Camino De La Luna - Take What You Need (Without Pictures)

By Pearl Howie

This is a book for people who wake up at 5am (or 3am) worrying. Sometimes genius and the truth arrive at this time, sometimes it's just your mind or your ego spinning lies, keeping you awake, freaking out your body, making you sick, torturing you, trying to keep you small. I've been there. Years, months and just hours ago. And it is so wonderful to be able to choose to get up and use this time to greet the dawn, to get clarity and change my life, or to soothe the beast and be able to go back to sleep in peace, and wake again knowing that there is nothing to be afraid of, that I am life and my life is perfect and we are all perfect. This is a book about faith, about adventure, about living with my heart open and letting go of the fear of being myself. In June 2016 I decided to sell my house of 22 years and leave my comfort zone. I had no idea where I would go next, but slowly the Camino de Santiago showed itself and I decided, with no rucksack or hiking experience to start...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jun 3, 2018
• ISBN: 9780244991548

Book preview

Camino De La Luna - Take What You Need (Without Pictures)

Camino De La Luna - Take What You Need (Without Pictures)

By Pearl Howie

Copyright © Pearl Howie 2018

All rights reserved

ISBN: 978-0-244-99154-8

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Dedication

I made a promise to tell the truth of my Camino word for word.  When I made that promise, on a bus, at the end of my journey I thought I was making it to God.  Now I realise it was made for me, to help me through the challenge of sharing it.

I am sure parts of this book will offend and shock. 

Never mind.  But I do not wish to offend any of the people depicted in this book.  They are real (or I thought they were).  This is my art, my perception of them, what and who they represented for me.  Just a reflection of the real person.  Most of them I met for a moment, a day - I don't really know them.  But even if they are my beloved, my best friend, my mother, I can still only share the reflection of them in my eyes, which one of my teachers says is like a Picasso painting, who knows where the ears might end up?

So if you recognise someone you know, or even yourself, I hope you take it as a compliment that you made such an impression in my story and, although I am not Picasso, that an artist chose to share your likeness with the world.

Also by the Author

(This book is also available as a full colour paperback and colour pdf eBook with photos.  Audiobooks are also in the works.)

Books in this Series

Japan Is Very Wonderful (prequel/self help/travel)

free Feeling Real Emotions Everyday (self help)

Camino de la Luna – Take What You Need (self help/travel)

Camino de la Luna – Unconditional Love (self help/travel)

Camino de la Luna – Forgiveness (self help/travel)

Camino de la Luna – Compassion (self help/travel) coming soon

Camino de la Luna – Courage (self help/travel) coming soon

Camino de la Luna – Truth (self help/travel) coming soon

Camino de la Luna – Reconciliation (self help/travel) coming soon

Other Titles

The Guide to Spa Breaks and Escapes from Pearl Escapes

The Guide to Massage, Spa Treatments and Healing from Pearl Escapes

Meditation for Angry People

The Wee, The Wound And The Worries: My Experience Of Being A Kidney Donor

Love And The Perfect Wave (romantic novel)

Individual regional guides to spas and escapes, including:

Cozumel, Las Vegas, London Spas and Massage, Bath Spa, Swimming With Wild Manatees, Tuscany With Teenagers, The Lake District, Brockenhurst, Iceland, Florida, Key Largo, Orlando, Vero Beach, The Everglades, Clearwater, New York, Paris With Kids, Marrakech, China (Hong Kong, Yangshuo, Shanghai, Huangshan and Beijing), Zadar, Croatia and Barcelona

Video

Everything To Dance For

Prologue

13 June 2016 - I thought I had a bit of a chest infection because my lungs were sore, so I mixed together some old (and possibly rancid) essential oils I had in the cupboard.  I woke up in the middle of the night my lungs burning, struggling to breathe, thank God I’d left the windows open.  I called the NHS helpline and they told me to get straight down to the hospital to get checked out.  All the tests were fine but my lungs still burned.  Because of that or my spiritual awakening a few months before (which I shared in my book free Feeling Real Emotions Everyday.) or the craziness going on in the world, or even my best friend's wedding that week, it started a nasty cycle; every day I’d wake up before dawn, coughing and throwing up.

I was convinced my house was poisoning me with the remnants of the oils or VOCs, that even though I slept with all my windows open I’d made my house so toxic that just being there was making me worse.  I’d walked a lot before, in the green spaces in Wimbledon, now I spent all the time I possibly could outside.

