Reasons for walking the Camino

[johnnyman]

Once again, I apologize if this is being addressed or has been addressed elsewhere, but wondering if others would like to share their reason(s) for doing the Camino, and maybe what sort of impact it had on their life, if any ...

My reasons include: challenging myself, physically and mentally; the adventure of it; facing my fears and curing myself of acute homebodiness; trying to figure out just who the hell I am; becoming more comfortable in my own skin; self-confidence; learning to appreciate life, one day at a time ... (I am going in June)

 

[Portia1]

The Camino has had a dramatic influence on my life. It has profoundly affected my preaching (I am a priest). First, for me, the Camino is like a labyrinth spread out where the first part is spent winding to and fro getting to the center and a place of deep reflection (this happened most dramatically for me at Samos); and the second part wondering what to do with what you have discovered and where it is leading you. I was one of those who tried to avoid the mindless chatter along the Camino during the day so I could be mindful of what and who was around me, mindful of thoughts, and mindfully present to what was being revealed. There were many who walked along talking who never took a real look at what they were passing or noticed the people of the land.

Second, for me the Camino was a journey so much more than the destination. It was nice to arrive in Santiago--seemed so distant there in SJPP! But the people I met along the way, the stories we shared, the food we prepared together, the incidents that affirmed that people are basically good, and the hardships that bound us together--these were the memorable parts of Camino. I kept a journal. I continue to go back to it for the snippets of insight and the questions it captured. It reminds me of fellow pilgrims, of townspeople, and the animals I encountered. Every day brought some new incident, some new treasure to hold in my heart. It was a time of profound gratefulness and awareness of our common humanity, no matter where we harkened from or what motive brought us to walk the road together. I was not prepared for how much this jounrey would affect my life. If anything, Santiago was almost a let down.

I am returning to walk the Camino Portuguese this fall. It will be a completely different experience for many reasons but at the heart of it, I pray that it will be a nourishing time for my soul and open my eyes to the blessings we are called to be as we encounter the beloved of God we call strangers.

 

[CaminoGen]

Why? A simple question with complicated answers. As I have not done the Camino yet, I'm assuming I only have part of the answer. I'm walking for the challenge of it, both physical and mental. I'm walking to re-evaluate my work-life and hoping it will get me out of my rut. But, I'm also pretty sure that at the end of my 35 days of walking, I will have some answers for questions I didn't know I had. I can't think anyone can walk 25 km for 35 days without taking the time to reflect on one's life, even if they appear to be participating in the 'mindless chatter' of the Camino.

 

[Anna-Marie]

I wrote this up for my blog a while ago. I wouldn't have thought to list the majority of these before I walked, though.

Why Walk the Camino de Santiago

Because of the Santiagos: the saint and the city.
Because of the rhythm of walking.
Because of the laughter … and the tears.
For the adventure of it.
For the joy.
To find yourself.
To lose yourself.
To go looking for God, whatever God might be.
Or not, if that’s not your journey.
Because whatever you believe or don’t believe, it’s nice to have clear guidance: just follow the yellow arrows and you’ll be all right.
Or use a map and leave the arrows. Any road to Santiago de Compostela is a Camino de Santiago.
To immerse yourself in history and culture.
To meet other pilgrims of all ages and backgrounds and nationalities.
To experience the kindness of strangers, and get a chance to lend a helping hand.
To start a day not knowing where it will end, and then another. And another.
Because old architecture.
Because cafe con leche.
Because fresh grapes and fresh figs and fresh blackberries.
Just because.
To have your sins forgiven.
To hug the apostle.
To learn another language.
To walk over mountains.
To meditate or pray.
Because cheap wine.
Because you see a place differently when you walk to it and through it.
Because, even if you’re too hot, or too cold, or your feet hurt, or your back hurts, you feel alive.
Because it’s nice to be in shape … eventually. The day you feel like you can fly is worth every moment of slogging up hills.
And let’s be honest: because you can eat as much chocolate as you like and still lose weight.
To live another life, just for a while.
To appreciate the little things of “normal” life, like feet that don’t hurt and non-dorm rooms and washing machines.
To be part of something that’s huge in time and space.
To say thank you.
For the journey.
For the stories.
For candles and stained glass and statues.
For the arrival in Santiago or Finisterre.
Because friendship.
Because movement.
Because pilgrims.
Because it’s there.

 

[PilgrimChris]

Unlike Anna-marie i don't have such a huge list of reasons for walking this particular way. Which is good. We are all different
My reason is simple compared to most peoples i have read in these forums.

