In an interview with Diane de Beer, Book Editor of the Pretoria News, way back in July 2009, I had the pleasure of meeting this delightful and talented woman, and telling her about a few of my experiences walking the Camino. However, it was only six months later that Diane got round to writing the review and article -- and it seems that sometimes it is worth waiting for something ...
This is what she wrote:
(Photograph by Nici Williams) * 22 Feb 2010* Pretoria News
* DIANE DE BEER
IF SOMEONE had told me I would enjoy a book about walking the 850km of the Camino, the pilgrimage of Santiago de Compostella across northern Spain, I would have argued. Yet once I started reading Wilna Wilkinson’s The Way of Stars and Stones, I was captivated.
It has a lot to do with Wilkinson’s telling of her story and the way she describes the thought-processes along the way as well as the many encounters she has with fascinating like-minded souls – all doing the journey for their own reasons and attacking the marathon route in different ways and with individual intensity.
Wilkinson, a 58-year-old mother of three, moved with her family to London from South Africa a few years ago. But the children are all grown-up now and she has moved to France where she runs her own little guest house, something she loves with her whole heart.
Her world was turned upside down when a very close friend was diagnosed with cancer. Not knowing how to battle someone else’s pain or how to help her friend, she decided to make the pilgrimage in her honour.
“It’s a journey on which you have to look after yourself, make it work for you,” she says.
“It’s about finding the resources to complete what you started out to do – both mentally and physically.
“From the moment you wake up in the morning until the time the sun goes down, you have to put one foot in front of another.”
Everyone does it for different reasons. Many hope to find the answers to all their questions, others hope it will be a life-changing experience. “And not many realise that you probably have everything inside you that you’re looking for,” says the wise soul who walked more than a month to find her own way.
If you’re wondering, or if you have a yearning to do your own Camino, Wilkinson is no exercise junkie and she wasn’t particularly fit before she tackled what seems daunting to many – 850 km in tough terrain.
One of the things she realised was that her decision to do it on her own was a wise one. One man told her that he had to send his wife home, because she had wanted to quit and he wanted to go on. Her negativity became so dragging that he told her to leave. Even friends find it tough to go at the same pace and with the same mindset.
What Wilkinson did was to make friends along the way. She hooked up with three angels and they would bump into one another every few days or so and spend the night at the same stopover.
She did the walk in winter because she struggles less with cold than with heat. There are much fewer participants in winter.
She was not the kind of person anyone would have expected to do the pilgrimage. Spiritual rather than religious, she wasn’t driven by any fervour and she’s not really the physical type. It was also the first time she had committed to something that took her out of her sphere of competence.
In London she had become quite a powerful motivational speaker. At present her life is about running a luxury guest house. Neither of these would have prepared her for the arduous journey ahead.
That is what makes this such an intriguing book. It could be any of us taking that impossible walk in the freezing cold with no way out.
“It’s all about how you approach it,” she believes.
She describes the pilgrimage as an incredibly empowering experience. Having walked the walk, she believes she can do anything.
She didn’t get blisters, but she developed tendonitis, which became very painful. This taught her about the power of the mind, the importance of breathing and of being in the here and now every step of the way.
“It’s not the most amazing people who make it,” she says. “I did it.” This, she believes, is because of the mind and not the body.
“When you’re climbing that mountain, don’t look up. Stop and look back to see what you have already done.”
That’s exactly what she used to do. The one thing she allowed herself to bring was a camera, and every 10-15 minutes she would snap away at the route she had covered.
Wilkinson feels lucky that she had a reasonably “easy” time. The effect it’s had on her life is that she no longer has time for nonsense.
She views walking the Camino as the most selfish thing she has done, giving herself 50 days of freedom to do the pilgrimage.
“It’s a long time away from all your responsibilities. But once there, selfishness disappears. It’s about reaching out and different talents being used to make things easier for others en route.”
Finally, the most valuable lessons were picked up along the way. “It wasn’t about the final destination, it was about every day.”
It’s an amazing read even if you would never undertake a pilgrimage of this kind. It shows how one person copes with a trauma in her own life and how she decides to conquer her fears.
No comments:
Post a Comment