I only had two goals in Leon (if they could be called the same): 01) see the sunbeams stream once more through the glorious stained-glass windows of the Leon Cathedral and 02) find the wonderful donativo refuge that had taken me in so graciously back in 2008. And seeing as how it was still quite early and the Cathedral was not yet open to the public, I roamed about looking for said refuge – having very little success at the same, and yet enjoying the sights of this lovely city nonetheless …

“The world is a wide place where we stumble like children first learning to walk, and the world is a bright mosaic where we gape like children first learning to see; where our little blurry eyes strive greedily to take in every second as much light and color and detail as they can. To the pilgrim the world is a coaxing whisper when the wind bends the trees, when the sea licks the shore, when animals burrow into the earth, and when fellow travelers look up at the sympathetic heavens. The world is an admonishing roar when gales chase rainclouds over the plains and cast up ocean waves, when people crowd into scintillating cities or peer into dazzling jungles. So what right have we to carry our yearning mouths up mountains or into deserts? Do we want to taste rock and sand, or do we expect to make impossible poems from space and silence? Both life’s vastness and its complexity remind us how tiny we are, and how much we don’t yet comprehend. In truth we are mere infants in the Universe, all brothers & sisters resting naively in the nursery together. And we had better learn to play nicely before we’re allowed out together to roam out into the distant humming of the dawn and the distant throbbing of the darkness.” ~ inspired by Jay Woodman

Filed under: Peace Pilgrimage #02: Walking HOME (2019) by Scaughdt