T -8 Days. Why go back and do it again?

Didn’t get it right the first time… gotta go back for a do over…

Actually, the do over part is true. I got a huge emotional high from my first walk, and returned to real life with a couple of big questions pressing my mind. Mostly, I realized I didn’t know what was truly important to me, my sense of purpose if you will, and whether I was on the road to achieving it. I didn’t have answers to either question, but somehow my professional life seemed less fulfilling for me on the backside of my first walk. Personal interests didn’t seem to answer the questions either.

The Camino I had felt fulfilling for its simplicity. Each day was much the same logistically – get up, eat, pack, walk, arrive, shower, rest, eat again, sleep and then do it all over. Yet every day was startlingly different internally, full of vivid emotional color, with a sense of the mystical, the historical, and life affirming encounters. God seemed to be doing all the details, and all I had to do was walk forward into them.

Living for a month with all my worldly possessions contained in a backpack was liberating, my mental load lessen somehow by the weight hanging from my shoulders. Sleeping in a dormitory for a month made me realize the privilege I have in my own home, something I otherwise can take for granted. Living each day in the moment, I also lost the weight of past regret, and worried not a thought about tomorrow. I’m prone to both in my real world. Walking afforded time and opportunity to stop and smell the roses – literally. September in Spain finds the aroma of the grape harvest everywhere, the ripening of a rich variety of fruit in orchards and private gardens, the smell of freshly cut hay alongside the trail. Beauty is abundantly displayed on the Camino.

I connected with people from all over the world for reasons unknown, but the common purpose of walking is felt by all who journey. I spent a couple of weeks on and off meeting/walking with a Japanese fellow. Kuri he called himself, was among many I spent time with, but was one of only two with whom I could not share a word of common language. Yet we communicated, through crude but understandable sign language, bizarre but worthy pantomime, contorted facial expression, and the warmth of our eyes. I treasure the memory of my Kuri experience, and another similar communication with a Spanish shepherd who was tending his flock.

The simplicity of it all was somehow an ideal world, perfect for an idealist and a dreamer. It represented the way things could be; genuine, spiritual, uncluttered, unstressed, unpretentious, deeply personal, with easy friendships made along the road filling me full of hope. These things are not missing from my real world life, but that they don’t seem to be there as often, or as gently realized.

What I couldn’t figure out after leaving Spain, was how to more fully integrate these items into my life. Returning to the footpath offers the chance to re-connect with those feelings and experiences, possibly try again to bring them forward into my world.

The lifestyle of the Camino captured my heart, and it’s been calling me to return for another hit. So head is following heart, out of the real world, and back to the 1,000 year old trail of the ancient.

T-9 days. What is the Camino?

For me, the Camino was 31 days that subtly unfolded into a mystical journey of sorts. I don’t know why I went initially, other than I had an overwhelming feeling I should. Two days into my walk in 2003 I met a fellow who could have passed for an ancient prophet - long unkempt hair, tired clothes, walking barefoot. Most passed him by as a vagrant, and he avoided others in return. Xavier came and sat next to me while I was resting late one evening in a tiny village east of Pamplona. The man was gentle, wise, and grounded such as no one I can remember and what developed was an emotionally powerful conversation that went on for some time. During our exchange, I posed a question that had plagued me for months leading up to my journey across northern Spain - what I would learn walking the Camino? My fellow traveler surprised me with his answer. I was not there to learn, he told me, but to feel.

His words lingered on long after that evening, and became a catalyst for a re-alignment of my head and heart. The wisdom Xavier offered set me on a path to a rich and deeply felt journey uncovering modern pilgrimage. I could only offer a dictionary definition before I travelled to Europe, and pilgrimage was not my purpose for going. But within a week, I began to experience fully living in the moment, travelling one day at a time, such as I’ve never done before. I came to trust that my needs on the odd sojourn, though I didn’t always know what they would be, would be met with great gentleness when the time and need arrived. And I discovered within my spirit that the real beauty of the Camino reveals itself in a kind of meditative inner peace borne of walking. For a little over a month I slowed down both my life and my heart - no multitasking, no TV or newspapers I could understand, and almost no technology. I accepted the ancient mode of long distance travel, and was afforded the time to look into every pair of eyes I met, sense every tree and stream I passed, and experience the majesty of millenniums old mountains as I first climbed, and then stood on them. Walking 6-7-8 hours a day became like breathing. With my body on automatic, my head and heart experienced their own vacation.

I still remember almost every step of that journey six years later. More than anything, I remember an inner peace so profound; emotional and spiritual peace. I experienced it in the simple life overnighting in dormitory style refugios and realizing the decency with which I was treated. I walked with others and they with me, millionaires, university professors and secretaries, but couldn’t tell the difference between any of them. We all struggled, sweated and slept with equal joy and difficulty. I judged no one, and felt I was judged by no one. The decency of people astounded me. It seemed everyone I met experienced the journey as I did, yet few had words to describe it adequately.

The ‘Camino de Santiago’ or ‘The Way of St. James’, dates back to the early 9th century. The footpath was a trade route from the time of the Roman Empire. Tradition holds it was the road taken by the apostle James as he set out to evangelize Christianity. His remains were reputed to have been buried in northwestern Spain after James’ beheading in Jerusalem. The burial site was discovered around the year 813, near the city today known as Santiago de Compostela. The Spanish tourist office claims the Emperor Charlemagne was the first to travel cross country to venerate the tomb. And thus, the Camino was born. 100,000 walk its 800 kilometers/500 miles every year, millions more in the last millennium.

The Confraternity of St. James in the UK http://www.csj.org.uk/ is one of the best clearing sites for information on and about the Camino.

An interactive map can be found at http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/santiago/spancmno.html

Tomorrow - why go back?

T-minus 10 days. Wow. I can't believe it.

I'm headed to Spain August 28th to walk the 800 kilometer/500 mile footpath known as the Camino de Santiago. Again.

I walked it in September of 2003 with my wife, and since the day I left it behind I've wanted to return to walk it alone. Circumstances have provided me with 5 weeks to do just that.

There was something indescribably beautiful about my first walk. It was peaceful and spiritual beyond anything I've ever experienced, along with being seriously physical. The journey touched my innermost emotions, leaving me feeling deeply moved. I spent a month in what turned out to be an ideal world - and I'm an idealist. I'm hoping to re-capture some of that feeling, some of those emotions, and maybe write about the journey more fully this time.

Over the next 10 days I'll fill in a few more details - more on what I found last time, my schedule this time, why I'm writing, and about the voice I hope to find so I can relate my second trek of 'The Way of Saint James'.

Beyond that, I'll blog from Internet Cafes, hopefully every second day or so. I'm leaving cell phone and laptop at home. This is going to be a pure experience, or at least as close as I can get to one.

See ya.

Paul

BTW, the camel's name is Kojac, and I came across him on the Mount of Olives outside Jerusalem back in January of this year. The pic is because I think he's very cool.