One of the more common oddities on the Camino (in Switzerland & Spain more than in France) was the abject unreliability of “miles to go” markers erected along the route. In truth there were only a handful of times on the entire Walk when I distinctly remember being happily surprised at the accuracy of these pilgrim placards – and this was true whether said signposts read “5 kilometers to Leon” or “1500 kilometers to Santiago” over any distance in between. And so I was truly bemused on this particular day when I was walking along – without debate visually “in the middle of nowhere” (with not even a single building visible all the way to the horizon for a full 360 degrees) – and happened upon a road-sign that clearly read “Hontanas, 1500m.” Well I knew that 1500m was essentially one mile, and I knew that I could see at least that far in any direction, and I also quite definitively knew that there most certainly was no town at all within that range. And so I chalked the whole thing up as being yet another ridiculously inaccurate touchstone, and kept walking smoothly along my way. Well, it didn’t take long before I came upon yet another sign – this one brazenly announcing “Hontanas, 500m.” “Hah – how utterly ridiculous!” I thought. “I mean, couldn’t these marker-placers see that even an utter fool could but look around and readily know that no such hamlet existed?” Well, almost no sooner than I continued onward than the path began to steadily – yet oh so subtly – slope downward. And as it did so, almost magically, the town of Hontanas seemed to rise up through the horizon, until I was quite suddenly passing by the boulder-marked entrance to the same. In a delightful moment of metaphor, and amusingly humbled by my previous hubris, I found myself almost unwittingly asking out loud: “So who is now the true fool?” … And that refreshed humility served me well indeed, for as I entered the township proper, I passed by a local hostel* emanating some truly lovely music from within. In a more self-assured state of mind, I might well have merely smiled and passed the building by, and yet awash in reawakened modesty, I chose instead to stop and sit and engage Emma (the hostel’s proprietress) in a fully Meaning-filled conversation – a heartfelt exchange that had her hearing about my Walk, being moved by its message of Peace, making me a vegan sandwich, and then offering me a place to stay for that night and the following day …

“Humility is that freedom from our smaller self, a freedom which enables us to be in positions in which we have neither recognition nor importance, neither power nor visibility, and even experience trial or deprivation, and yet still know joy and delight. Humility is the freedom of knowing that we are in truth not ourselves the center of the universe itself, and that our surroundings are not even the center of our own private local universe, but rather that the Center of the Universe exists equally all around us – within every person, and inside everything.” ~ inspired by David F. Wells

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