El Camino: The Moment I Said Yes To This Journey
Hi, I’m Donna!
I’ll be your guide for the Eclipse journey this August. (oh my gosh sooo excited!)
And it’s funny, because tbh, my first thought wasn’t even about guiding it.
I saw the email from ROOT announcing it before I was even asked to be part of it!
And my body just knew. My body was an immediate YES!
Genuinly I think this may be the ROOT trip I’ve seen that I have personally felt the most excited about.
To the point that I immediately put it in my calendar and was wondering how to potentially go to it even as a participant!
This was a trip that I would 100% choose for myself.
There are certain experiences that we come across in life that are just DIFERENT
And Camino + A full solar eclipse!
Oh my goodness!!!
This one is definitely different!
I mean just the camino by itself...
People have been walking this pilgramage since the 9th century!!!
Thats 1000+ years that people have been walking this very same path across Spain
And it truly is a pilgrimage.
People have been drawn to this path for so many different reasons!
To find themselves again
To mark the end of something… or the beginning of something new
As a deepening of their faith, or sometimes because they’ve lost it and don’t know what they believe anymore
For healing
For grief
In honour of someone they’ve loved and lost
To clear their head
To get out of the noise
To feel something real again
After a breakup
After burnout
After a life that started to feel like it was happening to them instead of through them
For adventure
For simplicity
For the quiet that only comes when all you’re doing is walking, eating, sleeping and being!
Some people walk to find answers to big questions
And some people walk becasue they dont know what the question is yet
And some walk it just because they feel the call
On the camino there’s this symbol that you see along the way, the scallop shell.
And historically, this was a sign that you were a pilgrim.
That you were doing something important.
That you were on deep path.
And all of the lines of the shell all lead to one single point.
So wherever we are starting from… whatever has brought us here… whatever we’re carrying, or letting go of or not even fully understanding yet…
we’re all moving in the same direction!
Different paths… all coming together.
And I think that maybe that’s part of what makes it so beautiful
because so much of life can feel separate, so isolating
like we’re the only one in what we’re moving through, yet this journey reminds us of that human interconnectedness.
How we are all on this human path together
And then… as if this wasn’t already powerful enough
we ALSO have a full solar eclipse!!!
The sun literally going into total darkness.
Which, when you really stop and feel that for a second… is such a unique, often once-in-a-lifetime - and for many, never-in-a-lifetime - experience.
And I keep imagining…
what it would have been like
for a pilgrim 1000 years ago walking the Camino
and suddenly… the sky goes dark
No explanation, no science to make sense of it
just this moment of pure awe.
That would have likely been one of the most powerful experiences of their whole life!
And even today understanding what is happening, it still can be!
And so when I saw that ROOT, who already holds some of the most beautiful, deep and transformative journeys I know
were bringing both of these things together…
wow!
What a mix.
Because ROOT journeys are already something that really move people
and then you bring in
a thousand-year pilgrimage and a full solar eclipse
all in one
It’s like…
when do you ever get the chance to step into something like that?
And also… just bringing it back a little (because I can feel myself getting very excited writing this )
for me, this goes beyond the “once in a lifetime” experience.
There’s something so profound in this invitation
to go inwards to go deeper
to walk alongside the footsteps of so many before us
to connect with something that has been moving through this land for centuries
To feel that thread of humanity
our struggles our joy our grief our beauty
all of it
woven into the same path
And then… for me personally
there’s something even more beautiful
I’m from Spain, I was born on this land.
And so I feel so excited for you to get to experience this land in this way
not just the Spain people often see
the beaches the cities the food (which… yes, is incredible )
but the deeper Spain
the one that’s slower older layered
This land has held so many cultures so many lineages so many stories
Celtic, Arabic, European… all woven together
and you can feel that when you’re here
There is so much history...
And when you truly slow down
(like well be doing during this journey)
youre not just visiting Spain
youre feeling it
And so this is the story of why I am such a HUGE YES to this journey
And maybe as you're reading this you're also feeling that yes
And if you are
I’d really trust that
because that kind of yes
has a habit of leading somewhere meaningful :-)
-Donna Mariella