We all walked together to the next town of Obanos, and it was here that I intentionally lingered to allow my Canadian friends to move along. And I did so for their benefit, to make sure that their selfless generosity that had been so Joy-fully given up to that point, from morphing into a sluggish […]
I headed back out onto The Way and soon enough made it to the town of Puenta la Reina. The parochial hostel at the edge of town exuded an exceptionally “cold” vibe and the people there were less than inviting or kind, and so I wandered on a ways – stopping first into the open […]
I decided to check in with the local parish to see if they had any accommodations available for mendicant pilgrims and, after hearing my Walk’s tale (as usual, both its hows and its whys), Father Richard told me to head back to the parochial hostel and to wait there. I amicably chatted awhile with the […]
My relatively rapid walking tempo meant that I ended up covering more miles in a standard walking day than most pilgrims ever mustered, which in turn meant that I found myself steadily outdistancing the “pilgrim families” I continually met along The Way – leaving one well-met group of long-lost & newfound Friends behind to inevitably […]
And so it was that I peacefully made my way back to the hostel, and so it was that I sat in the hostels’ garden under a dancing cloud of swallows and wrote a bit of The Walk, and so it was that I lovingly deflected a hospitalero’s open aggression towards me having “the gall” […]
The “off” vibe of this particular place made it easier than usual to rise extra-early and flow out into the pre-dawn gloam; back onto the smooth ever-onward that is the way of the Camino, and the resolute life of Loving others anyway that is The Way itself. “Life is tragic simply because the Earth turns […]
It was still quite dark when I set forth that morning, and my walking was commensurately slow and measured, at least until a group of three Spanish pilgrims wearing headlamps cruised past, whereupon I settled in behind them at a respectful distance; using the bobbing of their lights up ahead to lead my own Way […]
It was shortly thereafter that I entered the small village of Maneru, and it was shortly after that entrance that I came upon The Way’s next sleeping saint – a fellow mendicant pilgrim taking sonorous refuge under the pavilion of the town’s central square. I wondered what dreams he was dreaming that morning, as well […]
I looked over and the adjacent road-sign said only 2 kilometers to the village of Cirauqui, and I was pleasantly surprised to realize – as I turned my head towards the path’s upcoming horizon – that the human eye can indeed see at least that far … “Walking has something in it which animates and […]
Distance and time do funny things on pilgrimages. And so it was at this particular stretch of The Road that it seemed that I could get no closer to Cirauqui, no matter how long or how smoothly I happened to walk thereto … How fortunate I was to have abandoned all plans & goals on […]
In a truth most metaphoric, it was often intriguing to feel how The Way was so often lost in larger cities, and yet always so clearly known in smaller towns … “In the great cities we see so little of the world, pulled almost incessantly into our own tinier minorities. And yet in the world’s […]
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