Quo Vadis - A Pilgrim's Journey

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Three years after hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, I set out on another long journey: the Continental Divide Trail, almost 3,000 miles from Mexico to Canada along the spine of the Rocky Mountains.

But what happens when the goal we have set ourselves begins to fall apart?

In this first episode of a new Quo Vadis series, I return to Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey and follow my own journey from the calling, through the threshold and into the Desert.

Along the way, I explore why we need a goal at all. A calling may begin as a vague longing, but a goal gives it direction and turns it into action. For me, that goal was Canada.

But the goal and the calling are not necessarily the same thing. The goal is the destination we set for ourselves. The calling may contain an invitation whose meaning we do not yet understand — and may not understand until much later in the journey.

At the Mexican border, my hiking partner Dave and I take our first steps north.

“We can do this.”

But the Continental Divide Trail has its own plans. And before long, the journey we thought we were setting out on begins to change.

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Why do some people push through… while others stop when it gets hard?

In this episode of Quo Vadis, I explore a fundamental question on the journey of following your calling:

Why do we give up halfway?

Inspired by a young boy one morning in Nuuk fighting on his bicycle uphill I experience a living metaphor for perseverance. As he climbs a steep hill where most people give up, something unexpected unfolds.

Along the way, I reflect on stories and perspectives that challenge what we think we know about talent, effort, and endurance:

• Can greatness be created, or are we born with it? The remarkable experiment of László Polgár and his daughters suggests one answer.
• What happens when discipline replaces passion? The story of André Agassi reveals a different truth.
• What carries us through when desire fades?
• And what does it really mean to “love your fate” — amor fati?

Drawing on the lives of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Viktor Frankl, this episode explores how meaning — not talent, not even passion — may be the deepest source of endurance.

Because when everything becomes difficult, what is it that keeps you going?

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In this chapter, we enter the deeper rhythm of the Camino. Emma and I share a quiet day of rest, where a simple pilgrim’s song unfolds into a greater knowing: we came in search of peace, yet along the way, we find love.

As we draw closer to Santiago, we begin to meet more pilgrims, and suddenly the day has come when we are to behold the city we have walked toward for so many weeks. The sound of bagpipes tells us we are near, and we move forward, deeply stirred, toward the square before the great cathedral.

We take part in the pilgrims’ mass, and later we carry out a ritual of our own, as we had agreed. Our journey comes to its end at the edge of the world—Finisterre—where Emma finds her scallop shell in the sea, and I return to the prayer that opened this journey, and my life:

Am I still searching for a heart of gold?

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The taxi arrives late, but the reunion cannot wait. In this chapter I meet my goddaughter Emma in Asturias, and we set out on her first days on the Camino. From the small fishing village of Cudillero to steep climbs, sweat-soaked stages, and unforgettable encounters with fellow pilgrims, our journey together becomes a story of joy, hardship, and fellowship.

Emma steps into the rhythm of the Camino with youthful courage, minor injuries, and an open mind. We share smiles, tapas, and stories with people from all over the world – from the Italian Paula and her friend Stefano to Caroline from Canada, who dreams of the PCT. Together we sing the pilgrim song Buen camino peregrinos, share life stories, and discover how the road draws us closer to one another and to something greater.

It is a chapter about finding one’s own pace, carrying each other through fatigue, and discovering the magic in unexpected encounters.

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After the first three stages, something shifts on the fourth stretch of the Camino del Norte — happiness begins to seep in.

Through Ribadesella and Avilés, I enter a new lightness. Observing strangers in a fisherman’s restaurant unfolds into small dramas, vibrant and alive. An erotic dream of a mysterious woman awakens the power of the anima. And among the stately casa indiana houses, I find myself reflecting on how love from the past still flows in the blood, like hidden frequencies of energy.

Light mingles with darkness. At Hotel Don Pedro, I encounter the blood-soaked legacy of the conquistador, while Thomas Mann's novel The Magic Mountain draws my thoughts toward the nature of time and mortality.

And yet, something essential has changed. The body takes over. My legs carry me as if on wheels, and a deep well-being rises where none lived before. Meeting Australian Berry among ripened blackberries becomes the emblem of this new phase — connection, ease, and a quiet gratitude for simply being allowed to be here.

A podcast episode about finding light in the heart of darkness — about the pilgrim’s strange and beautiful power to turn pain into joy.

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An unexpected encounter throws me off balance: a woman forces herself upon me and steals my crucifix. Like a vampire's bite, it drains me, leaving me shaken and naked. But in the loss, the shell is stripped away – and the light finds its way in.

In this third chapter of my pilgrimage on the Camino del Norte, I discover that I have come here to mourn Susanne. Music, encounters, and spiritual texts open the path, and I realize that the Camino is not about holding onto what I thought it should be, but about surrendering to the path I am actually given. Again.

A tale of loss, grief, and longing – and of how we sometimes must lose in order to find.

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In this episode I follow people and their masks, the longing to be seen and loved — and discover how I myself am searching for something that does not quite allow itself to be grasped.

I encounter Mary in the apse of a church as High Priestess and keeper of the veil, finish Lea Korsgaard’s book about butterflies and God in nature, and have a dream of the child within me who longs for home. 

The episode explores the difference between seeking and finding, and how you sometimes only finds home when you stop looking. A story of pilgrimage, spirituality, and of making oneself available to the small miracles that reveal themselves along the way.

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Welcome to Quo Vadis,

In this special Camino series, I temporarily leave the Continental Divide Trail — the very trail I am hiking right now — and set out on a different pilgrimage, one I walked in the summer of 2025: the Camino del Norte in Spain.

The first chapter begins at the airport — with anticipation, unease, and a glimpse of the long road ahead. Along the way, I share impressions, encounters, and reflections from the first steps of this six-week journey, one that leads not only toward Santiago, but deeper into life itself.

🎧 Listen in if you are considering walking a Camino, setting out on a pilgrimage — or simply feel like walking a stretch of the road with me.

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In this episode, I explore the ancient Greek idea of the daimon — not as a demon, but as an inner guide that accompanies each human life.

Drawing on Plato’s Myth of Er, I reflect on the possibility that the soul chooses its life before birth, and that something within us still remembers — even after we have forgotten.

The episode weaves together philosophy, psychology, and personal experience to examine:

Why we feel a persistent inner restlessness

How calling appears not as clarity, but as tension

The role of intuition, symbols, and life events as expressions of the daimon

Whether purpose is something we create — or something we uncover

This is an exploration of calling, memory, and the quiet force that seems to guide us, even when we do not understand it.

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Have you ever felt a moment where the world seemed woven together by invisible threads, too intricate to be mere chance?

In this episode of Quo Vadis, I explore Carl Jung’s idea of “meaningful coincidences”: moments when inner experiences and outer events seem mysteriously connected, without any visible cause. Synchronicity is a call to listen to the deeper layers of our psyche and discover that we are not isolated islands, but part of a larger, interconnected whole.

Drawing on literature, psychology, physics, and my own personal experience, this episode reflects on how synchronicity may arise when something within us is ready to change — from the strange chain of events on a remote trail to the psychological difference between projection and those rare moments where the world reflects our inner state in ways we haven't created.

Synchronicity cannot be summoned. But it may meet us when we loosen our grip, let go of our ego's small plans, and allow life to unfold in a harmonious and meaningful way.

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” – C.G. Jung

Have you ever experienced a moment that refused to be called a coincidence?