16 Dec Camino Interview

Interview with Filmmaker Lydia B. Smith|on Her
Spiritual Cinema Circle Selection:
Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago

Lydia B. Smith is the award-winning documentary producer and director of Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago. After a 25-year career in filmmaking and having lived in Spain for 6 years she seemed to be the perfect person to make this documentary.

In the spring of 2008, she walked the Camino de Santiago and the effects it had on her were truly life changing. Along the way, she realized that she was not fulfilling her life’s true purpose and felt a calling to direct this documentary. With Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago she intends to tell the stories of six pilgrims and to show how the Camino can inspire people to follow their own path of discovery and transformation.

1.Talk about about the moment you decided you wanted to become a pilgrim and walk the Camino de Santiago?

In the summer of 2007, I was engaged to be married. I thought I was going to settle down and have children. I had my life all planned out—but that wasn’t the life I was destined to live. As wedding preparations unfolded it became clear, he was not the right life partner for me and the engagement was cancelled.

I found myself in between jobs, relationships and homes. After a couple of months of feeling sorry for myself, I realized that I should take advantage of the freedom I had at that moment. I had lived in Spain for six years, so it seemed I always knew about the Camino, but never before had I had the slightest inclination to do it, which was odd as I love hiking and the outdoors, but it just never crossed my mind until January 2008. It just popped into my head one day, that I needed to do the Camino. It was a very strong feeling and I knew it was what I was supposed to do. I became obsessed with the Camino, reading books, going to talks—searching for any information I could get my hands on and within a couple of months I was on my first Camino.

2. The Camino de Santiago is a pilgrimage undertaken by Catholic devotees for hundreds of years. Tell us about your own spiritual inspiration.

I was trained as a Religious Science Practitioner by Rev. Michael Beckwith at Agape International Center of Truth, graduating in 2004. When I was struggling with my broken engagement and what I perceived as my life falling apart, I kept reminding myself that something good was happening, there was some gift in all the pain I was experiencing and that my highest good was unfolding. Little did I realize how incredibly true that was! Once I decided to do the Camino, I spent a lot of time in meditation, working with my spiritual practitioner, Suzi Kesler Lula as well as with the preparation section of John Brierley’s Camino Guide on what was my intention for the Camino. I finally came up with: My intention in walking the Camino was to love myself and others as God loves.

Obviously, I wasn’t quite able to fulfill my intention, but I think the act of setting an intention puts us on course in that direction. I definitely felt that despite the pain I had been through, my heart stayed open.

I have a daily meditation practice and before the Camino, had a very conflicted relationship with traditional churches/religion. I was brought up Episcopalian and went to Sunday School every weekend and believed everything I was told. When my brother got sick and was taken to the hospital, I stayed up all night praying as I was told if you pray, God will answer your prayers. My prayer was simple, Please God, Let him live, don’t let him die. My brother died after a week in the hospital and my faith was shattered. If there was a God, I hated him. I swore never to put foot in a church again. Many years later, I came back around to my spirituality through Louise Hay’s book “Heal your Life” and eventually became a licensed practitioner in Science of Mind. Although my relationship with God had healed, my relationship with traditional organized religion was still rocky.

There are two times that most pilgrims go to mass on the Camino—for the pilgrim blessing in the first town in Spain, Roncevalles and then at the end in Santiago. I made an attempt to go to the first one, but couldn’t stay throughout the whole service. As I walked and met priests and entered different churches along the way, something inside me shifted. It became that I was drawn to enter every church that was open and meditate in them. The other thing that was extraordinary was that—even though my brother had died about 35 years before, it was as if he was there with me on the Camino. It is said the veil between this world and the other is much thinner on the Camino—I definitely felt my brother’s presence more acutely than I had in years. With that came new waves of grief but also comfort in feeling him beside me.

