Road Lesson #2 - Fortitude

Beyond Grateful
Is the only way I can describe how I feel as I look back upon my summer
In July I managed to travel through 10 states
Out West by train and out East by motorcycle
This has never happened before...and yet...
the seeming coincidence hasn't escaped me

Earlier this year I had witnessed bad behaviors
That left me discouraged with the human race
And because I was focused on it, I found more
But with it came an unbidden urge to meet people
Not just any people
but a strong desire to meet other cultures in a desperate attempt to find someone 'real'
and not give up hope that our world wasn't totally screwed


I started taking baby steps towards my future dream of walking El Camino in Spain
thinking that I would focus on getting healthy first 
and in a couple years I would go in search

I had made my decision to take the Pilgrimage
What I didn't expect was that I didn't have to get to Spain for the Pilgrimage to begin
 ~ ~ ~

I boarded the train and motorcycle with an open heart
telling the Universe to let me be open to see what I needed to see
and the wisdom to recognize it when it came along

Thinking the world had become a bunch of spineless back-stabbing wimps
I was overjoyed when the Universe removed this judgement
and allowed me to see that 'real' people still exist
The type of people who don't buckle under adversity
The type who instead of running in fear of life's ebbs and flows
bring out the surf board and ride the waves determined to make the best of it

People who reinvented themselves along the way
Instead of letting life break them in one form or another

I found that there are still manly men and tough women
I found strength and courage
Fortitude
Backbone
The type of people that sparked change in this wonderful country of ours
And I can only imagine what I'll find as I continue my Pilgrimage
~ ~
Those making the pilgrimage in Spain are referred to as Peregrinos (Pilgrims)
the fellow travelers who have come from afar to travel to a holy place
My pilgrimage began when I left home that first day
and I started meeting the Peregrinos along the way
those whose path crossed mine at perfectly coincidental moments

Over the next few posts I'll be introducing you to some of the Peregrinos
I met on the crossroads of our individual journeys

and so my Quest continues...

~
"The concept of randomness and coincidence will be obsolete 

when people can finally define a formulation 

of patterned interaction between all things within the universe."

~Toba Beta