checkmate

Maybe this happens all of the time and I'm just not as aware of it some of the time - the universal dance of synchronicity.  It's cool.  I've planned for months and months for the trip that is a scant 16 days away as of this writing, and recently I've secretly doubted my commitment, my physical ability, my mental focus.... not as in I'm-not-gonna-do-it; more like whoa - I'm almost there and I'm feeling nervous about what I'll find that is outside of my current comfort zone.

I have spent this past weekend happily running my little jewelry booth with a couple of friends helping me at a large annual festival in Fayetteville, NC.  It's a blur of activity: meeting and greeting strangers and old friends alike in a festive environment.  Each year I attend this event, I run into people I truly enjoy and after we share a joyous hug and quickly catch up with the bullet points of each others lives since last year's event, we always say something like - why don't we make time to be together more often?  This year - yesterday - I ran into two particular women I haven't seen in many years - old friends I'd become estranged from for hazy and at this point in time unimportant reasons - and I felt this beautiful surge of love and happiness.  My hands were full of lunch for three from a vendor who had only foil - no bags - and I improvised upon seeing them with necky air-hugs including an air kiss to the cheek since my arms were too employed to use for embracing.   It could've been a tense hi-how-have-you-been now I have nothing else to say, or worse - I see you coming and avert my eyes and pretend I never saw you; instead I felt this surge of happiness as soon as I saw them walking in my direction and I understood without a second thought that there are so many 'stories' that we've convinced ourselves are true yet in the end simply don't matter - it's the story of love matters.  And -  in loving ourselves, we love all and are capable of nearly anything.

Checkmate.

A little later yesterday afternoon I was standing in back of my festival tent - out of view from anyone entering while my friends/helpers ran things, and one of them stuck her head around the back wall and said, "there's a man who wants to meet the artist".  So I stepped back in.  I introduced myself, and he introduced himself and his lady to me.  We talked about my jewelry and he was getting at wanting to contact me for custom work.  I said to him that I would be out of the country shortly til mid-July, lest he try and contact me and find me absent :).  This led to questions, which led to the Camino de Santiago WHICH THEY HAVE DONE which led me to blurt out a very personal question of a perfect stranger - What were your personal reasons for wanting to walk your pilgrimage?  Wait.  Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?  That was totally backwards. ..... Yes, I'd be happy to tell you why.  And he did, adding all of the potential amazing moments I'll have personally, spiritually, and as one sharing the experience with strangers that will become a part of my heart. Looking back, it was as if the Universe conspired to lend it's loving voice to my doubts in such a beautiful, tangible, human and personal way.

Checkmate.

Did I mention I'm leaving in 16 days?  <3

Share your love -
Kerstin

28 days

'You have brains in your head.  You have feet in your shoes.  You can steer yourself any direction you choose.  You're on your own.  And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go....'  ~ Dr. Seuss

I looked at the calendar tonight and realized that at this very time twenty eight days from now God-willing, I'll be flying over the ocean with my faith, my fears, and my little-ol-backpack for the longest walk I've ever walked :).  I'm ready.  I'm scared.  I'm elated.  I'm curious.  I'm leaving in 28 days!!!!

Thanks for questioning me; thanks for encouraging me.  Just, thanks :)

love Kerstin

thank you

"Thank you frailty, thank you consequence, thank you, thank you silence."  I heard Thank You by Alanis Morrisette the other day and it brought tears to my eyes.  In frailty I've found strength and courage, in consequence I've found commitment and responsibility and I am learning to find more in silence than just peacefulness.   There is an awareness found in silence that lengthens and relaxes my breath; there is a place I've found inside where once in awhile it is possible to stop the endless thoughts of how I can 'improve' and just be thankful to be.

It's a little less than six weeks until I leave for Europe and my camino.  The planning and preparation seem like such a long long time - I'm ready!  I have lists for myself and my pack and more importantly, I have a deep sense of purpose and trust that inspite of my lists I will find what I need and what I find probably won't be carried on my back but in my heart.  I would be lying if I said that I have no fear; I do, and that fear drives me to walk in the same way as desire does.

"Thank you providence, thank you disillusionment, thank you nothingness, thank you clarity, thank you thank you silence"

Peace,
Kerstin

deadlines & details

I never imagined that I would be somewhere inside of the process of making hundreds of pieces of jewelry.  It doesn't seem that long ago that I made one pair of earrings or piece of jewelry now and then to satisfy my personal craving for something new.  Deadlines are a love/hate experience:  I'm grateful to have one, yet selfishly I want to savor the creative part of creating away from any kind of time frame.  At the end of the day, I have a show in South Carolina the end of this month, and the Dogwood Festival the end of April -  and I'm the one one who signed up for both.  It's both deeply satisfying and really time consuming.  I imagine and operate from the goal of a total of roughly 700 items created with creativity and craftsmanship over the next weeks.  (It's what I want/wanted, and I'm blessed!)

Time is generous, and time is impatient.

