de regreso

Back home last night... staying up as long as possible to adjust back to EDT, though it's hard (I woke up at 4.15 this morning, 10.15 hora local en España) to get back fully in one night.

Here's a photograph of the alteplano from a meseta taken ten days ago.

Photos and narrative will follow in course. For now, suffice to say that we walked over 272 miles/421 km, completing the 960+ mile/1570 km pilgrimage we started in April 2004. It will take time to live into that reality.

Meanwhile, as I write, the pilgrims are walking. The flow of humanity headed toward Santiago will continue.

A wheatfield kind of day

Now we understand why the author of Fumbling went nuts and starting going around in circles in a wheatfield.

It is 33 kms day, and we have done all but 9. The first 6 kms were on the infamous souless ´senda´a path that the Department of Palencia has created alongside the major road that leads from one city to another (notably to Carrion de los Condes). After Carrion, we then spent 16 kms on an earthern path out in the middle of nowhere except that one goes along wheatfields.

The sun is out today and there isn´t the stiff wind that has been blowing in our faces so.

It has been long and flat, a new definition of monotonous and tendious, or shall we say, trudgery.

I have a bad blister on my left heel that is quite painful but will slog it out until we get to our lodging for tonight before operating on it.

Last night we stayed in a wonderful hotel with a room that looked out at a 13th century Templar church.

Meanwhile I write from a bar cafe hotel that is an oasis after the 16 kms slog through the wheatfields. Whew.

(I am not wearing my bifocals when I write these notes so I can´t really see what I am typing. Cleanup will happen when I return stateside.)

From Burgos

We are about to start walking the most tedious (try the new word, ´trudgerý), the Alteplano. We are in Burgos right now - a city with a gorgeous cathedral and lots of esplanades and such.

The Alteplano is high and flat. We´re talking big skies here, big vistas, a path that is straight as a dime with no variation, no trees, no shade and lots and lots of wind.

I am windburned already from the past six days. It has been a mixture of weather, sun, rain, hard rain, and cold! Today almost demanded putting on fleece gloves.

Feet are holding up though I have twinges of tendonitis in my left foot (always the left foot).

It is hard finding open churches and harder still even to find a mass. I haven´t been to church since I left last week. I spent Pentecost in the rain, and wind up on Spain´s oldest mountain range.

Nonetheless, it has been wonderful to be back on the camino, to meet people from all over, and to have the time to be still in mind and heart, and to begin to listen for God´s small still voice.

Next post from Leon for sure.

Adelante!

Four days and counting

A short entry from a cafe bar on top of a plateau in the midst of rolling hills of wheat, poppies, vineyards and other greens to say that all is well. At the end of this day we will have walked nearly 100 kilometers.

Feet are holding up somewhat -- there are the usual blisters but otherwise all three pilgrims are holding up well.

We have had many interesting conversations with people from all over: France, Spain, Holland, Brazil and surprisingly more people from the United States than on other pilgrimages.

We have stopped in every church that has been open and have left a prayer for all those who have asked for them. It is a bit harder lighting candles because they tend more to be the electric sort and I don´t do that sort of candle.

We have a short day today, 20 kms, after yesterday´s 29 kms. And tonight we will stay in an abbey by a church that has a small cage of chickens on its side.

There is way too much to say in a short time but I just wanted to check in and say that all is well.

Caminante no hay camino
se hace camino al andar.

This is the Day

There's a fog settled over the mountain ridge across the way. It looks like a camino morning, like the morning we set out from Ostabat, the last leg before Saint Jean-Pied-de-Port and the Pyrenee crossing into Spain. I can well anticipate quiet mornings like today. By now we'll be on the road, walking. I am telling my feet to enjoy the next day's rest because it's all over on Tuesday.

This is the day we leave after so long. Again.

The cats know. The only way to leave them is to walk out the door and not look back. It is always very difficult for me to leave them behind even though I know they are in superb hands.