Definitely many things were healed for me during my Camino—definitely my relationship with the church and another layer of healing around my brother. I also learned to value and honor myself and my own dreams and visions rather than always supporting other people in theirs. I feel like I was asked to step into my potential—not only in my career but as a human being.

3. What kinds of people walk the Camino?

Everyone imaginable! Generally speaking I would say about one quarter of the people that do the Camino are practicing Catholics, another 50% generally Christian or spiritual and another quarter are doing the Camino for the physical challenge or for touristic/cultural reasons. They do say though—many people start as tourists and end as pilgrims.

4. How did you choose Annie, Jack and Wayne, Misa, Sam, Tomas and Tatiana, the featured pilgrims in the documentary?

Of all the people you see in the documentary, only one I knew before which was Annie. When she found out that I was planning on doing this documentary—she was immediately called to be part of it, she wanted to walk and I knew I needed at least one person that I knew for sure would be totally open and vulnerable, able to share what was going on inside. I also knew I needed one person to shoot the first day. Everyone else we picked up along the way. I wanted the Camino to cast the movie—not me.

Rev. Michael Beckwith created a visioning process—the idea being to let God’s vision come through rather than our own human one. I did many visionings for the film, and did many spiritual mind treatments ( “affirmative prayer” ) to have the highest and best version of the film come forth that would bring the highest good for the greatest number of people.

I also wanted to have a diverse group of pilgrims—one that would reflect what one usually finds on the Camino—so people of different ages, nationalities, reasons for doing the Camino, religious, spiritual or none.

Tatiana was an interesting example—I did not have the intention of filming a child do the Camino as that is fairly rare, but we ran into Tatiana actually even before we started the Camino and kept crossing paths with her so I felt like the message was that we should include her—and I’m so glad we did!

We actually filmed about 15 pilgrims doing the Camino—the reason for doing so many was I didn’t know who would have an interesting Camino, who might quit or get injured so I felt I needed to film quite a few people. There was one man, Tonio who was fascinating and a really insightful man, but he was debating on leaving his wife while on the Camino (which he subsequently did) and so he couldn’t really talk about it on camera.

My original intention was to have the featured pilgrims—be like your Camino family, people that you run into over and over again, some that you love—others that may get on your nerves, but you still love them especially when you run into them after weeks of not seeing them.

Then I wanted to have those people that show up on your Camino for perhaps just a day and you have the most incredible conversation with them and they become a very meaningful part of your Camino and then they are gone and you never see them again.

We originally cut the film like this, but it became apparent that it wouldn’t work for several reasons—first it was just too hard to track that many people and most of all—although I was willing to make a three hour documentary, I don’t think I would have found many venues to show it!

So little by little we cut all the additional pilgrims except for Martha from Korea. The one redeeming factor is I was able to make a Bonus DVD with all our pilgrims—originally I called them the deleted pilgrims, but now I call them the bonus pilgrims. It’s not that their stories weren’t as good as our featured pilgrims, but it was like a jigsaw puzzle and to make it all fit, we had to cut some really excellent stories out of the film. One of the more moving ones was about a Canadian blind woman that was doing the Camino to say goodbye to her mother that had just passed away.

5. Describe the logistics of filming all the pilgrims.

It was quite complicated to follow the 15 pilgrims that we were filming – we had three camera crews, two of them had a van which had director, camera, sound and driver/producer. Then, we had a roving camera man that did his own sound and he would get from one place to the other by walking, taking a bus, taxi however he could. Because he was just one person he got some really wonderful intimate  footage.

I gave all the pilgrims that we were following a phone but since we were a low-budget production and all the phones were older phones that friends of mine from Barcelona had given me we had a lot of issues. Although we had tested them before handing them out, quite frequently the batteries died within an hour of being turned on, or some other problem. That said every time we were in the position of not having anybody to film within five or 10 minutes one of our other pilgrims would walk up so it always worked out one way or the other

6. Many of those who walk the Camino talk about the day they almost gave up, did you have one and if so, what made you change your mind?

