04455

Phone: 207-738-4421/570-4806
E-mail: Me_Guide@hotmail.com

Full Moon & Eclipse – Celebrate Your Positive Shift!

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The Sun is SHINING in Galicia – finally – a perfect new beginning this morning for a very special day on the camino.  Enjoy this evening looking up into the night’s sky and sharing in a special Full Moon and Eclipse bringing all a Positive Shift!
“Tonight’s Full Moon (10:25p.m. MST) and the Eclipse at 10:11p.m. MST) will be a welcome change to the intensity we have felt throughout this month (from the last Full Moon and 1st eclipse of April 25). We have done so much shifting, rearranging, upgrading, letting go, moving into a higher vibration and more; that it will feel peaceful and healing, as it wholes us into being the Masters that step by step we are becoming. The Eclipse will anchor whatever shift you have made; settling into your entire body, cell by cell, molecule by molecule, till you are vibrating in nothing but Light; nothing but Love. This is a respite for a short bit till we begin the next phase.The time for Ceremony, if you want to empower, is just before the Moon is full. If you want release, do Ceremony after the Moon is full.And now for awhile we can observe how this all manifests in our lives. You may be guided to begin something new, revisit an old dream or simply be in Observance. Whatever it is you are guided and choose to do, know that this is indeed a blessed time; a universal gift, if you will. So enjoy, breathe it in and know that you are an amazing Light Being that is nothing less than Love.” ~Kara (Shaman Angels, Energy Healers & Truth Warriors – The Lightworkers Journey & Ascension: Soulstice Risisng)
Thank you Silvia Bollinger for posting!

For more information showing the phases of the eclipse please visit: http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/LEplot/LEplot2001/LE2013May25N.pdf

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Camino Journey To Santiago – Alicia Wszelaki

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The Camino inspires in so many ways – its history, tradition, the culture and experience all incredible and personal to each persons spirit.  Every visual expression of the camino is an invitation to camino again or take your first adventure to Spain – which we know will be one of many for once you camino you will for the rest of your life!

 

Alicia Wszelaki’s movie Camino The Journey to Santiago features the popular pilgrim’s route across Spain on the Camino Francés.

It’s an impressionistic film that presents an easy narrative of the journey. The images and sounds of the adventure gradually unfold, revealing experiences unique only to this special trek. If you’ve traveled the Camino de Santiago, this film will inspire and encourage you.

For more information please visit Camino The Journey To Santiago Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/CaminoTheJourneyToSantiago?fref=ts

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An Unlikely Camino Couple – A Dog & Cat

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A Special 5 Year Camino! For those who have experienced the camino and those that are preparing the time spent with others is a very special and wonderful part of the camino experience – here this great dog and cat have been sharing the camino spirit in a very special way!

Look carefully in each picture for the cat as it makes its way down from the roof to the dog.

“The story behind this picture is this: Every day – at the same time – she waits for him. Sometimes she barks to call him. He comes; they rub and greet each other and they go for a walk. They have done this for 5 years and no, they don’t belong to the same owners. The owners didn’t know until neighbors seeing them together so frequently commented to the cat’s owner, who then followed the dog home which was a distance away – not in a house close or next door. How it started no one knows.

Wouldn’t it be great to have friends like this – always there, no words needed, they just intuitively recognize the value of each other in their lives and act accordingly.
Live, Laugh, Love.
Life is not the way it’s supposed to be. It’s the way it is.
The way we cope with it is what makes the difference.”

 

Santiago Is Alive With Music & Celebration

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A Little Traditional Spanish Music For You To Enjoy In Santiago!

I Remember a very special memory almost two years ago when I arrived again in Santiago de Compostela and was blessed to share in a wonderful evening of music and celebration. The Tuna De Derecho Santiago De Compostela Musical Group were relaxing and having their own celebration before playing music in the evening from 10 – Midnight just across from the Cathedral in Plaza Obradoiro.  Something you may really enjoy a little Moonlight Look at the Cathedral and some traditional Spanish Serenades. It was a very special evening and a very special CAMINO memory! You might even enjoy taking home one or two of their CD’s – I know I did but little did I know that I would make Galicia my home from that very week…. Hope you enjoy!

