The Camino Story
A little bit about how the Camino de la Fertilidad & the Concha logo were born.
Hormonal balance and fertility have been the focus of my Nutrition Coaching activities ever since I studied hormones as part of my ongoing Metabolic Typing training in 2014. I personally struggled with Adrenal Fatigue and severe menstrual issues for years. I used to dread my period because the first day would completely knock me out – cramps so painful they made me vomit and even faint sometimes – at two occasions I even fractured something in the process (my jaw and my foot)… I learned that these symptoms were due to excess stress hormone production and resulting progesterone deficiency – and that this pattern is not very favorable for conception & pregnancy either, especially if as the mother you want to maintain your health and not drop into even deeper imbalance and exhaustion after pregnancy… So balancing my hormones became my personal focus as a means to alleviate my menstrual symptoms, but also for preconception. Not that I wanted a baby right away, but I wanted to be ready when the moment came. Balancing hormones takes time and one really cannot start early enough…
Where the Camino comes into play…
The Camino de Santiago (Chemin de St. Jacques) has played a significant role in my life. When I broke up with my partner for the first time back in 2013, I went on a 10 weeks pilgrimage, starting in Le Puy en Velay (close to Lyon, France) and walking more than 800 km all the way to Estella in Spain. My partner had walked the Camino himself in 2010 and so it was only natural that when we came back together in 2015 and began to explore places to start a new life in nature, we eventually came back to the Camino end of 2017.
Dreaming about our Life & Business model, for me it was clear right away that I wanted to call my undertaking “Camino de la Fertilidad”. Because indeed, balancing hormones and reclaiming fertility is like a Camino. It is a journey, with many different stages, through valleys and over mountains, through lush woods and dry fields, through sunshine and rain. It takes time and you just have to keep walking, step-by-step. Some days you love it and others you hate it. Some days you walk by yourself and others you share company with other pilgrims. Some of them you like and others you don’t.
It is there, on the Camino in Galicia, in May 2018, that I conceived my new logo: the Concha. Concha means shell and if you know the Camino, you know that all the pilgrims carry a St. James shell to mark them as pilgrims on this particular path. I chose the vagina-shaped Cowry shell – a symbol of fertility – for the pilgrims on the Camino de la Fertilidad. Concha is also the abbreviation for the female Spanish name Concepción (conception) and actually means “pussy” in certain Latin American countries :). It was also used as a currency, so is linked to money and material abundance (which can never hurt either). Last but not least, I like how it is kind of the female form of conscioUS… All in all the perfect logo for the Camino de la Fertilidad.
I broke up again with my partner just a few months later, but Concha and the Camino de la Fertilidad stayed with me. I gestated, nurtured and slowly grew them until the moment came to give birth them in June 2019. In 2020 I aligned my inner and outer reality and moved to a truly healthy and fertile place on the domain of a center for personal development in Western Spain from where I work with people in person and online.
As you can read on the homepage, the Fertile Path is not just for couples who want to conceive a baby. It is the path of creativity, joy and Love, available to anyone who is brave enough to choose it.