114/499 … coming Home (09/25/08)
The scallop shell is the primary symbol associated with Camino pilgrims. When early pilgrims would walk to “the end of the Earth” (Finisterre, Spain — about four days further on foot from Santiago) to cleanse their Souls, they would find a scallop shell on one of the beaches there and then walk back home; bringing the shell as “proof” that they had completed the Journey. Though most pilgrims these days tend to only walk to Santiago, many of them carrying a scallop shell still.
“It’s an individual taking a journey, that’s the perspective. It happened here, and it could happen anywhere. The idea of leaving home is commonplace — and yet it is actually the idea of finding home that is universal; of finding what Home means.” ~ inspired by Alan Cooke
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