It’d rained all through May and I’d had problem after problem with my Zumba classes, there was only one hall that was alright.  A week after the poisoning I had a terrible dream about being kept safe then I walked in and found a bucket catching a drip in that last hall.  I said That's it, I'm done. and finally listened to the universe, to God.  I called my mum, who had also hit melt down point with her job (being a carer and dealing with all the people supposed to support my brother's healthcare).  I said I'm selling my house. 

I'm so glad. 

But I'm not moving to your town.  I added quickly. 

I crossed the street, heading to the estate agent, and bumped into a carpenter who’d quoted for some work on my flat.

I'm not going to ask you to do the work, I'm selling the house.

Right, let me introduce you, he’s a friend of mine.  (Turns out the carpenter had been there slightly longer than me and was trying to sell up and go travelling too.  I gave him a copy of my book, I hope he finally got free.)

That night, as I cycled home from another class in the hall, I saw the huge full moon looming up in front of me.  I learned it was summer solstice, and the full moon was appearing on this night for the first time in 70 years. 

Yet again the full moon seemed to appear on a momentous day for me, just as it had when I travelled to Egypt 14 years ago, and Clearwater in 2013 (and probably many other times when I just didn’t pay it that much attention).

I booked in three estate agent appointments that day; I knew if I stopped I would stop.  Then I called my sisters and asked to borrow money because I knew I could pay it back as soon as I sold my house.  I called the bank and asked them to freeze my mortgage or at least give me interest only payments.  They said they couldn’t.  (There is now an ongoing Financial Ombudsman investigation.)  (It was only months later, working with Step Change, a free debt management company/charity that I learned that yes, they could and yes, I must make them – so I did, finding out in the process that my account had been in credit for all the months I’d been struggling.) 

I physically signed the paper to put my house on the market on 23 June 2016, the day of the Brexit vote (when the market promptly froze for a month) and then went home and cleaned for the sales photos.  (All the estate agents were so lovely when they came round even though my flat was untidy, dirty and needed building work.  If I'd known you were going to be this nice I'd have asked you ages ago.)

Every morning I would wake up before dawn, freaking out about being homeless.

It was such a relief when the sun came up and I could start to see the fears as the shadows that they were.

It was a long road, and it was my mother who pushed me to switch agents or drop the price.  She felt it too.  I dropped the price, brought another agent in, but I also had faith the right person would come along at the right time (I say it about romance too). 

I talked to my house in the Shinto tradition, as told by Marie Kondo. 

It wasn’t enough. 

Finally I did a cleansing ceremony; I thanked my flat for taking care of me, cried tears for the wonderful times I’d had there, and smudged the house with a native American stick from Key West and let my old spirit, my old habits, my old life and energy - the scared little me… leave the house and let it welcome the next person to take care of it (because it really did need some TLC).

The next day my buyer viewed it and made an offer. Yes, I may be available for house calls but I ain’t cheap.

But until the sale was completed I was living on the bare minimum. 

Every time I had a bit of extra cash and got excited another bill would wipe it out.  It made me laugh.  I was clearly meant to live on nothing for a while. 

I had a strict budget; a cheese scone and a coffee in the park while I worked on my book was a huge treat, but I knew I was only playing at being poor.  I knew when I sold my house I’d be free to go wherever and do whatever I wanted (once I'd paid off my debts,) and I'd no longer have to fear those letters coming through the door.  (Although I’d never had any desire to hike or do a pilgrimage, I’d heard about the St James Way or Camino de Santiago when I visited the Nachi Falls in Japan (see my book Japan Is Very Wonderful) and now it kept showing up; books and magazines would fall open at it, strangers at friend’s parties would randomly offer Have you ever heard of the St James’ Way? – it was meant to be, maybe.)

I found it all a little stressful.

(Plus dealing with estate agents who lie and told me to lie about everything.  Thank goodness I had a wonderful and calm lawyer).

I woke up coughing and puking every morning. 

Eventually I made myself sleep in the afternoons because then I wasn’t afraid.

I woke up panicking I’d have to become a hooker, that I’d drop out of the bottom of society.  (My older sister didn’t help.  Are you going on the game?)

