New Camino Book

[lynnejohn]

I just learned about this new book yesterday and have ordered it. It sounds wonderful. Written by a woman from my part of the world.

The Camino Letters - 26 Tasks on the Way to Finisterre.

http://thecaminoletters.com/

Sounds great - I can hardly wait to read it.

lynne

 

[sillydoll]

I wrote this review of the book for a couple of CSJs

The Camino Letters: 26 Tasks on the Way to Finisterre
Author: Julie Kirkpatrick
Place: Spain
Publisher: Pyxis Press, July 2010
P.O. Box 382, Millbrook,
ON CANADA L0A 1G0
(705) 761-3754
ISBN: 978-0-9865134-0-4
Pages: 248
Price: $34.95 : Hardcover
Available: http://www.thecaminoletters.com
info@pyxispress.com

After deciding to spring clean her busy life and close down her legal
practise so that she can spend a month in her garden, forty year-old
Canadian Julie Kirkpatrick decides instead, practically on a whim, to
walk six hundred kilometres of the Camino de Santiago pilgrims’ path in
Spain with her seventeen year old daughter.
She knows little about the thousand year-old pilgrimage trail and does no
physical training for the gruelling hike that starts in the Pyrenees
Mountains, crosses three mountain ranges and ends at Finsisterre on the
Atlantic coast.
Before leaving home, she asks twenty-six friends to set her a task to do
each day that she will be walking. Many of the tasks are imaginative and
surprisingly thought provoking. Besides being asked to recite
mantras and prayers, to think about the millions who have gone before
her, to listen to the wind or to other people, she is asked to determine
what events transpired in her life to lead her to Spain and what she hopes
to gain from the experience. One friend prophetically asks her to write
the first chapter of a book in her head as she walks. As she steadfastly
completes each new task they become a rite of passage, sometimes
painful and angst ridden, sometimes joyful, filled with music and light,
and sometimes esoteric (her day and night at the Templar shelter in
Manjarin - page 147).
This beautifully written, heartfelt book is not a travelogue about walking
the Camino in Spain. The pilgrimage trail is merely the landscape through
which the writer passes, a transient backdrop to her daily tasks which
evolve into a fascinating patchwork of self discoveries, miscellaneous
emotions, thoughts, memories and life changing decisions, woven into
twenty-six exquisitely honest letters written to her friends each evening
after the day’s walk.
This book will appeal to all, but especially to women, mothers,
daughters, and mothers of daughters.

 

[sillydoll]

A forum member passed on this information:

November 4th, 2010 – 7:00 – 9:00pm
Location: New Life Community Church
8765 Government Road Burnaby
(few blocks from Costco off Lougheed Highway)
http://new.mapquest.com/ (you’ll need to type in the address but this gives a clear map)

Meet Canadian author Julie Kirkpatrick, who, when she "decided to walk the ancient pilgrimage of the Camino de Santiago with her daughter in the summer of 2009, was not looking for a life-changing experience. It was to be a holiday in the fresh air, a break from the hectic pace of her law practice with its endless to-do lists and a chance to catch up with her teen-aged daughter. Thinking it would help to pass the time, she asked 26 friends to set tasks for her – one for each day of the walk. At the end of each day she would write a letter to the day’s taskmaster.
But the tasks came as unexpected gifts, full of meaning and love and what started as a light-hearted diversion soon became a journey into the labyrinth into her life.
Listen to the wind....Immerse yourself in a litany and catalogue of self-love....Be an animal....Think of the millions who have travelled this path....Think of what you’d be doing if you didn’t have your forty year-old fears.... Observe windows
Guided by her tasks and writing with breath-taking honesty, the author leads the reader on a wonderful and beautiful journey full of surprises and tears and laughter.
The Camino Letters tells the story of a woman opening herself to the ever-expanding universe, listening to the music of the journey, walking out loud."
(quoted from Julie Kirkpatrick’s website: http://thecaminoletters.com)


Buen Camino,


Martha

 

[LTfit]

Thanks ladies, the book does indeed sound wonderful!

As a mother, daughter and a mother of a daughter would like to read about her experiences.
Anyone know if available to those of us outside of Canada via amazon for example?

Cheers,
LT

 

[lynnejohn]

Pyxis Press is a North American company, but if you go to the site caminoletters.com and then to the order page, you are able to order the book from any country. Enjoy!

lynne

 

[CaroleH]

Thanks Lynne . . . that's great . . . . really helpful. Carole.