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Contact Author at : Midcoastmarketing99@gmail.com
At 63 years of age, Terence Callery sets out on a personal quest to conquer the grueling 500 mile Camino de Santiago pilgrimage which ends at the tomb of St. James the Apostle in northwest Spain. After months of diligent preparation, including daily three-hour training walks on coastal Maine roads near his home, he arrives in the spectacular Pyrenees Mountains. By the time he reaches Pamplona on the third day of his seven-week spiritual journey, he empties his backpack of several pounds excess belongings and begins the pilgrim’s fearless exercise of also shedding emotional baggage along the way. The author spins the riveting tale of two odysseys taken in tandem; one is the story of a walking meditation where he learns to live more in “the infinite moment” and the other is a well-researched and detailed account of the geography, history, and culture that he encounters on the Route Frances of the Camino de Santiago. He bravely writes about both the haunting demons of his past and his false illusions about the future which pull him away from mindfulness in the present. He finds his fellow pilgrims to be profoundly open and the impactful and often humorous dialogue with his various walking companions acts as a microscope revealing the intimate inner universal voyage they are taking together. He writes of the profound sense of place he experiences as he walks along Roman roads, sleeps in a 12th century monastery, visits massive Gothic cathedrals, and walks in the foot steps of Charlemagne, Dante, Queen Isabella and Saint Francis of Assisi. By the time he reaches the Rioja wine-growing region, he has learned to Chi walk. Walking correctly aligned and in balance, he slows down his pace to conserve energy so that he can walk all day. The author is taking a decidedly Zen approach to Christianity’s most important pilgrimage. The Camino become a metaphor for life’s journey and he begins to think of this approach as “Slow Camino”. “It is not a race to the end but rather it is about finding the ‘Easter eggs’ along the way.” And so he takes time to stop and to visit the magnificent Cathedral in Leon and Gaudi’s Bishop’s Palace in Astorga. He gets off the Camino route to find regional foods such as octopus and to find funky casas rurales accommodations. Finally after the difficult walking through the wheat fields of Spain’s bread basket, he arrives in the mountains of Galicia, his favorite section of the journey. Mr. Callery was educated by Benedictine monks before going to Yale where he received a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy. Terence Callery can be contacted by email at this address ---Midcoastmarketing99@GMail.com Terence Callery
Biography The son of a New York advertising executive, Terry grew up in New Canaan, Connecticut, in the 1960s. Like Tom Sawyer, he had a sense of adventure that was honed on Saturdays when he would venture out at first light to discover yet another secret fishing hole or abandoned woodland trail. He was educated by Benedictine monks while attending Portsmouth Abbey School, where he graduated in 1970 near the top of his class and was elected captain of the track team. He lost his Catholic faith while attending Yale (class of ’74), where ten-page papers were the primary course requirements for his philosophy and psychology classes. Since he was good at “slinging the bull” and asking for money from his parents, it was apropos that his first real job was as a professional fundraiser for the Jerry Lewis Telethon, where he became editor of the Dystrophy Digest. He went on to become the director of development for the Massachusetts Association for the Mentally Retarded, where he wrote countless press releases, proposals, and public service announcements. Terry married Bonnie Burke, the daughter of a Bangor, Maine, fireman and moved to her home state in the early 1980s. His long career in aquaculture as vice president of sales and marketing at Great Eastern Mussel Farms culminated in his receiving the company’s Entrepreneur of the Year award due to the his outstanding marketing efforts for the firm. Terry’s first book, The Great Eastern Mussel Cookbook, was published in 1995. Press releases written as part of the mussel farm’s public relations national outreach resulted in a visit by Martha Stewart, who featured the Maine business on her television show. Retiring early from the aquaculture business, Terry became a “gentleman farmer” and started an alpaca farm in Waldoboro, Maine. Terry contributed dozens of articles to national and regional publications in order to elevate the farm’s visibility. He received the Judge’s Choice Award in a national competition for a stunning photo of one of his black alpacas in the snow. Terry and Bonnie divorced in 2014, and they dissolved the farm. In order to fill a giant void in his life, Terry began to plan for his first spiritual pilgrimage on the five-hundred mile Route Francés of the Camino de Santiago. His book Slow Camino was published in 2017 and is a recounting of two journeys taken in tandem—the physical journey where he writes of the food, culture, and history of the route through Northern Spain and also the inner journey taken along with fellow pilgrims. Unlike most Camino books that focus on lessons learned and knowledge added, Terry takes a more Eastern or Zen approach. For him, the spiritual experience is a winnowing, an emptying out exercise in which he seeks to discover a more foundational self. Terry lives in Cushing, Maine, where he walks his black Labrador retriever past Andrew Wyeth’s Olsen House every morning before sitting down to write. |
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