I found herbal tea helped, leaning up on a mountain of pillows, listening to relaxing music (especially a Hawaiian lullaby by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole) and walking in the woods or by the sea, so the second I woke up feeling pukey I’d shoot out of bed, make my tea and head out to the woods.  It was often dark, even in summer.  I saw many sunrises, but not like on my previous holidays when I was in joy about being up so early, about waking up at 3:33am and driving to the Grand Canyon or going out to see the stars, which was heaven.  This felt like hell.

I’d often be sitting on a bench at 5am looking and feeling like a homeless person, afraid to go home, like a drug addict, alcoholic or just like I'd had a bad night on the booze.  I often thought of going to the doctor for antidepressants, even though I’d just written a book telling everyone antidepressants are bad for them. 

I felt like I was going mad somedays. 

I would be inside a café or a shop and I would start to feel panic, had to get outside, to the park, to the woods. 

Was it toxins, my body responding to all the chemicals inside, or my brain or my spirit? 

I think it was a mixture of all these things.

I remembered reading about light in don Miguel Ruiz’s books and I’d sit by the side of the river Wandle and look at the water.  The tree is real, I thought, the reflections are just reflections, they are not real. 

Sometimes it was so beautiful in the early morning that I would realise I am perfect and my life is perfect because, without the early morning freak outs and bad dreams, would I have had the courage to sell my house?  Would I have seen the light? 

And in those moments, sitting by the river, watching the sun come and play with the water I knew I was in heaven.

I started to meditate on love, loving myself.

I listened to the recording I made in Vegas after I’d had my spiritual awakening, the realisation that it was okay to just be myself and make myself happy and find that feeling of pure, unconditional love for myself. 

Sitting on a bench in Morden Hall Park, I felt my spirit's deepest desire; to explore, and against it the other side of love, my ego's strongest desire; to exist. 

I believe when I die my spirit, which is just life passing through my body, will go back to life, but my ego will die, because it is what I have learned to survive in this world.  So my ego is afraid of death, and fights strongest against the parts of me I’ve been taught to protect against; my wandering off, my speaking the truth, my individualism, my weirdness that gets me laughed at (but also followed) and general ideas that I am taught daily to fear; poverty, violence, sexual relations, social embarrassment, being boring, being too sexy, being unattractive, not having labels for my social status, talking to strangers and eating food from street carts, getting in taxis or using Uber or walking or taking a bus or going abroad. 

And then I opened a sample of an eBook called The Voice of Knowledge by don Miguel Ruiz and Janet Mills and it said exactly the same thing and I roared with laughter.

And I read the sample of the Rattlesnake book by Jose (My Good Friend the Rattlesnake: Stories of Loss, Truth, and Transformation – Don Jose Ruiz and Tami Hudman) and laughed at myself, the little rattlesnake so afraid to leave my hole, my comfort zone and how the rain was washing away my business and forcing me out into the world just as in the legend.

Yes, these books helped and also, one day, at breaking point, I woke up and started to do several things.  I ate porridge, the food of the Scottish spiritual warrior, sometimes for dinner as well as breakfast - it really helped my stomach because sometimes I could barely eat all day after being so sick in the morning, sometimes I added seeds and fruit.  I listened to the free videos and recordings from the Ruiz family (I couldn't afford anything more than a few pounds – I even had to wait to buy the eBooks) and they helped me to rest, to see the crazy, to separate my reality from society's reality, from the friends who said You can't sell your house in London, you'll never be able to get back on the property ladder. 

Whatever society may think is wise, I think it's wise to follow my dreams, stay off the antidepressants and enjoy my life, who knows how long I've got, or any of us has.  One day I may not be able to travel.

I began to understand that my mind is the horse, my spirit the rider, but early in the morning the horse would get restless and drag me along behind, and my practice was to master the horse, so my mind, which is pretty clever, despite the early morning freak outs, can take me wherever I want to go.

Just days before the house sale was finally completed I had a letter from the bank asking me for an additional payment because I had made my reduced mortgage payment too soon.  I called them several times and got so turned around that I felt I had to walk into my branch ready to sit down on the floor in the middle of everything and cry (they'd told me before they couldn't discuss my mortgage in the branch) to get some help. 

It didn't come to that. 

The branch manager sat down with me and called them.  Even he had trouble getting a straight answer, and they had to put into the system that I would be making a payment in a month (even though I was paying off the mortgage) and I could finally walk away, exhausted, but satisfied that they weren't going to try and take my house away at the eleventh hour. 

