In today’s episode of Healing from Within, your host Sheryl Glick author of The Living Spirit-Answers- For Healing and Infinite Love welcomes special guest Kurt Koontz (http://kurtkoontz.com) author of his newest book A Million Steps. Kurt will share his transformation journey of ditching his corporate day job to a life enhancing walk 500 miles across the Spanish countryside known as “Walking the Camino”.
It would seem that Kurt, like all the guests on Sheryl’s show, are asking intimate questions about life such as who are we? Why are we here? and how can we improve the quality of life for ourselves and others? We have recognized that in opening our hearts and minds to a greater reality of the nature of life, human evolution and creation, we often find the ways to master our fears and any limiting restrictions helping us create a more purposeful way of living.
Kurt shares the story of his walk on the Camino experiencing a new dimension to his sense of freedom, not knowing where he would find the next meal or sleep the next night. He shares stories from other pilgrims or journeyers he meets along the way as he climbs over the high meadows of the Pyrenees, quests through the unceasing wind of the Meseta, and dances in the rains of Galicia. While following the yellow arrows that mark the route, we will hear the personal history of addiction, recovery and love.
When asked why Kurt decided to walk 500 miles alone in foreign countries where he didn’t speak the language, Kurt says he started in France, crossed the mountains into Spain and cut across the plains to the coast and he began to realize he just “Wanted the time for an interior journey, contemplating my long unconscious youth, twelve years of being sober and to think about the love of my life, our four year relationship and where it was going….The first third of the trip is for the body, the second third is for the mind, and the third is for the soul which can be painful but as all awakenings and transformations, the deep work leads to beauty and joy at the end.”
At the first hostel Kurt stayed, the people he met and the advice he received from the hospitalero or man in charge, were all good advice…“This ees your trip, your life your adventure..do not make the trip for anyone else. Make eet for yourself. If you walk with a new friend and they walk too fast, say goodbye. Let them go. This is your trip. Your Camino is for you.” Sheryl says to Kurt, “An important lesson we might learn form that remark is that one must sing their own song, trust their own intuition or inner wisdom, and allow no outside influences or people to take you out of your own moment of awareness, beauty and truth.”
The next part of the journey was crossing the Pyrenees. Kurt tells us the “First day on the Camino is notoriously difficult..the trail from St. Jean leads to Roncesvalles..there are ten miles in France with the remaining six in Spain…” Kurt chose the Route of Napoleon an accrued ascent of almost 5,000 vertical feet through the French Pyrenees mountains. He then goes to write “I was completely hooked with the first step. I climbed the consistently steep trail for 5 hours to the summit at Col de Lepoeder. The sun shone with intermittent clouds streaming above and below my vantage points. In the valleys, the mountain peaks looked like jagged islands poking through a sea of giant cotton balls. Thousands of sheep grazed in the green hills, their bells clanging on air currents all around me. Multiple pairs of griffon vultures with their white heads and eight-foot wingspans soared overhead. I felt completely honored to watch them ride the thermals with so little effort. Several times, I found myself sitting on a rock, mesmerized by their flight patterns.” Sheryl says “I can totally visualize and sense the beauty of this scene and also the spiritual essence of your vision.”
Kurt tells us he met people from Korea, Switzerland, France, Hungary, Germany, Poland, the US and Canada.