Simultaneously, I am planning more to the detail my pilgrimage across Spain, and it's coming up so quickly!  What backpack; 20, 35, 40, or 45 litres?  Is 3 pr of socks good for a rotation for 6 weeks?  Am I being indulgent to pack 4 pr of underpants?  (how much do underpants weigh, anyhow?)  Can I get a limited amount of International Phone Time from my mobile provider or do I need to get a temporary way of communicating with Mat if necessary - will my debit card work there? .......  Should I cut off a piece of bar soap so I carry only a percentage of the weight, will I need just a liner bag or a full sleeping bag... I know for sure that the weight of a guidebook is sheer indulgence given how well the Way is marked - but do I want to tear out particular pages and add them to my pack? Aaaahhhhh!!!!!! The details in this scenario as well as just about any other scenario in life are what threaten to diminish my beautiful experience as Kerstin Ruth Hanson.  Why do people go on a Pilgrimage; a journey of personal discovery; a Spiritual experience... I don't know about anyone else but -  I'm working on trusting that all will be always as it's supposed to be.  Amen.

I am learning to trust that whatever I need when I need it will be provided whether it's physical, emotional, spiritual or intellectual.  And it's inside of a two-dimensional experience of being tied to what I said I wanted while I'm also preparing for what I know nothing about.  It's all part of a crazy little thing we call life.  And we are supposed to live it.  

Be well, be kind, be loving, be happy.

Kerstin

communion

Sitting with myself in my neighbors hot tub
Probably had one too many glasses of wine
Gazing at the stars and thinking of my daddy
There are only so many places a girl can really cry

Thankful for the beauty that he was
So Generous and sometimes slow to get the punch line
Deeper than the glass of drink he often got lost in
And as loving as a daughter could hope for

I'm gonna miss him

When I was younger, We debated classical music versus Rush (what I was into at the time)
He gave me a little point for composition - but not for ear candy
In that realm I succeeded only in building a bridge
For him to cross in the future for his musical grandson

I'm gonna miss him

I am the daughter of a preacher turned social minister
And I really didn't give it enough thought as I'm reminiscing tonight
He planted seeds and let me be my own gardener
I didn't thank him for that

I'm gonna miss him

I said to my daddy and the stars tonight
I'm sad, I'm grateful, and I'm torn up good and right
We don't always say the things that we should say when we should
It's alright, it's alright.

Peace, Kerstin
ps - tell someone that you love them

stretching

'Its a stretch.'  'Shes trying to stretch her budget.'  'Stretch before you work out.'  'Can you stretch it a little bit longer?'  Stretch is a funny word (particularly when you type or say it repeatedly - I had to double check my spelling and meaning after a few times), and applicable in so many ways.

I'm working through a physical problem currently, "plantar fasciitis". It hurts.  Cursory stretching doesn't do the trick for the heel pain; thoughtful, deep, and multiple stretches per day are much more effective.  The physical stretching has me thinking about internal stretching.

A couple of years ago I don't think walking The Camino would've entered my realm of possibility thinking.  Too much of a stretch.  I'm cracking myself up as I type, if you must know.  I would've dismissed the idea as something other people do.  The moment I felt that little spark of delight, of romantic wonder, of feeling the little tug of desire to walk The Camino I began to stretch internally in ways I hadn't before that imagined.

I believe in myself differently - many friends don't understand why I am going to do this, and why I want to walk for four or five weeks alone - and as humans we are very susceptible to the opinions of others; this reaction from others hasn't affected my thinking or desire.  It seems like in a different time in my life their influence would've been much stronger....  Because I hadn't done any stretching.

So if you're reading this and you're on the fence about something that matters to you - stretch! 

Kerstin

i did it!

Mid-May; USA to France.

Early July: Spain to the USA

In just about every scenario that includes a sense of wonder; of marvel - there are as many perspectives as there are humans that are aware of it.  When I finished purchasing my airline tickets on the internet to get to and from my real destination - my camino - the very next sensation was being aware of the trails that my own tears left on my cheeks- that slight stinging of salt on skin leaving a slightly cool and sticky trail.  There is the awareness (again and again) that I alone decide whether or not to step closer to what I imagine, whatever that may be.  My joy was so profound at taking this step that my body reacted physically.  Whoa.

Some of the reactions I've gotten from loved ones remind me that we have forgotten in the last hundred years or so how amazing our physical bodies are;  who in this world can walk 5 or 6 hours a day?  Nearly all of us.  We just don't think like that!  Millions of human beings through time have used their bodies to get from here to there no matter the distance.  

For me, the beginning and ending are far less important than the days in between.  I'm interested in knowing how I react and respond to challenge beyond what I know.  I'm interested in learning first hand what happens when I bank on faith; in the Universe, God, humankind and myself to get up in the morning and walk 15 or so miles and do that each morning until there are 500 miles across the unknown etched into my physical body and more importantly, my spiritual body. 

It's the 4th of January 2014; 5 months and 10 days til I'm off - I did it - I purchased my tickets.  Yay, me!

Kerstin