This morning, the priest pressed ash onto my forehead.
His thumb was firm. Certain. “For you are dust,” he said.
I stepped outside into the ordinary weekday morning. Traffic already impatient. Sun already strong. A woman ran her dog on a leash. Children crept unwillingly to school.
No one stopped me. And yet, I felt marked. This was a different kind of makeup.
But unmistakably to myself. I have carried this mark before. It’s now visible, the mark of a writer.
Not just on Ash Wednesday. But on mountain paths in the Himalayas, where the air thins and your thoughts become clearer than they ever are at sea level.
On long Camino mornings in Spain and Portugal, where your boots strike the earth with a rhythm older than language.
And in quiet retreat rooms, where someone sits across from me and says, often in a whisper, “I think I have a book in me.”
Ash Wednesday reminds me of three truths every writer must recognise.
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The Ash Reminds Me That I Am Already Written
I did not become a writer when my first book became a bestseller.
I became a writer much earlier.
On the Camino, I remember one particular morning. The light was still soft, and the world had not fully decided to wake. I was walking alone, as I often did. Ahead of me, a single pilgrim walked in silence. We never spoke. We never even saw each other’s faces.
But we walked together for nearly an hour.
And in that quiet companionship, I understood something I had not understood before.
This was the story.
Not the dramatic moments. Not the milestones.
This.
The quiet. The ordinary. The unnoticed.
I did not yet know I would write books about the Camino. I did not know that these walks would shape my life and allow me to help others shape theirs.
But something in me already knew to pay attention.
The ash reminds me of that.
Before we write anything, we are written.
Before we claim the identity of “author”, we are claimed.
The ash does not make you belong.
It reveals that you already do.
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The Holy Spirit Speaks the Way Stories Begin: Quietly
Years later, in the Himalayas, I watched a woman sit in front of a blank page.
She had carried her story for decades. A successful life. Responsibilities fulfilled. Expectations met. But the story remained unwritten. On the first day of the retreat, she was restless. Distracted. Unsure. On the second day, she was quieter.
On the third day, she began to write.
Not slowly. Not painfully.
But as if she were not inventing something new, but remembering something she had always known.
She looked up at me at one point and said, “It’s know my Why. And it marks out the path fo me!”
That is the only way to describe it. Not forced. Received.
This is how the Holy Spirit works. Not with noise.
With promptings.
You feel it on pilgrimage.
You feel it in a retreat
You feel it sometimes in the middle of an ordinary afternoon, when a sentence arrives that you know you did not manufacture alone.
Lent creates the conditions for this listening.
It removes enough noise that you can finally hear what has been there all along.
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Lent Is Not a Season of Less. It Is a Season of More.
When I walked in the Himalayas while writing “Chasing Himalayan Dreams”, I carried very little. Everything I needed for those challenging days fit into a small pack.
There were moments of discomfort. Cold mornings. Aching muscles. Uncertain paths. The fear of altitude sickness.
But there was also a clarity I had never experienced in ordinary life.
When you carry less, you become more aware.
More present.
More alive.
The same thing happens in Lent.
It removes the excess.
Not to leave you empty. But to leave you clear.
I see this every time I host a writing retreat.
People arrive carrying noise.
Expectations. Doubt. Fear.
But when those fall away, something extraordinary emerges.
Not a new person.
The true person.
Not a new writer.
The writer who was already there.
Waiting.
The Mark We Carry
Ash Wednesday does not give me something new.
It reminds me of something ancient.
That I am dust.
Yes.
But dust shaped by the hand of God.
Dust capable of creating stories.
Dust capable of noticing beauty.
Dust capable of helping others find their voice.
Every pilgrim carries a visible shell.
Every writer carries an invisible mark.
This Lent, I will do what pilgrims and writers have always done.
I will walk.
I will listen.
I will pay attention.
And I will trust that the One who marked me will also guide what I am meant to write next.
Be the first to read my new book on the Portuguese Camino!
Join the launch team of the upcoming book. I would love to share the early drafts, bonuses and general experience of writing the book about our camino. For an author the journey is not over until the book is written.
