Pilgrimage, a spiritual journey, Perth to New Norcia return

My friend Rachel and I had planned to run a 200 mile event in South Australia just after Easter in 2023, however for a variety of reasons changed our plans and decided to run 200 miles on what is a little known track near home called the Pilgrim Trail instead.
It follows a route from the inner city Perth suburb of Subiaco to a monastery town called New Norcia 170 kilometres north, a route walked by Benedictine monks when they set up their community there in 1847. Most people do the pilgrimage hike in sections, over many weeks or months. We decided to try run walk it there and back in six days.
When we looked at a starting date the public holiday of Good Friday made good sense, it meant reaching New Norcia late on Easter Sunday… we hadn’t planned this from any religious perspective, however the spiritual significance of these dates to the Christian church was not lost on me.
One of the things I do is I coach ultra runners, focusing on mindset which includes meditation and mindfulness practices. At one of our weekly meditation focused Zoom meeting we were discussing a talk by Ryan Holiday titled “stillness is the key” which includes a suggestion you have some sort of a hobby. I mused that I had enjoyed my film making as a hobby, but that in recent years I hadn’t come across a subject for a film that had interested me. My friend Simon suggested I had a pretty big event coming up in the Pilgrim Trail run, however I initially rejected it because I didn’t just want to document that journey… for it to interest me it needed to be more than "Rob & Rachel running the Pilgrim Trail."
Two weeks later I attended the local Buddhist temple and listened to a Dharma talk given by Ajahn Brahm. Righ there he gave me the "why" for the run, and the "why" for making this film.
My previous journey runs across Tennessee and across Sumbawa became spiritual experiences. The Pilgrim Trail was to be no different.
Thank you to the Buddhist Society of Western Australia for permission to
use the footage from Ajahn Brahm's dharma talk : Beginning of your spiritual life, 17 February 2023 and published on TH-cam: th-cam.com/users/liveq8VwV58VE-4

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