Sometimes it gets cold along the way...

Thanks to my good friend Patty 'R", I was introduced  to this little ditty of a fable.  My little search engine that could advised me that this popular adage made its way through Facebook some time last year and was all the rave - as usual, I am behind the times.  This ability to stay disconnected is comparable to my habit of discovering Oscar winning movies three years after the fireworks are over.  The good news...

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Another chapter and a new crossroad...

“Stand at the crossroads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way lies; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls….” Jeremiah 6:16 Manuel on a cold winter evening playing the harmonica  In the beginning, we were a healthy and happy lot; our lives were just starting.  It was some time in the eighties our first crop of children had arrived and more were to follow, some still a figment of our imaginations. We were...

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The simple way

A pilgrimage is a journey or search of great moral or spiritual significance  I would like to redefine the terms of the simple pilgrimage.  Life itself is a type of  pilgrimage and every day leads us down a different road. Perhaps the path is not marked by travel guides and maps or a time frame, but the path is marked by the living of life. Some days we walk down a practical road, other days a meditative one and some days can even...

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Starting out on a country road from home...

In the shade of the family home in Portugal. Going in city circles can be rather exhausting but, I have concluded or maybe not, that it makes sense to begin our Camino Real from Ponte de Lima. This particular way marked road takes us on a seven and or eight day excursion by hoof.  Since time is also a deciding factor, this trail is about as much time as  I can dedicate to this pilgrimage - this time. The original way marked roads...

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The Road Not Taken - Robert Frost

The Road Not Taken  (The Road Less Traveled) Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And...

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The Inner Journey From the Outside

Armando, my son with his Godfather Adelino Four years after Tony and I married, we traveled for the first time to Portugal in order to celebrate a family nuptial. Tony's youngest sister was getting married and I was going to meet my new family for the very first time.  As you can imagine, my language skills were at an all time low and I managed to sustain a permanent headache for the first week because of it.  Everyone, with few exceptions,...

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A Shrove kind of Evening

Fully knowing that we would be facing a week inclusive of Shrove Tuesday, a.k.a, Fat Tuesday and Mardi Gras to be followed by Ash Wednesday and forty days of reflection, a party of eight from area code 305 jumped ahead of schedule and invested in an evening of thoughtful coordination of tastes and vintage brews and smokes. Need I say more.... A Lenten Camino begins as we walk on a spiritual pilgrimage for forty days in preparation and...

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The Pilgrims Mass and the Botafumeiro!

Somehow I always revert back to building a house from the roof down. Sorry, husband of mine, I simply can't resist. Clearly, the journey itself to 'The Way' is the reason for the pilgrimage and I am excited about every path, every blister and every stone that ends up inside my shoe, but the more I read about the arrival to Compostela, my heart goes 'boom, badoom, boom, boom, badoom, boom' ...  According to multiple sources,...

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El Credencial...

The Confraternity of Saint James Pilgrimage to Santiago Routes to Santiago Information & resources The Confraternity Home Eureka! I found the official site Camino de Santiago: Note to self: and this is important...Today, I registered with the Confraternity of St. James and the American Pilgrims on the Camino for the (CAMINO PORTUGUES)and now I need to figure out the "when."...

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