I never want to have a mortgage again.  It seems like a sensible, easy thing, but even when you have made every mortgage payment for over 22 years the bank can still treat you so badly when you have financial difficulties, lie to you about the law and your rights and threaten to take away the home that has every penny you ever earned tied up in it.

That weekend was also the annual St James’ Society Open Day, and I had just enough money to pay for a subscription and get my credential – kind of like a passport for pilgrims, which lets you stay in refuges or auberges for pilgrims and which you get stamped along the way to prove you’ve done it, as well as a couple of simple guidebooks.

But just what is the Camino de Santiago?

That was what I was there to find out.  And more importantly for me, how do you do it?  What do you need?

It’s a walk across Spain. is one answer.  It’s a Catholic pilgrimage. is another.  It’s marked by yellow arrows.  None of this is entirely true.  There are few absolutes when it comes to the Camino, it’s open to everyone, like the Kumano Kodo in Japan.

Thank heavens for Marigold, the Queen of the Camino who has walked every route and is now walking new paths, because she cut through the crap.

Other pilgrims said You need a good sleeping bag, a lot of the refuges are just mattresses on the floor.  (Refuges and albergues are run, some only in the summer months, to house pilgrims and usually ask for a donation of about €5.)  Marigold said I don’t stay in refuges anymore, so I don’t take a sleeping bag.

Other pilgrims said You need to take washing powder to wash out your clothes each night.  Marigold said Just use the washing stuff in the hotels.

But what if they’re still wet in the morning?  I asked (still wet myself behind the ears).  That’s what hairdryers are for.

Other pilgrims laughed at my jacket, my boots, my bag.  Marigold said I’d like those.

They all said It’s going to rain.  You need waterproofs and dry bags for your rucksack.

Most wonderful was a map on the wall showing the main routes of the Camino.  I’d felt called, but not to the Camino Frances, the main route from the bottom of France along the top of Spain… perhaps the Camino Portuguese up the coast of Portugal, but here right in front of me was the route I felt in my heart, which I hadn’t seen anywhere else – the route from Granada at the bottom of Spain, up through its heartland.  That was my path.  Some pilgrims do it the old way, just step outside your house and start from there, but even the destination of the Camino or the Way is contentious, some say Santiago de Compostela, where you get your certificate or compostela, some say Finisterre on the coast of Galicia, the place that used to be the end of the world.

In my last week, I had £2 in one of my bank accounts (I had about £40 in another).  It wasn't the poorest I've ever been, but it was close.  My mum gave me some early birthday money so I could buy my rucksack before I left London, but on Monday my class gave me a present too – enough money to buy my rucksack, dry bags and water reservoir, so I could carry their blessings with me everywhere I go.

The next day another class gave me a personalised journal for my adventures, another one with their good wishes, a make up bag that goes with me everywhere and a personalised compass that comes too.  It nearly broke me…

(Just a quick note on rucksacks… I had some very good advice and some very bad advice…  A good rucksack should fit you so you can carry about 70% of the weight of your pack on your hips rather than your shoulders.)

On my first day trying on rucksacks I felt so disheartened, clueless, as if I really couldn’t do it.  (Maybe a nice suitcase with wheels my mother said, probably not realising she was echoing Bridget Jones' mother.)  Then I found a great article online from a guy and his wife going nomad about Snow + Rock.  So off I went to their Covent Garden store.  They were great.  I finally nailed it down to one rucksack they had in stock and then went off to a different store to compare it with the very first one I’d tried. 

I tried the first pack and the last with the same weight – what a difference!  It felt like carrying half the weight - because of the width it's like the difference between carrying a load with one hand or two. 

So I went back to Snow + Rock (and got a 15% discount for being part of the St James' Society and luckily they didn't ask for the code because I'd already lost it.)  (The winner was the Osprey Exos 48 litre rucksack.)

I finished my last class and promptly got sick.  The next day I cried my heart out reading the cards and good wishes of the class, could barely get out of bed and struggled to pack up my house over the weekend. 

Almost time to fly the nest.

Day 0 – Wimbledon, London, UK

So I'm leaving my house for the last time after 22 years and all I can say is thank fuck.  Last night was so cold and rubbish - although my grandma says it's emotional and I do have a bug.  Anyway with my sister's help (and also realising when I say Stop moving everything around I have a system that I have already become my mother) we are packed at almost the precise second my solicitor calls to say - it's done. 

