Discovering Unity Consciousness on the Camino de Santiago Pilgrimage | Martin Bedogne

(Golden Age of Gaia)

Hello! My name is Martin Bedogne. I recently returned from hiking the legendary Camino de Santiago, an ancient, 400-mile pilgrimage through northern Spain. This trail is known for spiritual awakenings and revelations and my experience was no different. The adventure marked for me, the culmination of many years of spiritual growth, accelerated and supported most recently by Linda Dillon and the Council of Love community. (counciloflove.com) I hope you enjoy reading some of my deeper experiences here, and on my website (martinbedogne.com) as we humans walk together through ascension and into a new world.

Discovering Unity Consciousness on the Camino de Santiago Pilgrimage

Early on in my journey along the Camino de Santiago, I was walking with a delightful young woman from Denmark named Elise. I met Elise first, when I walked into a tiny church in an equally tiny village. For most of my life I have been repelled by organized religion, but I chose upon taking to the Camino to set that all aside. Trusting my inner voice, I walked into the church, and Elise was there, lighting a candle.

Elise was one of those people whom I ran into over and over again and on one morning, early in the pilgrimage (I was still walking in my uncomfortable boots with blisters and ill-fitting backpack!) I stopped with many others at a tiny café in a village after walking several hours.

While I sat at a table contemplating the blisters on my feet, Elise dropped down in the chair next to me. I looked over. She was crying and holding her leg. She had turned her knee the wrong way just seconds before, while talking with a fellow pilgrim at the café. Seems the injuries always happened when we stopped moving. “I am not sure if I can do this.” She said, “Maybe I was stupid to even try.”

It was in that moment that I first became aware of Unity Consciousness on the Camino. A fellow pilgrim, an American hiking with this teenage daughter, came over to help, while I went inside to get us something to eat. Yogurt is what I knew I had to get as Elise had mentioned that she was craving good yogurt.

When I returned to the table with yogurt and a sandwich for each of us, this good old American dad came back with a brace from the Pharmacia on the corner. Just then the pharmacist himself came out, knelt down, and fitted the brace perfectly to Elise’s knee. Someone else offered Aleve, or Asper crème, another person just stood quietly with a hand on Elise’s shoulder. Elise was a strong woman and not prone to crying so she gathered herself quickly, stood up and tested out the brace. It felt pretty good. She took a few steps. “Okay – I think I can do this.”

We ate our lunch, and one by one, with her prompting, we each headed back to the trail leaving Elise to gather herself and take her time. I remember more than once looking back – just keeping an eye out for her and she was walking the trail slowly, smiling and chatting with another pilgrim. Sure enough by that afternoon she picked up speed and passed me up!

As I walked, I remember marveling at just how much we all looked out for each other. That term Unity Consciousness kept popping back into my head. I had never fully grasped the concept before. We pilgrims had one unified mission – to hike this trail – to succeed – and it went without saying that we were here to help each other accomplish this mission.

This pilgrimage was not an easy task for anyone. It was hard, it was trying, it was emotionally and physically intense and painful. Ha – just like life – JUST LIKE LIFE. These are words that I hear as I write this. Just like life.

I remember one day, when my energy was getting low, and I had underestimated the distance to the next village. I was hungry and feeling down. Then came the Camino Magic. I walked past an older woman eating an orange. I said “Buen Camino!” and she smiled in return, then before I could get away, she said “Hey – would you like an orange? I have an extra one right here.”

Makes me tear up thinking of it. She just knew. She just felt that I needed something. And no, she did not for one moment hold back that orange and ask “oh – well – first – what is your political affiliation? Do you believe in gun control? What the heck is wrong with you Americanos!?”

Did we talk politics and the state of the world on the Camino? Of Course. Usually over some good Spanish wine at the end of the day. Conversations often began with “what the heck is going on in America!?” “Isn’t it dangerous there?” “Do you own a gun?” Yet there was an unspoken knowing of when to stop that conversation. Listening to my inner voice, I heard more than once “time to change the topic of conversation Martino!”

I found that most of us, particularly the Americans, chose at least in part, to walk the Camino to get out of the stress, pressure and divisiveness of life in the USA. Tired of the fight, tired of trying to figure out who is right and who is wrong, tired of the ranting media and the witty Facebook memes.

Some Americans were even questioning whether they wanted to live here at all anymore, and would life be better somewhere else? Perhaps a village in Spain, or a coastal town in Mexico? Maybe just keep hiking until things get better?

For me, my mission is becoming clearer with each passing day since my return from the Camino. It does not matter if I am in Spain, or Los Angeles or on a base on the moon meeting with ET’s from across the multiverse. My purpose is to find this Unity Consciousness within myself; then my old tendency to judge, to separate, or to be “right” melts away.

My ability to sense another loving heart, becomes keen.

Maybe things were easier on the Camino, but I have to believe that if literally thousands of people from all over the globe can converge on a trail in Spain, walk together, sleep together, eat together, laugh, cry, and truly take care of each other, that we can do this very thing pretty much anywhere – even in the United States of America.