"Cherry tree: all you can reach" says an imaginary note popping up in my mind. June is prime time for cherry looting, plucking bunches of fruits with greedy fingers. No crops are safe from birds and pilgrims! I found great satisfaction in castigating some tall cherry trees using a marvelous two-handed technique (with extra help from my walking sticks) to pull down seeming unreachable branches. Such were the thoughts I was entertaining: "It's fast food in the sense that you gotta be fast if the farmer arrives!"
Birdies, birdies... everywhere... giving me their grace and happiness. I love to look at them when they are worryless, dancing together with energy and health. That's a picture of how life should be. Little birdies teach me so much every time I see them. I am so grateful for having the luck of admiring their beauty and sharing this world with them. You throw them a crumble of old bread and it's a big party. It takes so little. They are constantly chirping in the background in a way so sooting. The world would be nothing without them. Every creature plays its role in bringing beauty. With beauty and harmony come gentle cooperation and sharing, otherwise the world would plunge into chaos and hubris and everything will be lost. How do we find grace and balance, if not looking at the little creatures and letting them fill our hearts with warmth? Ah, I hear so many of them singing! There's so much life around this yard!
Some morning walking with a nice Argentinian man, working in arts, living part-time in ecovillages, an authentic philosopher of life. He was sporting a self made T-shirt saying "Vivir es urgente". Some serious food for thought. He told me there's a temple in India with a note stating that you can enter only if you have already forgiven your parents. And spoke long about understanding our childhood relationship with our parents and try somehow to come to grips with it and reach some peace. I've been thinking of writing letters to my mum and dad. To tell them what I was and still am going thru in my relationship with them. And to forgive them for everything, recognizing the good intentions, the love behind their actions, their attempt to find a meaning out of this crazy world. But I simply cannot do that. I have too much rage that needs to be worked on, still. I am a shipwreck which cannot be simply brought up to the surface with the tip of a finger.
Shocked by the news of my friend Sir S. delaying his arrival of another week... I suddenly feel a need for replanning what was essentially not planned. Should I keep the"ego challenge" of continuing the camino del norte with forced marches, or develop new and more reasonable plans?
It's not true that I don't have time for the Camino. I can decide to free time for something, or not. I can find time. Is it a good use of time to do the Camino del Norte? Mmm.. it depends. Maybe it helps liberating your mind and do some steps ahead in understanding..
Not working is the best way to free up time, but does this disconnect you from having a full social life? You definitely need to "play it well" to be out of the system and yet in full connection with the world.