I am a Catholic.
My 77 year old mother has been diagnosed with anal cancer.
I am walking from Lourdes - where i will pray to Our Blessed Mother to help my mother in her time of need - to Santiago de Compostela where i will pray to St James to guide my mother on this difficult part of her life's pilgrimage.
Along the way i will be praying to God that whatever He has in store for my mother He only keeps her suffering to a minimum.
Thank you.

 

[mikevasey]

Hi

I hoped for change, not sure what at the time. Just felt a need to take a month out and reflect on my life.

mike

 

[Anniesantiago]

I have Multiple Chemical Sensitivities.
Walking is my form of medication - it chelates naturally the chemicals in my body.
I walked for this reason, and also to make some decisions about where I was going in my life.
Now I walk for health, and because I've fallen in love with Spain.

 

[TerryB]

On a "practice walk" on a beautiful spring day here in the U.K. I remembered this poem. Part of "A Shropshire Lad" by A.E. Houseman. The only difference is, that of my threescore and ten springs, three score and seven 'will not come again'!
All the more reason to thank the Lord God and walk while I still can.

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my three score years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

Blessings on your walking.
Tio Tel

 

[Bridget and Peter]

I hoped for change, not sure what at the time.

This reminded me of someone I met recently. My interest in the Camino came up. She reacted with some alarm. Her husband of nearly 40 years had walked the Camino a little while ago, without her as she was recovering from some illness.
He came back and left her, the decision taken as he walked and discussed his life with the pilgrims he met on the way.
She is understandably sore about this.
I didn't know what to say.

 

[Deleted member 3000]

My brother, a widower, walked the Camino, and returned to quit his job.

His walking companion returned and his wife divorced him. He married a German woman a few years later that he had met on the Camino.

I stayed with a family in St.-Privat-d'Allier who met on the Camino and married. They both quit their jobs, and opened a donation-only gite.

It is amazing what a few blisters will make you do...

 

[Br. David]

There does seem to be a hard-wired need, deep within - how it manifests in each individual appears to be moulded by their world view ... so we have naturally 'spiritual' or 'religious' ( is there a difference?) people responding to God's call, to the inner need to connect to that Other. Then there are those who see it as a way of temporarily leaving the hectic modern life, then there are addicted walkers ... the list is long.

Personally I believe that regardless of how it rises or manifests in a person, or how they personally justify it, that it is a deep need to connect with God (or whatever you name that Otherness, that Presence, seen through a glass darkly).

The basic question from which all other questions and actions devolve is "Is life meaningful or meaningless?" If meaningless, just chaos somehow formed into the universe we inhabit then there is no reason for anything, no altruism, no love, no care - no reason even to live ..... but if meaningful then there is purpose and we are necessarily part of something bigger, more knowing ... if so then it is our development within that is important, all else is basically scenery ... and, for me, because I believe that life is meaningful I try to connect to the greater that I am a part of ... a religious will call this God ... and I believe that it is this inbuilt urge/desire, to connect, that is at the root of pilgrimage ..

What is clear to me is that no one just steps out of their 'normal' life to spend perhaps a month or so walking as a stranger in a strange land, at some financial and personal cost, without there being a crisis in their life. By crisis I mean perhaps that they have had enough of just living day by day, possibly realised that the consumer gadgets and toys they have worked so hard for so long to acquire and that they judge their life by are merely worthless baubles. Or they find that they loathe their job but don't know what to do, or a partner has left them, or they have a sneaking feeling that their life, the one they spent so many years to build, is meaningless, and they want to find meaning. Or that a loved one is in crisis, a crisis that has removed the safe foundation from their family lives and they hope to heal the breach. ..

Sooo .. something big happens in one's life, the apparent 'coincidences' start to appear ... and one goes ... pilgrimage ...

and for those who may think of this "no, not at all, I just fancied a long walk" - then I would ask them why they didn't just walk round their local park or countryside.

Just my point of view of course :wink:

 

[marian55]

Heaven knows....I just walk. What it will do with me I can try to tell....but in depth....heaven knows.

 

[mspath]

Since 2004 I have walked the Camino Frances 6 times. Each was a pilgrimage for non-traditional spiritual reasons, giving thanks for each day lived and for my life which enabled such a journey.

