I am writing this at the end of my first week in Ireland. Even though I have been in this amazing country for 7 days now, it was only yesterday that my 'inner Hobbit' truly awakened. Alle because of a crazy hike to the top of a mountain.

I always felt I lived pretty close to nature. After all, in the Netherlands I live close to the woods, and I often take my podcast listeners on walks in nature.

However, while I'm walking in the woods at home, I never fully disconnect from my digital devices: my iPhone and my Apple Watch regularly buzz to signal new notifications, and as soon as I get back home, I sit back at my computer or my iPad. I spend my evenings watching TV or playing videogames.

During my stay in Dublin, I stayed 'wired' in the same way as I am at home. The hostel was full of young people and popular music was coming from speakers 24/7 in the building. And outside, I was surrounded by the sounds of city traffic and by crowds of busy people.

A Million Stars

But all that activity fell away when I moved to a B&B in the middle of the Irish countryside. It is quiet here. At night, you see a million stars in the sky, and when you walk outside, all you hear are birds, the sound of the wind and the occasional sheep or pony asking for attention.

Yesterday, I decided to go on my first hike. And of course, I wanted to climb the nearest mountain and explore the famous Wicklow Way that would lead me to it. And then something strange happened.

At first, I was listening to an audiobook while walking through the forrest on the first part of the trail. But as I progressed, the 4G signal started to fall away, and soon my phone was unable to connect to a network. So I took my earbuds out and suddenly realized everthing I had been missing up until that moment. It started to drizzle and the more I climbed upwards, the more the wind started to pick up.

And when I saw the first views of the landscape below, I felt a type of elation that I last felt when I was walking the Camino years ago. I felt free, alive, so aware of the awesome nature that surrounded me. I felt like Bilbo Baggins the moment he stops worrying about the Shire he has left behind and truly becomes part of the fellowship of dwarves he is traveling with.

It was an amazing experience.

Finally truly free!

I thought traveling for a month with just a small backpack had already freed me from everything that I'm normally attached to, but it took until my hike yesterday to realize that as long as I'm connected digitally through your mobile devices, I am still not entirely in the here and now.

Maybe this is why many of the celtic saints whose footprints I am tracing during my journey this month often spent weeks if not months in nature, living in caves and surviving on whatever food they could find. I always thought is was a form of penance and mortification. But maybe they discovered that they were more free that way and closer to God than anywhere else...