This segment of the camino takes the pilgrim through the barren alteplano where there are no landmarks, only a straight path, now lined apparently with saplings that someday will provide shade for the pilgrim.

It is said that people have visions on the alteplano because they become disoriented. That's better than the more perilous saying that demons will assault the pilgrim's soul.

I figure walking this chunk of the camino will be like crossing the Atlantic Ocean (which I did on the QE2 in 1977). For three days there was only sky and sea. We didn't even see a single bird. It stormed, the sea was rough, and there wasn't much of a vista. But it was vast and awesome. That's how I anticipate seeing the alteplano (or like being in Texas where everything is huge and you get 'big skies').

Regardless, we are off.

Vaya con Dios.

Two days....

In two days we will be en route to Spain to walk the last leg of the Camino.

It's incredible. Something awaited for so long, something that even though, for the fourth time and therefore is more familiar, demands such preparation, and now it is almost here.

By Tuesday, we will once again be looking for yellow shells on a blue background or something to that effect to guide us through towns.

Unlike last year, we will not walk our first day abroad; we'll end up arriving in Pamplona and then have the afternoon to explore the city. The next day we will get on a bus, our last conveyance until 16 days later, and walk 20 kms.

My mind knows what the rhythm of the day is: get up, get into the same clothes that have dried overnight, go have breakfast (in Spain, un cafe doble), come back to the room, fill up the water bottle first (camelback), stuff it into the pack and THEN pack the pack making sure I don't step on the bite valve (it's so easy to do and such a pain to clean up the water puddle that has formed, plus have to empty the pack out again). Go through everyone's prayers (I carry with me handwritten prayers on little slips of paper), so they will float with me for the day, read the daily office readings, and then... start walking.

On the way out of town, if necessary, we stop to get food (bread, cheese, fruit). And, sometimes, yes, we have to hit an ATM.

Usually we stop for a snack (banana and perhaps some form of pastry, in France, it was a croissant, of course) around 10.30 or 11.00, if we've been walking since 8.00. Then we walk until 1.00 or 2.00, sometimes waiting until we can find a place in the shade to sit. We settle down, take off our boots and socks, let our feet get some sun and air. Lunch can be half an hour, and then it's back to walking. The afternoon drags on more than the morning and we take more breaks, albeit short, about 10 minutes. Of course, the schedule can be completely thrown out of whack if there's a church to visit. The last hour always drags on and it seems as though we are never going to get to our destination.

We try to arrive at the next night's lodging by 5.00 or 6.00, though in Spain, dinner is later so it's not quite as much of a crunch as in France where dinner starts at 6.00 or 7.00. Once at the place, it's take off the boots, get out of the day's walking clothes, wash them and whatever other accrued laundry there is (though there isn't much) so that they can have a night to dry on the parachute cord we string in the room. We're not into having our smalls air on the back of our packs as we walk :) (There are some folks whose packs are such a mess you wonder how they stay balanced on the person's back!)

Then there's dinner and then back to our room. I write up the day in my small journal. And then, it's to bed... sometimes with aching limbs that impede a good sleep, sometimes just out like a light.

Then, it's up to start all over again. We'll do this for 16 days straight. I am ready.

Photo: shell in Ciraqui, Spain, 2004

Prayers for Pilgrims

Photo: statue at the top of Alto de Pardon, outside of Pamplona, Spain, April 2004

Prayers for Pilgrims

Pilgrimage is traditionally a journey to a holy place — a place where saints have walked, a place where God has met people and blessed them.

People through the ages have journeyed with God on pilgrimage — to perform a penance, to ask for healing, to pray for places where there is war or national disaster, to pray for friends.

Pilgrimage is an opportunity to travel lightly, to walk free of daily routines, to meet people, to make friends, to enjoy and celebrate God’s creation. An opportunity, too, in the travelling, the conversations and the silences to reflect on the journey of our lives and on our journey homewards to God.

