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Walking Toward Hope: Would You Like to Walk With Me?

There is a journey I have been preparing for for a long time.


In June 2026, I plan to walk the Camino de Santiago in Spain—about 800 kilometers, roughly five weeks on the road, walking alone.The place, the timing, and the way of walking have all been chosen with care and intention.


The Camino is a special path. For centuries, people from all over the world have walked it when something in their lives no longer fits—after loss, illness, major transitions, or moments when the old maps stop working. Many arrive carrying questions rather than answers. Deep questions. Existential questions. Questions that arise when we are forced to look life straight in the eye.


Through many years of accompanying people in times of crisis, transition, and later life, I’ve come to see how universal this experience is. Again and again, people find themselves asking simple but painful questions:


What do I do now?Where do I go from here?What can help me keep going?What kind of guidance, tools, or companionship do I need at this stage of my life?

This project grows directly from that lived reality.


Why the Camino, and why now


In recent years, I’ve been deeply engaged in the field of Sage-ing—conscious aging, which views the second half of life far more and profound than decline, as a time of integration, ripening, and the transmission of wisdom. It is a perspective that resonates deeply with my own life experience and professional work.


At the same time, this journey is also rooted in my long-term scholarly and personal path. My doctoral dissertation focused on children of Holocaust survivors in the second half of life, exploring how early trauma, resilience, memory, and meaning continue to shape inner life decades later. In parallel, my advanced study in logotherapy centered on hope and meaning- not as abstract concepts, but as lived human capacities that sustain people through loss, crisis, and existential uncertainty.


Together, these strands- Sage-ing, Holocaust legacy, and logotherapy—have shaped how I listen to stories, how I understand suffering, and how I recognize the quiet ways people continue to choose life. The Camino feels like a natural continuation of this lifelong inquiry- walked not only with my feet, but with memory, responsibility, and hope.


For me, this moment feels right.Right to walk.Right to listen.Right to gather a life path into something that can serve others, something that comes out of what I have been able to do in my life until now, what I value and explore deeply, what is ripening in me now that wishes to come into the world to benefit others.

The Camino offers a rare combination: sustained solitude and spontaneous human encounter. Long hours of walking, paired with unexpected conversations. Silence, fatigue, beauty, vulnerability, and shared humanity. It is precisely this mix that creates the conditions for honest reflection and meaningful stories to emerge.


A book born from the road

Out of this journey, I intend to create a book.

Not a travel book.And not a book about the Camino.

Rather, a book born from the road itself.

The book will weave together:


  • human stories encountered along the way

  • reflections from daily walking

  • psychological and existential research

  • practical tools drawn from my work with people in transition

  • and my own lived experience


Its purpose is not to tell people how to live, but to offer orientation, companionship, and hope - especially when the way forward feels unclear.

I imagine it as a kind of handbook for hope and meaning: something people might turn to during times of loss, uncertainty, aging, trauma, or inner questioning. A book that says, in a quiet but steady voice: you are not alone, and your questions matter.



An invitation to walk alongside me

This is not a profit-driven project.It is a labor of love- but it is also a demanding one.


Beyond the direct costs of the journey itself, creating this work requires hundreds of hours of listening, interviewing, reflecting, writing, revising, and editing. It requires time, presence, and care- so that what emerges is honest, grounded, and worthy of the trust people place in it.

If this path and intention resonate with you, you are warmly invited to walk alongside me- including through supporting the project financially. Your contribution makes it possible for me to dedicate the depth of time and attention this work requires, and it offers encouragement along the way.

Supporting the project is not just about funding a journey.It is about accompanying a process- one that seeks to gather lived experience into something that can offer meaning and hope to others.


And if contributing is not right for you, that is completely okay. I am grateful simply to share the journey, to stay connected, and to walk with a sense of shared humanity.


With appreciation

Thank you for reading, for listening, and for being part of this unfolding path- whether closely or from afar.

With appreciation,Ronnie



👉 For more background:The Power and Promise of Pilgrimage: Why We Walkhttps://www.wisdom-opportunity.com/post/the-power-and-promise-of-pilgrimage-why-we-walk..


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