Correspondence between Lidia (coach) and Rianne (pilgrim), part 2: letter from Rianne

Dear Lidia,

I walked the Walk of Wisdom alone. The interview with you made it seem like you were walking with me a bit. How nice that we are now symbolically continuing on the road in this correspondence.

You can sometimes get so stuck in your own life, in what you do, in what you think. Leaving the familiar, in a way comfortable, behind, that’s what I did with walking the Walk of Wisdom. To meet myself and the other that is one in the unknown and new. To see and feel clearly.

Your question makes me think that when I returned to the Stevenskerk I could have asked that man what it was that he saw in my eyes. That would have been a good question. What I suspect: A certain openness, liveliness, twinkle, enthusiasm. Imbued with the unity of everything.

How I make space for what presents itself also has to do with this. I believe that what I encounter on my path has a reason. So that restlessness during my rest day, the injury, what do they want to tell me? It’s a given that it’s there, it’s up to me how to deal with it. Or like during dinner during my first day of the Walk of Wisdom. There was one option for my budget: a snack bar/pizzeria. That turned out to be a busy, fluorescent-lit place with the television tuned to a music channel. Not the environment I would choose myself. But it was precisely in having no choice that I found peace. It is what it is. Like knowing that after the night, the day comes again, there’s no point in trying to change that. So I resign myself to that. Accepting it and seeing the humor in it. That went without saying that first evening and that gave me confidence for the rest of the Walk of Wisdom.

Nice, your comparison of the current barren social life in connection with corona and autumn. For me, nature is indeed a mirror from which we can learn. What does nature show us now? That it’s okay to go bald, to get back to the core. That this is even necessary to come back to full bloom in the spring. What can that teach us? We are thrown back on ourselves more. How is the relationship with ourselves? How do we feel about being in our own company with fewer outside distractions? Who are we without all that decoration? For me, autumn is the perfect invitation to do this, one of the reasons I walked the Walk of Wisdom in the fall.

Now I see a lot of cramp around me in the form of resistance, proponents and opponents. What would it be like, for ourselves and the community, if we took the cramp off? And what do you think? If we practiced being in unexpected, new situations more often, would we be less spasmodic about, for example, the current corona situation? For example, walking a pilgrimage, away from the known, into the unknown, as an exercise for life.

Rianne

Read Lidia’s letter to Rianne here

Photo: Anne Kaere Photography