You have no house but you do have money! 

We celebrate by dropping off the keys and having as much of a slap up breakfast as Elys will give us at 11.01am.  One of the ladies got very upset that my sister asked her to defy the six items rule and just give her the last mushroom so she didn't have to throw it out.  Once upon a time I would have found it embarrassing but I find it hilarious and endearing.  I am full of the joy of I can go anywhere, I can do anything and then I check my bank account and the money is not there.  Cue freak out, running in and out of banks, calling the solicitor who assures me it's on the way and checking every ATM we pass. 

We get on the road (stopping to drop off a cheque I miswrote last week and find out that, yes the lady I got to take over my Monday class did show up). 

The other wrinkle is that I can't stay with my family tonight because I can't risk giving this bug to any of them - although my brother-in-law did say I could stay on the sofa.  Before, I was looking forward to staying in a spa hotel, now I'm counting up the pennies in my different accounts to see what I can do and just can't even think about it until we get to my sister's... Where I check my bank and… the money is in!! Quickly I pay off all my debts.  It's been quite a day, it's 5pm and I still have no bed for the night.

My sister says if I book somewhere near Havant she'll drop me off on the way to swimming - so I flip up Booking.com and feel like The Old Dairy Farm is the one for me. 9.8 score, £65 payable at B&B, breakfast included.  Just a quick sidetrack through Virgin Shops Away to get AIRMILES too and I'm booked, call the landlady and confirm how to get there.

Half an hour later and we're driving up a dark wooded lane.  I'm in heaven, this is exactly where I wanted to be, back to nature, in the woods and I can't believe when we get to the farm they also have horses.  This is my new life.  Wilderness and learning to ride and being free.

It just gets better, it's the most gorgeous room and breakfast room.  (Oh my gosh, I am writing this in bed on Day 1 looking out the window and horses are running around the paddock).  So I spend the last night of my old life and the first of my new with silence (no London sounds or banging car doors or neighbours) a hot shower, hot tea, white cotton duvet, snuggling blankets if I needed them and sleep like a new born baby.

Day 1 – The Old Dairy Farm, Havant, Hampshire, UK

Sadly I wake up at 5am thinking of all the ways someone could steal my money - I never really had any before.  More tea and iPod relaxation music and I finally drift off. 

Normally I would be up and out over the woods at dawn, but not today, not with this cold - but I get the most perfect view of pheasants (chickens are clearly passé) and frosty woods.  Sadly breakfast starts next door just after 7am but I can't complain after the quietest night ever I think.  I just worry about what the people in the breakfast room will make of my bathroom noises.

My to do list is full of decisions and plans to make.  I am going to drink more tea in bed, have a long shower, breakfast and figure it all out when my sister comes to pick me up.  (I really need to get her a nice Christmas present.)

A really great breakfast (I feel bad for the pitiful 6 items luxury breakfast I treated my sister to the day before) and I’m ready to make the decision to book Ockenden Manor - it's a bit of a journey - over an hour on the train and a taxi, but the spring water and salt water flotation tank sound like they might be enough to sort this cold out.  (Oh and it turns out it is chickens, the pheasants just stop by for a visit.)

A quick stop in Havant with my sister after she picks me up is enough to make me think that getting away from it all is the perfect idea.  So many times people tell me what life is but I don't want this to be my life.  I want my life to be what I woke up to... Trees and fields and life... I don't want incessant radio and TV and newspapers yelling at me, I want stars and moon.

More sorting out my life and then it's on to the train and huge groups of kids coming home from school - more things I want to get away from.

The spa is lovely, as is the hotel, although my room is a bit sad.  There are great homemade cookies (I get more from the lovely turn down team later).  There's complimentary water, which is good as I haven't been drinking enough and a robe in the tiny wardrobe (the handle comes off when I open it but it does have a fancy light).  The shower room is awesome, stuffed with Temple Spa goodies and has a massive rainhead and separate jet.  It'll do.

In the spa, (REN products in here) towels and robes and flip flops (oh my!) things improve.  I can't find the salt water flotation isopod so ask the spa team and they set me up to try it for as long as I want (the next day the receptionist wants to charge me £48 for a session so I skip it).  It's a big white egg with a door