This blog was originally about two girls who began to pilgrimage on the 20th of June of 2013, walking from Sigtuna, Sweden, with the goal to reach Santiago de Compostela in the northwestern part of Spain.
The journey stopped sometime in September of 2013, and will hopefully continue in the future.

Thursday 15 August 2013

Pilgrim word no. 4

Insouciance - Bekymmerslöshet

(Someone tell me if the English word I chose sounds wrong, after reading this text !)

Being on a pilgrimage, is naturally totally different from my everyday life. I don't walk 25 km everyday back home. I don't use a pocketknife when preparing my lunch, consisting of avocado and bread. I don't visit several different churches in different towns everyday. I don't wash my clothes in the washing basin, using soap. I don't wake up in the morning just to see one of my favourite quotes on a poster on the door to my room. I don't brush my teeth before breakfast, but after... this can continue forever you see. It is completaly different from everyday life back home, as always when you are on travels. What I do love though, is that when you walk for such a long time, what you do everyday  as a routine, like walking for me, creates your everyday life. Changes your everyday life. Because routine is usually a part of everyday life, isn't it? And this was something I wanted to achieve by doing this walk,  to find out what kind of everyday life I would like to live in the future,  even though it will be different if and when I settle down...

I carry my material life on my back, and my emotional life and feelings inside of me. What is different, in comparison to my everyday life, is that I carry just what I need. I could carry less too, ha ha trust me! I wear the same clothes everyday, no need to contemplate if to wear socks with stripes or dots. No need to worry or overthink, (Back home I have one drawer full of socks in different colours and patterns, ha ha!). What I am trying to say is that having less things around us, helps us not to worry. Carrying around the expensive mobilephone I use in order to write the blog and check the maps, is atomatically one thing that I am afraid to loose. It cost me a lot of money. I need to be careful so that I won't loose it. I need to care about it. One big red piece of plastic. It sounds wierd. But at least I can stay in touch with you, my friends and my family. And this means more than anything.  But I think you get the point! Material stuff makes us cautious,  when all we really should be cautious about is how we treat relations, nature and ourselves.

I often think of the words of The moneyless man Mark Boyle when walking, and he once wrote something interesting about insurance. It is a re-thinker and I like him since he really is an idealist. I am not choosing side:

''We often negatively stigmatise people who have gambling problems, yet by taking out insurance policies we non-gamblers gamble every day. With insurance, you are betting that something unfortunate will happen to you during the next course of the next insurance period. If you live accident-free for that time, you loose. But if something 'bad' happens to you, you whin!''

It is all about how we look at things and how we judge and decide what is normal,  right and wrong. And I am not Saying that having problems with gambling is right or good. Of course it is not.

I am leaving Sweden in four days.  On sunday I will take the ferry to Travemünde/Lübeck and continue to pilgrimage from there,  following yellow arrows and pilgrims shells as signs all the way down to Santiago de Compostela. That is pretty amazing, that the route between the countries is connected in that beautiful way. I am so looking forward to take this journey to the next step.  I have soon walked 1/4 of it.

Hope you are good,  wherever you are! Take care and stay in touch!

LOVE and PEACE,

Lovisa

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