Day 100g: Another brother in Boavista … (July 23, 2019)
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 Pilgrim to his ongoing collection. Well, it turned out that he had already heard about my Walk from fellow friends Rebekah Scott (in Moratinos) and Stoneboat Kim (in Rabanal), though it was slightly off-putting how little the latter two had told him about the actual nature of my Journey. Indeed, it seemed that they had actually implied that I was walking the Camino “for free” for my own benefit, and that I was openly asking for help from others to do so (!!!). Of course, as you the reader well know, very little could ever be further from the truth, and I felt blessed to have the opportunity to calmly explain the actual, completely selfless foundation of my pilgrimage to him before he lovingly took my black&white portrait and I headed back out onto The Way …
“Let us compare gravity with human community. Both phenomena observably exist, and yet neither is fully understood or appreciated. In truth, we know the force of gravity but not its origins, just as we know that interpersonal interconnection is real but clearly have no great comprehension as to howe to properly tend or foster the same. So to explain how we become attached to our particular tribes or birth places we pretend that we are trees and speak of roots. And yet look under your feet. You will not find gnarled growths sprouting through their soles. Indeed, the concept of roots – at least related to our place in a global society – is nothing more than a conservative myth, designed to keep us in our places – kept alight in order to keep our sense of Oneness in the shadows. Similarly, the terms ‘friends’ & ‘strangers’ have been coined and propagated to keep us from reaching out to those well-met; to keep us from embracing the true &greater Family of our true & greater birth.” ~ inspired by Salman Rushdie
;