What’s a Pilgrimage?

The meaning of a pilgrimage through the eyes of a pilgrim:

The journey takes many forms, there can be a religious aspect to it however it is not a requirement. For me, it has more to do with a personal journey and growth. I don’t subscribe to any particular creed. Be happy, be honest, and be kind. That is my mantra. Finding your true soul is a journey that starts inside of you, therefore any one person’s pilgrimage will not match any other. It starts when you allow it to.

Although the Camino De Santiago is largely rooted in a catholic background, the pilgrims on the route of Saint James are of various backgrounds. Any pilgrimage begins when you allow it to, traditionally from your front door. However the traditional route of St. James starts in St. Jean Pied de Port, France and ends in Santiago, Spain. Spending, on average, thirty days walking from France through to the tip of Spain is not an easy feat for anyone. Especially not when you stick to the true path of a pilgrim, relying on the way to support you through your travels. Breaking down both your physical and mental being and building you up again – much like daily life.

You see, a pilgrimage does not have to be some set trail that has been walked for centuries. A pilgrimage can be you getting up from your chair, going out your back door, and walking to another town or through the woods. It may not have much significance to an outsider however on said walk through the woods you may have reached a personal ‘aha!’ moment that alters the way you view your life forever.

I can’t wait to have a pilgrimage of my own, to travel and reach a true transcendental state must be absolute bliss. Although I’m not so sure I can wait until I find my way back to Europe to complete the Camino. That goal will never leave my mind but I think that some preparation is required. Some cultures and religions believe in yearly pilgrimages; so why can’t I take multiple pilgrimages throughout my life? I can and I will!

I want to call myself a citizen of the world and travel across our earth however when looking at my list (I keep a list of places I have been before) I realize that my focus has always been out of the Americas and I never took the time available to explore the land on which I was born. The land that my parents fell in love in and travelled across both together and alone. I need to experience the Appalachian Mountains and the Continental Divide. I need to see what the Rockies look like and the West Coast. I need to know what it is like to breathe in higher altitude, to truly be cold in the winter, and to see Redwood trees that I can’t wrap my arms around. I wish to hike and camp and build fires in as many states as I can. I want to simulate parts of the Oregon Trail and try to understand what the Gold Rush was like. Stand on old battlefields and put myself in the shoes of the people who fought there.

I am a firm advocate that seeing is believing and believing leads to true understanding. Emerson said, “All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.” I feel that he uses the term experiment precisely because they are meant to be learned from. Scientists create a hypothesis and then conduct experiments to prove their hypothesis is correct or debunk it. But no matter what, any good scientist will always try the experiment.

xxx
Sam

Flashback: Cannes 2010

Interning at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010 was the first experience with world travel I came upon. Tom Garrett organized the trip and taught me everything I needed to know about maximizing my adventure. The lovely folks at Summit Entertainment helped push my dreams along by giving me an internship with them. It just so happened to be a year that they held the only American film in competition (Fair Game). Deborah was in charge of choosing the two interns out of a myriad of applicants and so it is to her I owe many thanks and memories. Another notable person which I feel I must mention is Ms. Annasivia, she taught me so much about the business of film as well as about myself and the world. She is another woman whom my mind always wanders to when I think of inspiring people. American born, worked hard and studied hard to land herself a job living and working in London traveling with Summit to different festivals and handling a plethora of other tasks as well.

During the fifteen days we were in the Cote D’Azure provence, I spent most of my days waking up before the sun. Dressing for the day included hanging the night before’s clothes on the balcony to dry and bringing along a red carpet ready dress for the end of the day. One of my fondest memories is sharing the lift with Doug Liman (Bourne Identity) and enjoying a very pleasant conversation with him. He asked me how I landed the internship and where I was from. He was very friendly and an interesting man. For all you Twilight fans, I was given the opportunity to see a distributors showing of Eclipse and see how these men and women view and assess a film for their particular country. After I got home I saw it again with my sister and noticed differences in the edits, it was exhilarating to be among the few people to be privy to that.

There was a moment where Three Musketeers was on the business agenda and I got the privilege to put together head shots of many great and talented actors. While marveling over these young pictures of actors I’ve been watching for years, the CEO comes storming through with all his majestic power. He demands to have Mr. Bloom signed to the project immediately. I’m certainly glad he did because Orlando did such a fabulous job in the film.

The best way to describe my time is the perfect mix of exploration, hard work, and new knowledge. Not only did I learn so much about how the film industry works as a business; I learned a lot about myself – drinking freely in public was even new! I learned how to be tough when it came to my dreams, how to be assertive in my aspirations, and to be willing to take on any task that comes along. Whether it be organizing head shots, running a bar at a party, or picking up the dailies; being willing to take on any task and completing in a timely manner is a quality that shines through in anyone’s eyes. In an industry as cut-throat and swarming with new fish as Filmmaking, it is important to give it everything you have and grab life by the balls. Take in every experience and every contact, learn and network. You never know who you may run into again in your future.

(1)End of Festival Luncheon with Summit Entertainment&Professors (2)Closing Ceremonies with Peers (3)Closing Ceremonies Award Winners (4)Rooftop filming at the office (5) Doug Liman on the Palais’ banner (6) Posing with some peers after the red carpet (7-8) First night Soiree (9) With Tom Garrett on the Red Carpet (10-11) Conversing with my professors about the festival at Luncheon (12) On the Red Carpet (13)Tile Palm d’Or (14) Tim Burton Walking the Red Carpet

 

Introductions Are Necessary!

Hello!

 If you have stumbled here perhaps you have had the good sense to start at the beginning of the journey. I bid you good morrow and good luck on your travels through my adventures.

First a little bit about me: I am a twenty-four year old woman with a passion for exploring, writing, and images both still and moving. As an adolescent I spent my time writing, climbing trees, performing in plays, and playing on the beach. While I attended a magnet program in my high school years for theater, I also pursued a position on the school’s Lacrosse team and a longstanding job at the local movie theater where I fell in love with the moving image and photography.

When first looking at colleges I thought I would be a psych major. I toured a few Florida schools, looking at their programs and still exploring their more artsy sides. When straying off from a guided tour at the University of Tampa, my mother and I stumbled into a tall man wearing a pair of combat boots, a trench coat and a fedora smoking a cigarette. He quickly introduced himself as Tom Garrett and began hypnotizing us with stories about the Film & Media Arts program and how you took classes in filming narratives and even documentaries and experimental film – not that I knew what that was at the ripe age of seventeen. He even mentioned an acquaintance he has in Cannes and how he takes a group of students over to do internships every year.

I remember the most amazing feeling sweeping over me. I knew that I must learn everything I could from this man. He had found a way to do what he loved, travel, and touch the lives of others. One could say he inspired my future in a way he may have never known. Eventually Professor Tom Garrett became my advisor and taught me many things about life, professionalism, and the film industry as well.To this day I treasure the time I was able to spend at the University of Tampa.

I have been abroad twice at this point in my life and visited France, Italy, Belgium, and Great Britain. I spent three months living in Bergen Op Zoom, Netherlands where I was employed as an Au Pair to a lovely family and learned how easily I could live abroad and love every second of it. These experiences have shaped me into the person I am today and I am beyond determined to take many more trips in the future and eventually visit every country in the world.

This blog will take you along on my adventures – past, present, and future – as well as through the planning process of what it takes to be a travel writer and live on the road which has always been a dream of mine.

Dreams are meant to come true, if you see it and you want it bad enough you can make anything happen. Now if you are still with me, perhaps a little about you? I would love if my readers would share a bit about themselves and travels that they have done or wish to do.

xxx Sam