So, what exactly is a 'Soul Trek'?
You may be wondering about our name, 'Soul Treks'. Of course, there's a story behind it.
In 2012, Ken answered The Siren Call of the Bucket List, and retired from his career as a hospice chaplain in Tucson, Arizona. Well, at least his first attempt at retiring. Following a lifelong wish to expatriate and live abroad, he followed his heart to live in the south of France, complicit wife in tow. After selling their home and most of their possessions, they sailed off. Without a Plan B.
In 2012, Ken answered The Siren Call of the Bucket List, and retired from his career as a hospice chaplain in Tucson, Arizona. Well, at least his first attempt at retiring. Following a lifelong wish to expatriate and live abroad, he followed his heart to live in the south of France, complicit wife in tow. After selling their home and most of their possessions, they sailed off. Without a Plan B.
Fast forward the better part of a year, and this fellow found himself somewhat at loose ends. Picture a naturally convivial extrovert with bare-bones French language skills, living in a remote village of 600 mostly-French souls, freshly unmoored from the warm flannel of one's native culture and years of satisfying, useful work.
Somewhat in an attempt to get out of his introvert wife's hair—400-year-old stone houses are notoriously tiny—but mostly to try to anchor himself to the earth amid all the outer and inner strangeness, Ken began taking long hikes. Very long hikes. Solo.
Now, as a professional listener, the role of a hospice chaplain is also to ask some very important questions of the person dying. Questions like:
- What is your legacy?
- What is left undone?
- What needs letting go?
Looking down on a neighboring French village on one of Ken's long hikes
In these quiet, meditative hikes, Ken decided to pointedly turn those questions upon himself. To ask the questions, and then to simply walk, letting the answers take their time, kilometer by kilometer. Months slipped by. And step by step, he walked himself into some very important answers.
What he also found was that walking a foreign place, mindfully and in quietude, causes the foreignness to melt away, replaced by a deeply nourishing intimacy and immediacy. The place becomes known.
Other-ness shimmers into one-ness.
So that is what this Soul Treks experience is about. That is our intention in designing this trip.
Five hikes, which we're calling 'Soul Treks', are the heart of our trip. These are easy-to-moderate hikes, on which we'll consciously invoke a meditative, 'peace-is-every-step' frame of being. We will walk mindfully, quietly, reflectively, nourished by nature. We will walk in essential silence, placing our feet firmly, intentionally, trusting the path. To do this in a community of fellow journeyers, even if the nearest hiker is a half-kilometer behind you, adds rich dimensions of quiet connection.
You have your own questions for yourself, for your life. Perhaps you glimpse the edges of the answers. Perhaps this trip will open that glimpse wider.
(And, if not, you'll have had one heck of a trip in any case.)
Won't you join us?
What he also found was that walking a foreign place, mindfully and in quietude, causes the foreignness to melt away, replaced by a deeply nourishing intimacy and immediacy. The place becomes known.
Other-ness shimmers into one-ness.
So that is what this Soul Treks experience is about. That is our intention in designing this trip.
Five hikes, which we're calling 'Soul Treks', are the heart of our trip. These are easy-to-moderate hikes, on which we'll consciously invoke a meditative, 'peace-is-every-step' frame of being. We will walk mindfully, quietly, reflectively, nourished by nature. We will walk in essential silence, placing our feet firmly, intentionally, trusting the path. To do this in a community of fellow journeyers, even if the nearest hiker is a half-kilometer behind you, adds rich dimensions of quiet connection.
You have your own questions for yourself, for your life. Perhaps you glimpse the edges of the answers. Perhaps this trip will open that glimpse wider.
(And, if not, you'll have had one heck of a trip in any case.)
Won't you join us?