Walking alone day after day I ponder varied aspects of the thousand-year history of this beloved route as well as recall several quotations which help define my personal creed. "But as for me, I will walk in mine integrity..." "I will walk in liberty for I seek thy precepts." Psalm 26:11 and 119:45 "No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path." Buddha

For those who wonder why ? One answer is "le cœur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît pas/ the heart has its reasons, of which reason knows nothing." Pascal, Les Pensées

For those who wonder why I do this at 71? My answer is why not? "what then? shall we sit idly down and say the night has come; it is no longer day? The night hath not yet come;...For age is opportunity no less than youth itself, though in another dress, and as the evening twilight fades away the sky is filled with stars, invisible by day." Longfellow, Morituri Salutamus

Thus thankful, respectful and humble, but curious and with an ever eager heart, I hope to continue.

Ultreia!

 

[ivar]

[Ivar: This thread has been edited, removed one post with an offensive statement...and the following responses that does not really make sense since the original post is no longer there]

 

[Tia Valeria]

We first visited Santiago around our 25th wedding anniversary and promised ourselves that we would walk as pilgrims one day. That took 15 years for Terry, who walked shortly after retirement when we both felt it right for him to go alone. This actually drew us closer together, maybe because it was a joint decision.
This year we are walking together for my first Camino to finally realise that promise to walk together - and to celebrate 42 years of married life.

 

[Br. David]

I like this thread- kind and thoughtful people, opening themselves to us all.

From an Eastern view ... Japanese Zen Buddhism .. where the nearest you can translate 'monk' in Japanese is 'leaf upon water, cloud across sky' .. so no mind, no religious constructions, just doing ... being ...

"The moon & sun are eternal travellers. Even the years wander on.
A lifetime adrift in a boat, or in old age leading a tired horse into the years, every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.
From the earliest times there have always been some who have perished along the road. Still I have always been drawn by windblown clouds into dreams of a lifetime of wandering."
Matsuo Basho (1644-94) Zen Abbot

 

[methodist.pilgrim.98]

After 8 Caminos, 1490 miles I find that the more I walk the less sure I am why I do it. I no longer seek answers but rather want to find the question.

 

[Bridget and Peter]

We began our serial Camino in 2007 (East Anglia to Santiago mostly by bike, via Harwich, Hook of Holland, Bruges, Reims, Vezelay, Limoges, Biarritz, Irun, Camino Norte - reached San Vincente de la Barquera so far) because it seemed the right thing to do - Pascal's 'the heart has its reasons' is a good way to explain that attraction and sense of 'rightness'. ( I also like the concept of 'non-traditional spiritual reasons' - an opportunity of being open to God in a new way?)

I could give many reasons why we have continued but Peter has just summed it up as 'it's been a way to have a pleasant adventure together'

'Adventure' indicates discovery and challenge and stretching of our horizons, in all sorts of spheres - spiritual, physical, cultural, emotional, language, historical, social . . .

'together' is something I am really grateful for - the time spent together in this different way prepared us for riding out a difficult time of life - early retirement because of ME/CFS (him) and work-related stress and depression (me) leading to downsizing and a whole change of life style ( a continuing adventure which is why I haven't been on the forum so much lately). This is why I was sorry for the woman whose husband came back having decided to leave. Of course I understand that this may have been a catalyst for something that was in the air anyway, even a change that needed to happen and an opportunity for her to move ahead ... but!

NB 'pleasant' isn't what I think while pushing the bike over a pyrenee for hours but in retrospect - very. )

 

[Deleted member 3000]

"Is life meaningful or meaningless?" If meaningless, just chaos somehow formed into the universe we inhabit then there is no reason for anything, no altruism, no love, no care - no reason even to live

I'm sorry, but I have to disagree here. Take the giraffe. It has no purposes other than to make little giraffes and eat the leaves from the top of trees. Billions of trees in areas without giraffes live quite well without their top leaves being eaten, so a giraffe is "meaningless." Yet I think it isn't.

Just my opinion. I find a meaningless life quite delightful, and find altruism, love, caring, and reason in it.

 

[Br. David]

Oh dear - I thought giraffes only existed to enthral small children :wink:

Who knows why they have long necks and matching legs, some creature has to I suppose - though, giraffes don't have long necks so that they can get to the tops of trees, they feed mainly from the ground (if it were so baby giraffes would starve - no more giraffes :cry: ).


(Let us not distort the thread by entering into 'who believes what' Falcon - I offer my opinions as to why pilgrimage as personal opinions and my response to the thread question, if you would like to enter into a discussion with me about my/your beliefs and reasoning please do pm me - as long as we keep it friendly :wink: ).

 

[Sojourner47]

.......

 

[Deleted member 3000]

My mistake. I thought you might have been implying that life is meaningless under some circumstances.

