Annotated bibliography

I am doing a talk on the Camino to a local reading group on Monday and so put together an annotated bibliography. It is, by no means exhaustive — it represents some of what I have at hand — but it might be useful for the person who googles the Camino. [photo: 765 km mark in Spain in the Pyrenees in the fog, 29 May 2006]

Guidebooks
Brierly, John. A Pilgrim’s Guide to the Camino Francés: From Saint Jean Pied de Port to Santiago de Compostela. Findhorn, Scotland: Camino Guides. 2003. A thorough guide, with maps, lodging recommendations for each stage of the Camino, complete with elevations to inspire or discourage, and meditations.

Clouteau, Lauriane and Marie-Virginie Cambriels. Miam Miam Dodo: Le Chemin de Saint Jacques de Compostelle, El Camino Francés. Les Sables d’Oronne, France: Les Editions du Vieux Crayon. Published annually. If you speak French, this guide is the Cadillac of guide-books for lodging, food, internet cafés, and anything else practical. It also has pithy quotations on otherwise blank pages.

Facaros Dana and Michael Pauls. Northern Spain Cadogan Guide. Guilford, CT: The Pequot Press. 1996, 1999, 2001, 2003. Very good descriptions of the places through which the Camino meanders as well as thorough historical overview. Written with a gentle sense of humor. One needs to stitch together a through-plan of the Camino but worth the effort.

Gitlitz, David and Linda Kay Davidson. The Pilgrimage Road to Santiago: The Complete Cultural Handbook. New York, NY: Saint Martin’s Griffin. 2000. The title says it all. Way too big to carry while walking, it is wonderful to consult post walking.

Jacobs, Michael. The Road to Santiago, third edition. London: Pallas Athene. 1991, 2002. A good, compact book with lots of photographs and information, worth consulting before leaving.

Lozano, Millán. A Practical Guide for Pilgrims: The Road to Santiago, 8th ed.. Madrid: Editorial Everest, S. A. N.D. Works very well with Brierly and the other guide books. Even comes with a map pouch and separate maps!

Mullins, Edwin. The Pilgrimage to Santiago. Northampton, MA: Interlink Books. 1974, 2001. While the author drove as much as walked the route, the narrative is a treasure-trove of details of places along the way in France and in Spain.

Roddis, Miles et. al. The Lonely Planet: Walking in Spain, third edition. Oakland, CA: The Lonely Planet. 2003. The guide contains a 35-page section devoted entirely to the Camino. The stages are slightly different from those of many other guidebooks but it is worth using in tandem.

Raju. Alison. The Way of Saint James: Le Puy to the Pyrenees. Cumbria, UK. 2003. Obtained in the US through a North Carolina map website, this guide works well with other guides (especially when operating out of either French or Spanish guides as we were). Once one deciphers the British expressions for road surfaces, the guide is useful.

Symington, Andy. Footprints: Northern Spain Handbook. London: Footprint Books (distributed in the US by Publishers Group West). ND. Same operational principle as the above two guidebooks: once one pieces together the Camino from the various sections of the book, one has a good guide. The writing in this book is quite funny at times but the information is accurate.

Narratives/Spiritual Reflections
Buck, Jean Ann. Walking for Wildlife: El Camino to Santiago de Compostela. Leicestershire, UK: Upfront Publishing. 2004. A grandmother of four walks to raise money to protect Manx wildlife. A light read but contains interesting nuggets and is authentic (based on her journal).

Christmas, Jane. What the Psychic Told the Pilgrim: A Midlife Misadventure on Spain’s Camino de Santiago de Compostela. Vancouver, Canada: Greystone Books. 2007. An entertaining yet accurate description of a 50 year-old woman’s walk across Spain with a group of 14 women that the author manages to lose halfway through her pilgrimage.

Egan, Kerry. Fumbling: A Journey of Love, Adventure, and Renewal on the Camino de Santiago. NY, NY: Broadway Books. 2006. Egan walked the Camino with her fiancé after her father’s death. Her account is honest about her struggles both on the Camino and spiritually, as well as funny at times.

