The Art of Coming Home
Day 4 of the Camino was the second of 4 long 15+ mile days. And, it was also the day with the most elevation change. We walked up hill most of the day. Looking back while I sincerely loved all of the days, and it was a tough day physically, I think it may have been my favorite day. For too many reasons for one blog post so I am going to start with the reason that was present at the end of the day sharing an excerpt from my journal.
I am sitting on the ground, leaning against a tree, by a river, next to a primitive albergue in Hospital de Bruma. The sun is shining – hazy sky, birds chirping nearby. The green grass is covered with tiny white daisy-like flowers and yellow buttercups. Everything is so basic and simple. This town is too – the albergue and a nearby café are all it offers other than quaint homes and nature to fill up all of my senses.
I feel like I have space in my head and my heart. Like I could write a great novel or compose a symphony. I feel like I could create with tremendous ease. I could also do nothing other than notice and connect with the energy of nature and peace that envelopes me in this moment. I can just do and be me here on this idyllic evening in the sunshine.
A mating pair of dragonflies lands on my big toe. They are contorted into the shape of a heart. I have nowhere to be – except here being me.
My intentions for walking the Camino were to deepen my connection to myself, nature and humanity. That evening with the tree and the river was pure magic. The kind of magic you want to melt into that moment in time and never leave. The magic that reconnects you to what is real and opens you up to wonder what is possible.
It was a peak moment among many revelatory moments when truths I had forgotten returned to me very clearly. I am nature. Nature is medicine for the body, mind and spirit. I need to be outside more – a lot more than I already am. I feel most at home with myself when I am connected to nature.
These truths settled into my bones as I sat there, and I began to understand why this moment felt so transformative. That evening by the river, I experienced something we've forgotten in our hurried, screen-lit lives. When we slow down enough to truly notice—to feel bark against our spine, hear water's gentle conversation with stones, breathe in the faint scent of the green grass—something profound shifts. Our nervous system steps down from its constant state of alert, moving from survival mode into a space of pure openness.
This isn't just pleasant relaxation. It's rewiring. When we engage all our senses with the natural world, we step out of the mental loops that keep us creatively and emotionally stuck. The trees don't demand productivity or perfection from us. They simply invite us to breathe, to be present, to remember what it feels like to exist without agenda.
What I felt that evening—the sense that I could write a novel or compose a symphony—wasn't just poetic language. It was my brain returning to its natural creative state. Indigenous wisdom has always known what science now confirms: time in nature literally changes our brain chemistry, reducing stress hormones and opening the neural pathways where insight and creativity flow.
When those dragonflies landed on my toe, forming a perfect heart, I was witnessing the kind of magic that's always available when we pause long enough to receive it. Nature offers us this gift constantly—the chance to remember that we belong, that we are not separate observers but part of the living, breathing web of life itself.
Reflecting back on the experience, I am instantly drawn back to myself and the moment, filled with a desire to take a deep belly breath.
And wondering…What if coming home to ourselves means coming home to the earth that made us?
