The Camino is a place but it’s also a metaphor. As I read and reread Lizzy’s book, I feel both supported in my own Camino and also tapped into the archetypes of all our spiritual journeys. That’s what makes her story both timeless but relevant no matter what generation we hail from or where we are on our own Caminos.

With Lizzy on the literal Camino again, it feels like a natural time to see how her harvest of Flower Essences from her 2008 Camino continues to support all of us on our spiritual journeys. Having just received an email from her, we know she is in Roncesvalles, the place where Roland died blowing his horn after the battle of Roncesvalles in 778 BC.

Here’s the information from our Guide about her Roncesvalles Flower Essence, describing the Essence as well as what was happening for Elizabeth on her first Camino in 2008 when she made this remedy.

RONCESVALLES
Keynote: Courage
Being able to summon the strength to take the first step in a journey. Allows the body to access the reserve of energy needed for the initial change into new ways of being.

As I sat in the pilgrim’s office in St. Jean Pied de Port, I wanted to begin my pilgrimage, but conventional wisdom suggested I had arrived at the starting point too late to do the first day’s 25km/15 mile walk up and over the Pyrenees into Spain. Yet, I was very eager to start. Then again, part of me was unprepared to hike that day. I was wearing long pants and my bag was filled with extra food and stuff that I had planned to jettison before hitting the trail. But a group who had arrived on the train with me had decided to begin, so I quickly joined their pace and set off. I needed reserves of physical energy that first day when I climbed up and through the mountains. And for that reason the Flowers that I collected on those open plains and lush mountaintops helped to fuel the first leg of my journey. When I got to the first night’s destination of Roncesvalles, I knew the trail had already given me the gift of the strength to begin.

Prying the Camino Guidebook from MayMay’s paws, I read that Roncesvalles means “valley of thorns.” Fitting really, as this is what it feels like to begin almost any journey. Even when a journey looks as inviting as Lizzy’s photo of coming down into Roncesvalles on her first Camino,

with almost any journey, there is some element of MUD and other complicating factors that call us to be discerning and also call us to act on our discernment ( If you have read her book, you know what buttons were being pushed here in this photo- and if you haven’t read the book yet, for heavens sake, get a copy from us!).

But perhaps I am getting ahead of the story here. What is most important about Roncesvalles Essence is that it supports us to find the courage to begin, and no matter the journey, inviting, muddy, full of alarm bells or even one that leaves us traveling while staying in one place, the courage to begin is key.
A Green Hope Farm friend phoned this morning to say she felt her Flower Essences had never been more needed or more called upon to be their most powerful. Another Green Hope friend described it yesterday in a slightly different way, “The energy of this time is so dramatically in flux, it makes a huge difference to have (the Essences) gentle but powerful support.”

The journey of these times has come out to meet us. The energies on Earth are in the midst of radical change, and we have to adapt to meet these rising vibrations flooding the planet. Right now it is a Camino that all of us must travel.

We have to once and for all detach from the illusions that interfere with our collective destiny. We have to embrace and embody the light flooding the planet, this light that is here to take us safely across this spiritual passage to new ground.

We have to do it now, not next week. No matter how we have prepared over the years, it is radical change that is expected from us now, not a talking the talk but walking the walk sort of change.

I like the support of Roncesvalles to help us do exactly that- walk the walk.