“Walking as a pilgrim walks – unbound by the more common constraints of expected convention or concrete itinerary, inspires a fuller absorption of life – compelling one to take in through the pores both the height of the mountains & the shape of the hills; demanding that one completely appreciate the undulations of the river […]
“Yes, it is true that the ache for Home lives in all of us; that ever-safe place where we can ever go as we are and never be doubted or criticized or questioned. And yet just as ubiquitous is our latent desire to walk as a pilgrim; to set forth from the familiar boldly with […]
Soon thereafter I ambled into the lovely little hamelt of Boavista, where a pathside placard was posted asking for support from a Camino pilgrim photographer. Never one to turn down an opportunity to help another, I walked right into Michael’s makeshift studio and asked if he would like to add a portrait of a Peace […]
“In the end it is the essential spirit that animates those places that animate me. And if that spirit is God, then therein we find God. And if that spirit is Life, then therein we find life. And if that spirit is awe, then therein we find awe. The greater part of me suspects that […]
And so it was that I flowed easily onward, warmly blanketed in the re-remembered knowledge that the Walk was my sustenance, in that my Walk was my gift to the world. And so it was that I smoothly flowed into & through the small villages of Salceda & Cerceda, and so it was that I […]
The dance between exertion and recuperation in life is an intriguing one, and never more obvious than on a pilgrimage. There is nothing “wrong” or “better” about either of the two, of course. Rest is fine when it is time to rest, as long as one remembers to then continue onward when it is time […]
At some point thereafter I made it past the path’s turn off to O’Pedrouzo – the town where the majority of that leg’s pilgrims chose to stop for the day – and it was at that same point that the path was cleared for a time from the noise and frenzy of fellow walkers, and […]
It was shortly thereafter that I met Aron (from Germany) and Lisa (from Zimbabwe) and an immediately fast Friendship began the very instant they sincerely asked about (and then wholeheartedly listened to the sharing of) the nature of my Walk. And share with me they did as well – about the BIG LOVE that imbues […]
And then it was that I arrived at the outskirts of Santiago – my Walk’s third primary destination* (after Le Puy in central France & St Jean Pied du Port near the French/Spanish border); the next End to my latest beginning, and the newest Beginning to this latest End … “If you simultaneously refuse to […]
“I had always believed that we leave a bit of us behind wherever we went, and I just as ardently believe that we take a bit of every place with us whenever we move along. And I never felt that truth more than while walking a pilgrimage – whether it was across the plains of […]
And then it was that we three made it quite easily to the top of Mt. Gozo, where we sat under the shade of a beautiful tree on that glorious Santiago-overlooking promontory, and hung out like decades-old friends while sipping cold beers and sharing vegan leftovers that the meal Aron had cooked up the night […]
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