Despite the growing dusty heat, the walking this day proved to be smooth & relatively uneventful – from Sahagun, to the swallow-graced skies of Calzaada, to the then simmering early-afternoon streets of Bercianos. Some metaphorical foreshadowing came on the outskirts of the latter, where a young pilgrim pointed at me and unabashedly announced “Hey! Isn’t […]
And the day became hotter and the path became dustier and the air became thicker – and still I walked The Road. “The road will prove difficult, and yet the road must be trod. And neither strength nor wisdom will be enough to carry us far upon it – only courage & perseverance will fulfill […]
There were a few locations along the Camino where I had intended to stop and give thanks – not only for how their residents had treated me with kindness back in 2008, but also for how they were reportedly continuing to treat pilgrims with kindness to the current day. The Domenico-Laffi albergue in the town […]
“Walk the path that leads to Oneness (which is Harmony, which is Kindness, which is Love), for only then will you properly illuminate the Way of Peace for others. Indeed, once you open your mind and gain knowledge of both what is and what could be (which is humility) – and once you then boldly […]
It was a loooooong hot walk that later afternoon – first to & through the village of Reliegos, and then into the larger and more bustling town of Mansilla de los Mulas. There were dozens of hostels in the latter nestled alongside the Path that ran through the center of town, and all of them […]
Before leaving town, I stopped briefly in Mansilla’s primary church – once more to reground my humility; offering sincere gratitude for having been blessed to walk this Walk at all, and a renewed resolve to continue onward as long as the same is right & possible … “Spiritual pride tends to speak of other persons’ […]
“Proper walking is the same as proper living: one can only learn the same if one does not imagine one knows what it consists of in advance. Walking smoothly – like living well – means always being willing to flow onto new routes when they present themselves. It is rather living well, which means being […]
“Our lives can be well compared to beautiful streams, those which flow ever onward, those which grow in majesty over time to create wonderful features such as cascading waterfalls and nourishing deltas, those which give nourishment to all beings who encounter its cool sustenance, and those which always find their way back to the sea […]
The day had grown quite long indeed by the time I made it to the outskirts of Puente Villarente, where the very first albergue I encountered (Delfin Verde – The Green Dolphin) heard of my Walk and took me in without hesitation. Most of the other pilgrims there were already starting to bed down for […]
I woke after a relatively restless night’s sleep at the usual uber-early hour and quietly headed outside into the hostels’ courtyard to pack for the day without disturbing my still-slumbering Camino compatriots, and then made my way back out onto The Road – pausing only briefly to retape my shoes under a still-shining streetlamp. I […]
Very soon after entering Leon’s upper outskirts, I saw a fellow pilgrim walking towards me, a fellow pilgrim who happened to be Alberto Castello* – a fellow pilgrim who happened to be a fellow Peace Pilgrim, walking a pilgrimage for Kindness & Harmony all the way to Jerusalem! “Don’t run through your life – walk […]
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