If meaningless, just chaos somehow formed into the universe we inhabit then there is no reason for anything, no altruism, no love, no care - no reason even to live ..... but if meaningful then there is purpose and we are necessarily part of something bigger

I misread what you wrote.

 

[haloranch]

I walked my first Camino starting in SJPP in 2007. Initially it was for the challenge but it soon became spiritual. I consider it one of the best things that I have done in my life. After returning home I soon began planning my next walk for the following year; however this time I decided to use the opportunity to raise funds for Rotary International's mission to eradicate polio from the world. My Via de la Plata walk, starting in Sevilla was dubbed "The Walk to Beat Polio". You can read more about it at the URL below.
In April I'm off to Le Puy to walk number three. Why? I'll find out out somewhere along the route to Santiago de Compostela.

http://viadelaplata-2008.blogspot.com/

 

[Deleted member 3000]

An Australian man walking as a fundraiser for cancer:

http://inner-west-courier.whereilive.co ... field-man/

 

[MKalcolm M]

I started walking the Camino Norte as I was at a crossroads in my life and wanted some time and space to myself, as well as a physical challenge. Before long I was walking for the pleasures of the camino, the camaraderie with other pilgrims, the scenery and the insights I got along the way. It was a life changing experience and my reasons for walking changed as I continued.

 

[Sue M]

During my working life as a teacher I took students backpacking on foreign expeditions. When I retired I missed the challenge and began to spend my time in front of the TV. Walking the Camino reminded me that I can still undertake a physical challenge. I am also a Reader inthe Church of England so it did have a religious dimension. Unfortunately I'm currently back in front of the TV! At 68 and with Irritable Bowel Syndrome I did find the Camino hard.

 

[karenfromcali]

Because I have stopped living. I want to learn to live again. To face fears as a challenge rather than something to be avoided at all costs. To meet and (gulp) talk to people. To accept that not everyone will like me and be ok with that. To realize that not everyone I meet may be "good" but that most will be decent loving people. To know that things may go wrong but try anyway. To build faith. To build courage. To encourage those I meet. Because I have never done anything remotely like it before.
Buen Camino!

 

[LesBrass]

When my friends ask me why I am going to walk I simply say... because I can. I am three years cancer free and I see life with new eyes. So I'm walking because I can.

I wanted to walk the camino many years ago but children and life came along and I was distracted... a friend walked 2 years ago and my interest was renewed but I wasn't well enough... we spent a week in northern spain this summer and driving along the roads beside the path I just knew I had to come back and walk.

I've loved reading the comments on this thread... some of the quotes are just perfect

 

[m00nman]

Reasons for doing it - here's a few...

My 'suegro' had done it and talked fondly about his trip - Love of walking - Sense of adventure - Wanting to know what's over the next hill - Discovering new Places, People and Language - Exercise - A Challenge - Time and Space to Think - To raise £1,000 for The Robin Menary Foundation for Brain Tumour Research - http://www.robinmenaryfoundation.com/

Impact on my life - it's kind of taken over as I've since dragged my wife and kids along the first 5 days of the Camino del Norte and right now I'm researching the next 5!
Can't wait to get back on the road!

 

[cableseller]

As i walked along this September a conversation turned to "why". My fellow walker from Washington DC simply passed on "you come to the camino to find one thing and instead find another".

 

[JohnMcM]

Because I have stopped living. I want to learn to live again. To face fears as a challenge rather than something to be avoided at all costs. To meet and (gulp) talk to people. To accept that not everyone will like me and be ok with that. To realize that not everyone I meet may be "good" but that most will be decent loving people. To know that things may go wrong but try anyway. To build faith. To build courage. To encourage those I meet. Because I have never done anything remotely like it before.
Buen Camino!

Take a well deserved bow Karen. Wonderfully honest, trusting and open post.
Buen Camino.

 

[t2andreo]

Trust all of us "veteran" pilgrims, your life WILL take a turn for the better. Once you do this, you will view your life differently. It profoundly affects all who do it. It is not necessarily a religious awakening (although it does that for some), it is not just a physical challenge (but it is that for some), it is not a rolling 500-mile party or a cheap holiday (thought some seem to try to make it so). It is simply a life-altering experience.

While it affects each person differently, all are ultimately affected. Just enter into it with an open mind and generous soul. Saint James and you fellow pilgrims will usually take care of the rest...

I start again from St. Jean Pied de Port on or about 27 April 2014...

 

[BrendanB]

I just wanted to do the Camino.

My wife suggested that I do it (she hasn't done it but may one day, who knows?) because she felt it would be beneficial to me and she was right (yet again!!)