There is a saying on the Camino that your real Camino starts once you get home and that is completely the case with me

I never really considered the idea of giving up when I was walking the Camino I just always had a feeling I would be able to finish.

BUT there were many times in making the film that I did feel like giving up. Making the film was so much harder than walking the Camino and it was really only thanks for the support of hundreds if not thousands of people that donated, volunteered or that were encouraging to me that I was able to keep going and finish the film.

I was able to raise just enough money to do the shoot and then when we came back from Spain I had not a penny left to edit. My editor and I cut together a 20 minute trailer (she donated her time to do so) so I had something to show potential funders. For the next year and a half I was turned down at almost every foundation, corporation government institution or religious organization I applied to. I got three small grants—two from American Pilgrims on the Camino and one from Pacific Pioneer Foundation, but they were not enough for us to start editing. They were just enough to allow us to keep the office going, for me to pay my assistant who was coordinating all the volunteers who were transcribing, translating, digitizing and logging all the footage—preparing for the edit.

By the end of 2010 I was really at my wits end and not sure how I was going to be able to finish this film. I knew I couldn’t give up, that too many people were counting on me and had faith in me but at the same time I was so discouraged and just didn’t see a way out.

I went down to the SF Bay Area for Christmas and went for a walk with a friend from high school. She suggested that I reach out for help from our class. She pointed out that many of our classmates had been extremely successful financially and were likely to help me out. She helped organize a fundraiser with our classmate John Burbank who had a very successful Hedge Fund. She was so right—four out of five of my large funders (giving $10,000 or more) were from my class! The most well known of my classmates is Dan Brown who wrote the Da Vinci Code. We had met each other in freshman English and were assigned to write each other’s biographies—I might very well be the very first biographer of Dan Brown! Although we had known each other since I was 13, we were friendly, but not close friends. He was amazing—the moment I reached out, asking for help he turned around and sent his first check within a couple of days. I then presented my film at one of our high school reunions and he and his wife Blythe approached me and said—it seems you still need help, come back to us when you have the rough cut and we’ll see what we can do. I did that and they then donated enough for the entire Online/Finishing Process—paying for the online, color, music, sound mix, graphics etc. If it weren’t for them—I may very well still be fundraising today.

On a metaphysical level I think that things shifted because I changed my beliefs. I had been struggling for a while because I really felt strongly I was doing what I’m supposed to be doing, I was following that still small voice inside and yet it was so hard and I wasn’t getting anywhere. It didn’t make any sense to me. If I was following my path then things were supposed to be easy and flow—right?

I had a session with my spiritual practitioner and was looking at this and realized that that was just a belief and maybe it isn’t true. It made me think about Martin Luther King Jr. – he most certainly was on course in his life and yet it was far from easy for him. Once I shifted my belief about the situation and realized that maybe it isn’t supposed to be easy and that’s okay then that’s when things started to shift. It was then that the money started coming in and I realized I really was going to be able to finish this film.

7. What are some of the most common challenges of walking the Camino?

I think the most common challenge of walking the Camino for many people is not trusting ourselves, listening to our own bodies and our own intuition. We frequently try to keep up with others, compare our journey with that of someone else or feel like we should be doing it differently than we are doing it. If people are trying to keep up with others and they’re not walking their own pace and that’s when injuries happen.

8. The movie has some really funny moments, can you tells us a little bit about some of your favorites?

I think my favorite has to be the snoring scene with Tomas, Juan Carlos and Javier. As I mentioned earlier, I didn’t really have too many issues physically when doing the Camino, but the snoring was really challenging for me so I love that scene. I actually wanted to put in several other bits about the snoring that happens on the Camino, but luckily my editor was able to be the voice of reason and stress to me that we only need to tell it once! Lucky for me—I was able to include more snoring stories on our Bonus DVD.

9. Some of the pilgrims are visibly moved on the walk, tells us what happened and what you think the impact of the Camino was on them.

