Hola First name / pilgrim 👋

👣💙💛💙👣

What a beautiful shift to autumn here in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Pais Vasco 😀

 

Happy to report I am nearly three chapters into my new book and what a journey!

 

I have been looking back at what I discovered on each of my Caminos and where that has led me.

 

I am also documenting them all and adding them to YouTube and my website as part of the process. It's really good fun and also quite emotional. I forgot so many of the wonderful experiences I've had over the years.

 

I have now put my first three Caminos on the website (including my second in North Wales) - feel free to take a peak

One thing to consider if you are heading out earlier or later in the year is that the days can be quite short

 

Check this out from 7.30am in mid-november 🤣

Something else I promised to share more about is the pricing for my services, so here goes…

This, for me, is one of the most important philosophies of the Camino.

 

For the last few years I have offered my coaching and support with a 2-part pricing structure – a base administration charge and the rest based on donativo, or pay-as-you feel.

 

I have loved that people with less money have been able to access my support this way, whilst others who aren’t in that situation can pay what they feel is a price the service is worth and that they can afford.

 

I am now applying this to all the services* I offer.

 

There may, at times, be a small admin charge if I incur costs, but I aim to avoid that wherever I  can.

 

I will leave it up to you to contribute what you can or will.

 

When you sign up for any service it will be free or you will only pay the small admin charge. Then after the service has been delivered you will be sent a link to contribute what you can or will by bank transfer or PayPal.

 

*This doesn’t apply to products e.g. books.

Let’s do a swap!

 

I’ll help you and you help me 🙂

 

Here are some things that I would find helpful (a bit vague, but I will expand more soon)

It was September 2024 and I was trying to figure out what to charge for my coaching and, to be honest, how to get more clients.

 

An idea came into my mind, it was different to the pay-as-you-feel I had offered before and felt a bit radical.

 

What if I didn’t receive anything for the support I offered, but asked the client to pass it on to someone else and support them.

 

How far could that then spread? Where would that positive energy go and how many lives could it touch?

 

That was it, I had to try it.

 

Over 3 months I supported 8 people with up to 6 coaching hours each. I LOVED IT!

 

Now it is an option for all my services. 

 

If you consider the donation you are making to be below a reasonable market rate for the service, or have no exchange that will work then you can choose this option and pass on the support you receive to help someone else.

 

Check the above link to see what the people I have helped have said and how they passed it on. Also for more information about how to do it.

Also looking forward to a stint on the Camino de Madrid again with my pal Kate next week (Hoping it will be cooler than last July ;-) - above)

 

It is her first taster of a Camino and we will be doing 4 days from Madrid to Segovia, around 100km.

 

If you are considering a Camino, maybe a little trial first would be helpful.

 

Always happy to chat and help you figure out how you can do it. Just book in for a Camino Conflab Session

I would love to share with you a letter I found in St. Bueno's Church at Clynnog Fawr on the North Wales Pilgrim's Way in 2017, which sums up so much about pilgrimage for me. Truly beautiful!

 

“Dear PILGRIM,

Whether on foot or in fantasy, you will be going not only on a Spiritual pilgrimage. But on a cultural and historic journey down through the ages also. And both experiences, if fully entered into, should bring about the change of heart and insight of mind which is essential to a pilgrim’s progress. Every tree, every stone, every hill and hollow along the way seemed to cry out with a story. For everything, it seemed had been adopted into human history.

So, perhaps we are born into the best of ages, for we have the history of all ages unfolded for us along the way. And if we are true pilgrims at heart, we will learn much from history. For when we walk with respect and humility on the footprints of the past, we will travel more wisely on the pathways of the future.

To go on a PILGRIMAGE is as old as man himself. For even as we aspire to reach the stars or inhabit Mars, man more than ever, seeks to find himself in that long spiritual journey inwards.

 

Frank Fahey (FR)

Ballintubber Abbey,

IRELAND

June 1989”