Today actually turned out to be one of the more unpleasant physical walking experiences of the entire pilgrimage. Not only was the Path extremely thin (about the width of one of my shoes) for many miles, but it was also caked with hyper-slippery and uber-gooey mud. To make matters even more challenging, the grass on […]
Flow into the town of Miradoux and enjoy a brief-yet-satisfying respite in the cool-yet-glowingly-majestical confines of the local church … I’m not at all sure about the benefits for humanity that many claim from their own personal religions (be they adopted or inherited) – and I am often somewhat convinced that we would all be […]
“All the various types of teachings and spiritual paths are related to the different capacities of understanding that all individuals uniquely possess. There does not exist, from any objective point of view, any teaching which is more perfect or more effective than any other. Indeed, any teaching’s value lies solely in the inner awakening which […]
I head back out onto The Way and am immediately blessed with a series of much easier pathways – first a forest road smooth and dry and undulating, then the roadway itself (as a neighboring alternative to the same one-shoe-wide mud track over which I had struggled earlier, the same skinny slime-slog over which I […]
Even the walking was much easier at this point, I still rejoiced upon entering the town of Castet-Arrouy and its beautiful church (dedicated to Saint Blandine); sitting there in solace within sacred sunbeams, their light streaming warmly through colorful depictions of the selfless sacrifice of Jesus, the humble healings (and inter-species adorations*) of Saint Anthony, […]
Heading back onto The Way and the trail immediately morphs back into a repeat of this morning’s extremely thin and extremely slippery-sticky mud trail. There is no neighboring roadway to traverse as an alternative, so I am forced to painfully take longer diagonal strides to place my feet into the tall, soaked grasses on the […]
No sooner do I shrug my shoulders & smile at the difficulty of the day’s walking — choosing to just keep bumbling along while humbly accepting the day’s quite painful fate – than the path shifts once more; this time in far more foot-friendly directions – first to a still-muddy but much wider trail, then […]
The city of Lectoure is finally seen in the distance; a city that was hopefully going to be my final stop on what had been a most grueling of days, and a city that offered me a well-timed gift of floral beauty at its initial outskirts, after a day that had been heavily ladled with […]
I make it without incident up into the center of town and all the way to the city’s primary church (a cathedral dedicated to Saint Gervais & saint Protais – twin brothers who were both martyred for their beliefs. They are both considered to be the patron saints of haymakers; and both are invoked upon […]
Beautifully reminiscent of Michaelangelo’s Pieta (still on display in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City), this particular sculpture in the Lectoure cathedral caught both my eye and my heart – more so for its gentle revelations than its more obvious artistic majesty. There was simple something so powerful about the way Mary is holding […]
It was an odd entry into the Lectoure hostel that evening, to say the least – with fellow pilgrims more raucous than reverent, and hospitaleras more stern (almost disapproving, even) than serving. I remained humbly appreciative of the shelter, nonetheless, of course, and maintained an even-keeled faith that my message of selfless Love & bold […]
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