The greatest thing about the Camino to me is that it has a different lesson for each and every person that walks. We aren’t all the same so it is so wonderful that each of our lessons are tailored to us individually. We get what we need on the Camino.

Watching Annie learning to accept herself and her competitive nature and realize that she doesn’t have to compete with anyone was really amazing. I think it was very life-changing for her.

I know for Tomas it was never really intended to be a spiritual journey but he was so moved by the deep friendships developed along the way and all the things he learned about himself that it became one.

I think the Camino is a life-changing for most of us. It’s hard to walk 500 miles and not be changed forever.

10. More and more people choose to walk the Camino De Santiago every year, many of them are from North America, what do you put this growing interest in the Camino down to?

I think the advertising industry and our consumeristic society has tried to convince us that a bigger TV, a nicer house, a more luxurious car will bring us happiness and now people are starting to realize that really isn’t the case.

People are looking for more fulfillment and deeper connection with themselves, with God and with their communities and I think that’s why the interest on the Camino has exploded. So many people are questioning what is the purpose of life, why are we here—what am I to do with my life?

On the Camino a mechanic could become best friends with the CEO—it becomes about who we are and how we help one another more than who has money or more prestige. All the things that keep us apart dissipate on the Camino and our common bonds of humanity (blisters, aching knees) bring us together.

I think many many people are ready for a more meaningful life and realizing the gift of service and doing things for others can bring much more lasting joy than the titillation of a new toy. For so long I think life in America has been about what we can get for ourselves and usually that’s a physical getting but truly it’s the emotional giving and receiving that I think is what really feeds our souls.

11. The Camino De Santiago utterly transforms many people’s lives, describe what has changed in your own life.

My life has shifted completely, as I mentioned earlier, I spent most of my career supporting other people’s dreams and visions and not really believing in myself or my capabilities.

I’ve been working on this project for free for six years and have liquidated much of my retirement savings because I believe in it (and that I’ll be able to pay myself back someday!) and I believe in the messages of the Camino. I jumped off the proverbial cliff and was in free fall for about five years til I was able to experience how much people appreciate and love the film.

Several months ago, I saw the most amazing movie about the messages of Joseph Campbell called “Finding Joe” . I think it is so brilliant and full of such important insights that we now carry it on our online store and make it available after screenings. When I saw it the first time I cried pretty much throughout the whole thing—the quote on the cover sums it up for me: “
“We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned so as to have the life that’s waiting for us”
It’s so very clear to me that is what happened to me. I gave up the life I had planned and I’m doing what I meant to be doing, I stepped into my destiny rather than living a small life hiding both myself and my talents from other people and from the world

This very much reminds me of the quote from Marianne Williamson that Nelson Mandela quoted:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
”•  Marianne Williamson,  A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of “A Course in Miracles”

It’s extremely scary, actually terrifying at times for me to be the leader of this project. There are so many challenges, so many times I think I can’t go on—but time and time again, I get back up and keep moving forward. It can be lonely and frustrating at times but it’s also exhilarating and so very fulfilling.

I’ve done over one hundred QnAs with the film—and at each one there is always one person in tears or close to it, that thanks me for making the film—and that makes it all worth it. To know I touched someone so deeply, that I may have had a part in inspiring someone to lead a more fulfilling life, to be more aligned with themselves makes me realize that my life has meaning, that I have given all I can give of myself.

It’s an amazing feeling to really know for 100% for sure that I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing and it may sound trite but I truly believe that a big reason why I was born and why am on this planet was to make this film and to get it out into the world.

12. If you had to give some advice to someone considering walking the Camino what would it be?

Listen to yourself, to your own body, and let yourself be guided by your heart and your intuition. Everyone has their own Camino and your way is going to be different from everybody else’s. If it is right for you then it is the right way. Trust.

To learn more and watch the film:  http://bit.ly/1wzQAfK