Rudolph, Conrad. Pilgrimage to the End of the World: The Road to Santiago de Compostela. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. Divided into four sections, the book contains a brief but accurate history of pilgrimage to Santiago, the author’s pilgrimage, views of the journey, and a how-to section.

Rupp, Joyce. Walk in a Relaxed Manner: Life Lessons from the Camino. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis. 2005. Rupp, a well-known writer of spiritual meditations, reflects on her walk on the Camino. While the book could have used better editing, and at times tends almost toward a New Age-y tone, Rupp’s main observation of learning to slow down is well taken.

Schell, Maria and Donald. My Father, My Daughter: Pilgrims on the Road to Santiago. New York, NY: Church Publishing. 2001. A short, entertaining read written by a father and daughter team who walk the camino that describes the outward and inward journey and development of their relationship.

General Books on Pilgrimage With References to Santiago
Cousineau, Phil. The Art of Pilgrimage: The Seeker’s Guide to Making Travel Sacred. York Beach, ME: Conari Press. 1998. A general meditation on what pilgrimage is in general, with references to pilgrimages throughout the ages, and the spiritual how-to of embarking on a pilgrimage.

Lash, Jennifer. On Pilgrimage: A Time to Seek. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Press. 1991. This book describes Lash’s setting off on pilgrimage after cancer surgery. Travelling by rail and foot, she covers the major pilgrimage sites in France and Spain.

McPherson, Anne. Walking to the Saints: A Little Pilgrimage in France. The book describes her visits to major Romanesque sites along the way of several pilgrimage routes in France.

Mahoney, Rosemary. The Singular Pilgrim: Travels on Sacred Ground. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. 2003. Her journey to Santiago is one of six pilgrimages she describes with piercing honesty. (Her description of the Camino is rather bizarre.)

Robinson, Martin. Sacred Places, Pilgrim Paths: An Anthology of Pilgrimage. London: Marshall Pickering. 1997. This anthology contains quotations from across the centuries and is fun to open up and read a few selections on a whim.

Internet Resources
http://www.santiago-compostela.net/ This website has photographs of every stage of the Way, both in France and Spain. It has lots of good resources as well as chat boards.

http://www.caminodesantiago.me.uk/ This site is still under construction but has some interesting material.

http://www.globecorner.com A fantastic bookstore in Cambridge MA has books on the Camino.

http://www.omnimap.com A good source for the French guides to the GR65 and also various walking guides for the Camino.

If you google Santiago de Compostela you’ll come up with many more sites.

There are bibles and there are bibles

This little book, Miam-Miam Dodo, French for 'Din-din, beddy-bye,' is indispensable. Revised every year, it contains a wealth of information about lodging, restaurants, which places have laundry facilities, covered sheds for horses or donkeys (one does see such critters on the way), internet (usually not an interest but this year, more important), and which towns have stores for food, pharmacies, banks and so forth. The publishers issue one for the Chemin in France and the Camino in Spain. For the past three years (that is, 2005, 2006, 2007), we have used them. Their maps are fairly vague so we add in other maps from other sources.

So while there is THE Bible, there are other bibles which sometimes (for me at least) give clearer directions.

While walking there are always waymarks that show the way to go. The shell, in particular, is common in Spain. It's like walking on a long treasure hunt, looking for the next yellow arrow or shell on a lamp post, side of a house, in the pavement, wherever, that will indicate a turn.

If one goes along for a while without seeing a sign (unless there's nothing else in creation nearby), one begins to wonder if one missed a turn. We've only done that twice in all the kilometres, both in France and Spain, and we usually were able quickly to figure out where we missed the turn.

Following the camino is not like life where turns are not so clearly marked and where it is far easier to wander inadvertantly (never mind the conscious times) from the path. Often, too, there are not companion pilgrims nearby to yell or whistle to let one know that one missed a turn. (Though one day when we intentionally left the Camino to go to our inn, we had someone insist that we had gotten off the path and needed to return.)

