Camino Stories: Talking to Camino Authors

Once a month on the last weekend of each month – around nine a.m. on Saturday morning in eastern Australia and around 7 p.m. on Friday evening in eastern North America (and at other time zones in between) – some of us Camino aficianados have been spending a wonderful hour listening to famous authors of Camino books talk to us about their own Camino journeys.

The meetings are held via Zoom; the link to each meeting is posted a few days before the event on the Camino Authors Collective Facebook page.

In September we had the husband and wife team of Elaine Orabona Foster and Joe Foster talk to us about their pilgrimage and their book In Movement There is Peace. Their book has done very well since it was first published in 2013 – as a print edition, e-book, audiobook and most recently as a Spanish translation. From the start of their Camino and their “No Plan Plan” to the lessons learned along their 500 mile journey (like how to humbly accept kindness from strangers, realising that many of our material possessions are unnecessary and discovering that the only thing we can truly control in this life are our actions) Elaine and Joe, who had never written a book before, took us through their fascinating journey. They discussed not only their physical journey but also their internal journey. They spoke candidly about the internal struggles they faced – akin to what many of us go through in our lives – and touched on relationships,family, and the fears and anxieties that keep all of us us from living life to the full.

In August we had the privilege of listening to a most inspiring talk by Patrick Gray and Justin Skeesuck – the two men from Boise, Idaho who traversed the Camino from St Jean Pied de Port all the way to Santiago de Compostela together – with Patrick pushing/pulling Justin in his wheelchair. Interviewed by Russ Eanes and also answering questions from others who joined our Zoom meeting, Pat and Justin spoke about what prompted them to undertake this journey and the challenges as well as the uplifting experiences they encountered along the way. They highlighted the depth and breadth of Community one meets on the Camino, the opportunity to engage as fellow human beings with those we meet on this journey – and to realise how much we can accomplish if we set aside our differences and pitch in together! If you have not yet read their book or watched their movie ‘I’ll Push You’ may I recommend you do so.

Previous meetings have featured Susan Jagannath (The Camino Ingles), Bill Bennett (The Way, My Way), Sanjiva Wijesinha (Strangers on the Camino), Guy Thatcher (A Journey of Days), Russ Eanes (The Walk of a Lifetime) and Amit Janco (UnBound Together: A Journey to the End of the Earth)

If you have an idea about a best selling author who would agree to speak to this international audience, email me to sanjiva.wijesinha@monash.edu – or send us (Russ and me are the administrators) a personal message to the Facebook page Camino Authors Collective.

There can be no pilgrimage
without a destination, but the destination is
also not the real point of the endeavour.
What characterises Pilgrimage is this:
The Willingness to Wander in Pursuit of a Destination.
That’s pilgrimage – a mind full of journey.
– Patricia Hampl.