Carpe Diem Special #83, The Way of St. James (part 9)

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

We are flying back from Japan to Europe to go on with our pilgrimage to Santiago De Compostela together with Paulo Coelho and his companion Petrus. This pilgrimage to Santiago De Compostela is almost at his end, we have still (including this one) two parts to go and than we will know if Paulo has retrieved his sword.
In our last Special I talked about Agape and today we will go even a bit further ... conquering Self.

As Paulo and his companion Petrus are going on with their pilgrimage they find a awesome waterfall and Petrus decides to take a dive in the cold water completely naked and challenges Paulo to do the same. As Petrus has got in to the cold water he yells at Paulo to do the same and that he will climb the waterfall to reach the magnificent top of the moutain from which the waterfall is throwing down its water. Petrus does what he says and climbs the waterfall naked only with his hands and feet.
As Petrus has conquered the waterfall and stands on the top of the mountain Paulo decides to do the same.

[...] "I trusted completely in my hands and feet. My hands had, after all, already held an ancient sword, and my feet had trod the Road to Santiago. They were my friends, and they were helping me." [...] (source: The Pilgrimage by Paulo Coelho)

Paulo succeeds in his task to climb the waterfall just like Petrus, but he had to fought against his thoughts to let go ... He describes it as follows:

[...] "I fought with all my strength to keep my hands and feet anchored to their holds, but the

noise of the water seemed to take me to another place. It was a mysterious and distant place where nothing that was happening at that moment was at all important, and it was a place that I could get to if I had the strength. In that place, there would no longer be any need for the superhuman effort it took to keep my hands and feet holding to the rock; there would be only rest and peace. But my hands and feet did not obey this impulse to surrender. They had resisted a mortal temptation. And my head began to emerge from the stream as gradually as it had entered it. I was overcome by a profound love for my body. It was there, helping me in this crazy adventure of climbing through a waterfall in search of a sword. When my head came completely through the surface,

I saw the bright sun above me and took a deep breath."[...]

Paulo had to overcome his Self ... and isn't that the goal of every pilgrimage?

climbing the mountains
trusting completely on faith -
sunflowers reach for the sun

(c) Chèvrefeuille

Well ... I hope you did like this episode and maybe it has learned you something about your Self. Let that inspire you to write a haiku and share it with us all here at our Haiku Kai.
!! I have published our new promptlist for April 2014, you can find it above in the menu.

This episode will be open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until March 24th 11.59 AM (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, Mandara-ji (temple 72), later on.