By this time next week, we will be asleep, ready to start walking our first day. Wow!

The agony of the feet

Sixteen days away, I wonder why am I going to spend sixteen days walking about 15 miles a day when it can be so painful?

Granted, I will not have two newly broken toes as I did last year (hence the white tape on the side of my left foot in the accompanying photograph), but the blisters and heat rash from the wool socks are a given. No matter what, it seems that one's feet suffer.

It's time to start coating them with tincture of benzoin, this brown, sticky and smelly stuff that turns your skin into leather and prevents blisters.

Unlike other years, I am going to stop walking from here on so as to save my feet. It's alternative forms of exercise.

Why do we do this?

In part, to use the words that CROP walkers say: 'We walk because they walk.'

So much of the world has to walk to get its water. It doesn't nicely flow from the tap whenever you want. And for multitudes, it doesn't even flow from a tap; it flows from a well down the road.

Think of how much time the population of the world, mostly women, spends going to get water.

And think of how much time school children spend walking to get to school. There are some communities in El Salvador that the Anglican Episcopal Church of El Salvador accompanies that get separated from the main road during the rainy season. It's a 5km walk to and from the main road and the children walk that so they can get to school.

So we walk because they walk.

Prayers from Le Chemin

Here are two prayers from Le Chemin du Puy-en-Velay to Saint-Pierre-Pied-du-Port:

Seigneur, que cette cièrge que je fais brûler soit lumière pour que tu m'éclaires dans mes difficultés et décisions, qu'il soit feu pour que tu brûles en moi tout égoïsme, orgeuil et impureté. Qu'il soit flamme pour que tu rechauffes mon cœur. Je ne peux pas rester longtemps dans ton église. En laissant brûler ce cièrge, c'est un peu de moi que je veux te donner. Aide-moi à prolonger une prière, dans mes activités du jour.

Lord, may this candle that I burn be light so that you will enlighten me in my difficulties and decisions; may it be fire that you may burn [from] me all egotism, pride and impurities. May it be a flamme so that you can rekindle my heart. I cannot stay for long in your church. By leaving this candle to burn, it's a little bit of me that I want to give you. Help me to prolongue a prayer in my day's activities. [from Eauze]

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Toi qui portes dans ton cœur un soucieux inquietude,
une peine,
une grande joie,
Toi qui as besoin de la force de Dieu,
de sa lumière,
de son aide.
Parles-en à Marie
et à son fils Jésus
et la flamme de ce cièrge
prolongera ta prière.

You who carry in your heart a bothering worry,
pain,
great joy,
you who need God's strength,
God's light,
God's help.
Talk about it to Mary,
her son, Jesus
and the flame of this candle
will prolong your prayer. [from Arzacq]

Of mountains, literal and figurative

If one is lucky, one gets to see the Pyrenees the day that one crosses from France to Spain. We saw them for many days before walking over them — about ten days before we actually crossed over. We were walking along a ridge that led into Lectoure, and I looked to my left, south, and gasped. 'What is it?' 'It's the Pyrenees!' They were still so far off, it was hard to believe that eventually we'd get up close.

Two days before we hiked over them, we got a good glimpse of them from the Chapel of Soyarza. The mountains in that region of the Basque country are not super high but they still are impressive. Even the day that we walked into Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, we could see them and from our room at the bed and breakfast where we spent two nights they were there.

But not the next day.

That often is how it seems with long sought-after goals. They appear to be clear for a while and then they disappear into fog and confusion.

How long has it been that the world has been talking about HIV/AIDS? The US dragged its feet forever on it… Randy Shilt's book, And the Band Played On, tells that story in heart-breaking detail. And that book came out twenty years ago!!! (The pages of my copy are yellowed with age.) We're still muddling around with prevention of HIV/AIDS (MDG #6).

Google HIV/AIDS and you'll come up with 54.600.000 hits.

For starters, though, if you want more information, go to the UNAIDS website.

This pandemic is a true mountain to climb, the path is not always clear, and we still have a long, long way to go.