Prayers before setting out on a pilgrimage

God of the guiding star, the bush that blazes
SHOW US YOUR WAY
God of the stormy seas, the bread that nourishes
TEACH US YOUR TRUTH
God of the still, small voice, the wind that blows where it chooses
FILL US WITH LIFE
God of the elements, of our inward and outward journeys
SET OUR FEETS ON YOUR ROAD TODAY.
MAY GOD BLESS US WITH A SAFE JOURNEY
MAY THE ANGELS AND SAINTS TRAVEL WITH US
MAY WE LIVE THIS DAY IN JUSTICE AND JOY. AMEN.

[P]ilgrimage is … a sign of contradiction, and of resistance to our prevailing value system, that of the market. Pilgrimage, after all, has no function other than itself; its means is as important as its end, its process as its product. Its utility value is small, and its benefits cannot be quantified or costed. Its value is intrinsic. It is something that is good to do because it is good to do. It states clearly that the extravagant gesture (because it is extravagant in terms of time and commitment) is an irrepressible part of what it means to be human and to walk on the earth. And whether the context for pilgrimage is solitude or community, we will be drawn deeper into the mystery of God and the care of creation. (Kathy Galloway)

Bless to us, O God,
the earth beneath our feet.
Bless to us, O God,
the path whereon we go.
Bless to us, O God,
the people whom we meet. Amen.

To finish

Pilgrim God,
our shoes are filled with stones,
our feet are blistered and bleeding,
our faces are stained with tears.
As we stumble and fall
may we know your presence
in the bleeding and in the tears
and in the healing and the laughter
of our pilgrimage. (Kate McIhagga)

Pilgrimage

Pray for all pilgrims and seekers
and companions on the way;
for all travellers.
Christ, may I walk together with you,
in solidarity with the poor and
with all of God’s creation.

+

Pilgrimage is feet-on-the-ground spirituality. (Jan Sutch Pickard)

Follow truth wherever you find it.
Even if it takes you outside your preconceived ideas of God or life.
Even if it takes you outside your own country
into the most insignificant alien places
like Bethlehem.
Be courageous. But concentrate on your search.
Truth is one. All roads lead to home. (George MacLeod)

+

The World Peace Prayer
Lead me from death to life,
from falsehood to truth.
Lead me from despair to hope,
from fear to trust.
Lead me from hate to love,
from war to peace.
Let peace fill our hearts,
our world, our universe. Amen.

+

A Creed for Peace
We believe in you, O God,
you who love all humankind
because you are a God of Peace
not of violence nor vengeance.

You created us, women and men,
and your dream is that we discover
community, justice and peace
between all persons
and among all peoples of the earth.

Your holy prophets of old
proclaimed peace,
rejected the powerful of the earth
who tyrannized, creating injustice,
unleashing conflicts,
violence and death.

And so all of us, with faith and hope
proclaim our faith in you,
Confessing that we believe in the God of peace and justice.
We believe in Jesus Christ,
servant and martyr for peace,
who was born among the least
and most peaceful of your people.
In the night of his birth
the angels announced peace
to the shepherds.
Christ came to the world
to bring peace not division.
He rejected sword and violence
and offered instead the special way of non-violence:
the way of truth, goodness, justice and love.
He was condemned to death for proclaiming
the Reign of God and God’s justice,
but God raised Jesus from the dead.
Therefore, together, with faith and hope
we proclaim our faith in you,
Confessing that we believe in you,
Servant of peace.

We believe in the Holy Spirit,
Giver of life.
Peace is the gift of the Holy Spirit of God
and is the fruit of the lives
of those who make peace.
We believe in the church,
The community of those
Who are peacemakers,
In the forgiveness of sins
And in reconciliation.
We believe in the promise of a new heaven and a new earth
Where life, justice and peace
Will triumph.

Therefore together, with faith and hope,
We proclaim our faith in you,
Confessing that we believe
In the Spirit of peace.

[With the exception of the Creed for Peace, everything else comes from This is the Day: Readings and Meditations from the Iona Community, Neil Paynter, ed., Glasgow, UK: Wild Goose Publications, 2002]