Kym Wilson
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Kym Wilson

Your journey to wild freedom begins

My Via Francigena Journal

The daily wonder, insights, challenges and photos of my journey from Rome to Canterbury on foot

Kym Wilson
  • About/
  • Blog/
  • Books/
  • Work with me/
  • Free Resources/
    • Newsletter
    • My Via Francigena Journal
    • Via Francigena Planning Tools
    • Rome to Jerusalem Planning Tools
  • Contact/

Ways to read my Via Francigena blog

My Via Francigena blog posts appear below in chronological order starting with the last post first i.e. starting at the end of the journey so here are some other ways o help you 

1. Click here to go to the first blog post so you can read them in chronological order. At the end of each post you can click on the blog post title and left arrow on the left side to go to the next post or if you want to go back to an earlier post, click on the blog post title and right arrow on the right hand side.

2. Use the following drop down list to find posts about a specific topic such as country or town. For example, if you select France, all the posts related to France will appear below.

  • "Abbaye Notre Dame" 1
  • "Auchy-au-Bois" 1
  • "Bapaume" 1
  • "Bruay-la-Buissiere" 1
  • "Cairns Turtle Rehabilitation Centre" 1
  • "Certosa di Pavia" 1
  • "Champlitte" 1
  • "Chateavillain" 1
  • "Corbeny" 1
  • "England" 1
  • "Fear" 1
  • "France" 25
  • "Gifts" 1
  • "Grand Saint Bernard Pass" 1
  • "Gubbio" 1
  • "Guines" 1
  • "Gy" 1
  • "Italy" 42
  • "Langres" 2
  • "Laon" 1
  • "Leaving" 1
  • "Licques" 1
  • "Life" 2
  • "London" 1
  • "Mary Oliver" 1
  • "Mormant" 1
  • "My Cause" 1
  • "Pavia" 1
  • "Peronne" 1
  • "Phuket" 1
  • "Piacenze" 1
  • "Pontremoli" 1
  • "Reflection" 2
  • "Reims" 2
  • "Returning from Overseas" 1
  • "Rome" 1
  • "Rumi" 1
  • "Scotland" 1
  • "Switzerland" 9
  • "Tergnier" 1
  • "Thailand" 1
  • "The Devil" 2
  • "Transition" 4
  • "Travel" 2
  • "Trefcon" 1
  • "Via Francigena" 89
  • "Wisques" 1
  • "Wissant" 1
  • "blessings" 3
  • "getting lost" 1

3. Search the Via Francigena blog for any keyword you like and all the relevant posts will appear below.

July 12, 2014

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July 12, 2014/
July 12, 2014/
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Kym Wilson

Kym Wilson is an Australian writer, coach and pilgrim. In late 2013, she walked 2,022 kilometres alone along the Via Francigena pilgrimage trail from Canterbury to Rome seeking inner wisdom and healing.

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INSTAGRAM (@KYMIKA)

Light and darkness
make the picture whole.
Here’s some chicken soup for the soul for anyone else who needs it too. I was feeling very flat and stuck today, unable to make progress in my creative and business projects. So instead of staying stuck, I went and made soup and I remembered...
...it’s okay not to be feeling great. Every emotion has a place in our human experience and I just needed to be present with how I was feeling rather than “shoo” it away like it was a pest and in the way so I could get on with what I’d decided I needed to do. ...there’s no need to rush and pressure myself to get it done by some deadline I’ve set on myself that doesn’t feel remotely exciting, just draining. Trust in divine timing over human timing. Trust in your intuition too. Sometimes the way to get things done is to do nothing.
...remember how the jack-in-the-box works. Sometimes you gotta go right down before you jump back up in joy. Everything is always changing and this too will pass. In the meantime, I can tend to my body, heart and soul with kindness and in-courage the creativity that has started to flow again thanks to making soup.
Life surprises in so many ways, even just an unexpected moment being mesmerized by light and shade.
When suburbia starts to anesthetize my soul and I ache for space and silence and wildness, I follow my internal compass. Today a small dose of wildness found within suburbia. No cars, no houses, just crickets, wind-rustled trees, a dreamy sky and foot to earth on a path to somewhere of which the where doesn’t matter.
After living in Melbourne most of my life, I finally went to St Kilda to see the Little Penguins come in 💙
Sitting in the safe container of my backyard, listening to the hum of life: traffic, power tools, school bells, birds chirping and wings flapping, the hush of the breeze and rustle of leaves.
All I have is this moment now.
The breeze can change suddenly and life may pass as quickly as a storm.
My beloved striped Gazania reaches for the sunlight on an overcast day.
It teaches me in its opening and reaching and offering.
And I think about my beloved mentor and friend. Dead. No longer here. She died yesterday from cancer.
In a culture where we don’t know how to do grief well,
where we want to soften or avoid the pain of loss, I use the words death and died with intention. They describe reality. And saying them helps to accept what I don’t want to accept.
She died. She’s no longer here but the love, memories and gratitude remain for she taught me so much in how she lived:
Be yourself.
Be passionate. Be emotional.
Stand up for what you believe in.
Be interested in others, support them and make time for them.
Go for it. Don’t hold back. 
Spend your life fully.
Lunchtime. Listening to the trees singing their songs of peace and joy.
Re-finding my voice... Awake at 6am
sipping hot tea, listening
to the steady heartbeat
of my study’s clock
and the warbles 
of the waking magpies,
I can’t not notice
the steady presence
that holds 
and pervades everything.
Sometimes, my existence
becomes distracted
by my human worries,
my vision becomes tunneled,
my awareness turned in 
and away.
Until in a moment like this,
I stop, I listen
and re-attune to this presence
always here
even when I am not.
And it moves me,
just like the flock of cockatoos
squawking then silent,
I feel the pulse of life,
the ebb and flow,
and recognise
my life is part of this cycle too
whilst held by the unnameable,
and it moves me. (Photo of sunrise over Yarra Valley almost 8 years ago.)
It’s been four years in the creating and refining but I finally daresay this will be the year that I publish my book, The Path We Make. It’s not that hard to self-publish these days, and I could have just put it out there 3 years ago after I finished writing and editing it myself. But the stories of our lives deserve to be truly honoured with time, kindness, care and investment in ourselves. In a world where there is too much rushing and pushing and racing to get there wherever there is, I’ve chosen to honour my story and the way it wants to unfold and be told. It has been through two professional edits and I have given it time to rest and show me what needs to be refined. And now it’s telling me we are almost there. I’ll be so proud to send it out into the world.
Growing my genius this afternoon. “It takes a lot of time to be a genius. You have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing.” - Gertrude Stein