Ola! My friends, I have just had one of the most intense, interesting, joyous, amazing, inspiring, empowering, happy, fun, and fascinating experiences of my life and would like to share some of it with you. There is so much to tell that I can not do it any justice via e-mail, but hopefully one day you will get a glimpse of it from my books. It has been so magical and impressive on me that I will never be able to let it go and you will all hear of it one day over a beer, a wine, or a tequila some day, so I won´t explain it all. I have just walked the Camino de Santiago from France and across Northern Spain to Santiago de Compostella, the city of Saint James in the Field of Stars.

It is an 800km Pilgrimage route, the third most important in the Catholic world after Rome and Jerusalem. It has taken me about six weeks of only travelling by foot. It is not a solitary walk, there are many people who walk it, for it is a thousand years old, and especially in this age of world tourism, there are many who walk it also. I have never met in my
life such a high concentration of good, caring, compassionate, thinking, wise people in such a place. A fluid, river like community of people walking for their own reasons. A community of individuals who gather together in moving clumps like leaves floating on a river. Some of them form into a mass of four or five that walke the whole Camino together. Others are fast and alone, never encountering other Pilgrims. Others, like me, move on my own, from mass to mass, growi ng stronger with every meeting. Growing from every contact with all the wonderful people who have walked this Ancient Way. I have learned so much about myself, people, nature, God, history, faith, pain, laughter, that it will take a lifetime just trying to piece it all together into a masterpiece of understanding. I have only one tifetime, however, and it is mine, so all this Knowledge I have had to let just pass through me like the air I breath. Gathering what I can, Growing from what I can Gather. Unbelievable.

I walked through the Pyrenees on my first day. Through fog shrouded forests. I have had many Gladiator
moments, feeling like Russell Crowe ¨the Spaniard¨and letting my fingers dance across the endless, endless fields of wheat. I have sweated under unconditionallly hot Spanish spring. I have drunk red wine with every dinner. I have climbed trees everywhere I went. I have taken siestas beside a thousand creeks. Meditated on a hill where it seemed like it was snowing in the hot sun because of the wild cotton that falls from the trees. The Milky Way is right above me and I made love with love under it on the night of the Summer Solstice where I camped on a hill in a paddock. I will never trully enjoy a coffee in the morning if it is not accompanied by the sweet smell of fresh cow shit and hay. I am learning spanish at the rate of one word or expression a day, which has been wonderful and inspring, opening up new vistas of understanding. I have splept in churches. I wept in the Cathedral at Santiago when I arrived.

I walked the last 110 km in barefeet when my boots wore out but I would not let them beat me and were probably the hardest six days of my life. I sat by a creek to rest my feet and while talking to the Faeries, a beautiful violet and indigo dragonfly rested on my outstretched finger. I have become more clear in my goals in life. Stronger and stronger everyday. At the beginning of my journeys in Europe I said, Everyday, at the end of the day, I want to be able to say ¨Today was a good day¨ I made a promise of it on the Camino and I achieved it. When days were hard physically, mentally, or spiritually, and believe me some were, I still could say that it was a good day.

Wow! I could go on and on. :-) You can see my excitement and my enthusiasm. If anyone is wondering about anything in their life. You Aussies understand the term Walkabout. Well, the Camino is a wonderful way to go. Many people start for many reasons, but there is so much to be gained, that even if you get the one thing out of it you wanted, you will still get so much more. The outdoors. The exercise. The people. The history. The architecture. The language. The lifestyle.

But, enough. Tomorrow I walk another three days to the westernmost point in Europe. I should arrive for the full moon on the 5th (I think) so if any of you look up at it, think of me. I will be swimming naked in the Atlantic Ocean under the Full Moon, directly under the Milky Way in Finisterre, literally the End of the Earth.

[Furthemore, in response to a letter from Sensei Nenad, Christian had these additional words to say]

Thank you so much for your kind words. Achievement is its own reward, but compliments from those we respect is one of the highest of gratifications. My journeys continue with tests met all along the way. You once said that "life can be a battle against laziness and lethargy" which I have interpreted to mean that the easy life is no life, but sometimes relaxation is the hardest path of all. I continue to challenge myself, while continuing to learn how to relax. Zimmo told me that Jed & Jeremy are heading towards their Black Belts and that Nat & Craig are heading towards 2nd Dan. Please send them my best wishes towards achieving these tremendous goals. Also send everyone at Wu Wei my love and know that I think of the Dojo often.

I love you lots, but gotta go. If I miss a personal note to any of you, write back to me and give me hell.

Adios,
Crisso