Historical tradition is that a TUNA Group was a group of university students in traditional dress who play guitar and sing serenades.  The tradition originated in Spain and Portugal in the 13th century as a means of students to earn money or food. A member of a tuna is known as a TUNO or SOPISTA.

The name TUNA comes from French rio de Thunes – “King of Tunis”, a title used by leaders of vagabonds. In the medieval days the Sopistas would use their musical talents to entertain people in exchange for a coin or a bowl of soup(Sopa, in Portuguese and Spanish, hence the name Sopistas). They would also play their music under the windows of the ladies they wished to court.

For more information please see Tuna De Derecho Santiago De Compostela Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/39175198324/

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Walking The Camino – ¡Buen Camino! – Lydia B Smith

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Lydia B Smith’s movie: The Camino Documentary (Walking the Camino) will be playing in Santiago June 6th in Santiago de Compostela.  Will be a special event and screening during the 1st Camino Film & Television Festival June 3 – 7, 2013.

Hope you can join us and share in this special CAMINO Experience!

 

 

25,000 Miles On Foot For World Peace

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Personal Transformation & Inspiration!

 

“During the preparation period I wasn’t fully identifying with the real me, I was just learning. I was very forgiving toward others, that was no problem, but I was very unforgiving toward myself. If I did something that wasn’t the highest, I would say to myself, “You ought to know better.” And then one day as I was combing my hair at the mirror, I looked at myself and said, “You vain thing! Why do you think you know better when you forgive everyone else for not knowing
better? You’re not any better than they are.”

You must learn to forgive yourself as easily as you forgive others. And then take a further step and use all that energy that you used in condemning yourself for improving yourself. After that I really started to get somewhere -because there’s only one person you can change and that’s yourself. After you have changed yourself, you
might be able to inspire others to look for change.

It took the living quite awhile to catch up with the believing, but it finally did. And when it did, a progress began which never ended. As I lived up to the highest light I had, higher and higher light came to me.” ~ Peace Pilgrim

from “Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work In Her Own Words” page 16

 Please visit Facebook page of Friends of Peace Pilgrim for more information: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Friends-of-Peace-Pilgrim/75748619602?hc_location=stream

 

Camino & Charity

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A Unique Camino Experience & A Way To Give Back

Bonnie and Krishna Arora have been walking the Camino for more than 10 years a journey which was inspired after Bonnie read an article in the Union – Tribune in San Diego their hometown.

“This pilgrimage has affected our whole retired life,” Bonnie said. “It has opened our eyes to different areas, allowed us to get involved with our roots … We met and found relatives we didn’t know existed. It opened up my roots in Spain … it shifted our whole retired life to service. It’s more than just a journey, it’s a life-changing thing.”

Bonnie and Krishna have enjoyed many different and special Camino experiences which inspired them on their last Camino to raise money for the La Jolla Golden Triangle Rotary. They wanted to raise $25,000 to support their local organization and April 2013 have raised $23,000.

A Fantastic combination of the Camino experience and sharing a giving heart and charity with others. Congratulations Bonnie and Krishna. We hope to see you on more camino journeys!
Please see link to read more: San Diego Community News Group – Finding a life of service on the path to spirituality

Luiza’s Final Camino

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Living on the Camino we are blessed with hearing so many special stories that move and inspire. We heard of Luiza’s husband  Garry and her son Stephen walking the camino in her honor and were touched deeply.

“Luiza Kraner from Australia who was living in Houston, Texas, had walked the Camino de Santiago seven times along many different routes. She photographed life along the way, recording her experiences, most of the time on her own, in over 30,000 pictures. Luiza passed away in January last year and this month, her husband Garry and her son Stephen, are walking with her one last Camino.”

For more information please visit: http://www.caminoways.com/blog/2013/05/21/luizas-final-camino/