A Spring Camino

[BobM]

Smell is powerfully evocvative – after all Proust wrote A la Recherché du Temps Perdu based on associations arising from the smell of a Madelaine.

Smell is also restorative. I often plucked a sprig of wild lavender or fennel to smell as I walked along.

Closer to Santiago the trail passed through wet eucalyptus plantations. For Australians, the smell of wet eucalyptus leaves underfoot and of crushed leaves in the hand is evocative of the Australian bush.

Then there are the colours of spring, with an abundance of flowers of all kinds – poppies, thistles, yellow flowers, brilliant sky-blue flowers growing on small weedy plants. Pink-red bell flowers. Lilac flowers from bulbs or maybe orchids. There were really tiny ones that you had to stop and enjoy from close up.

Closer to Santiago there were brilliant red cherries ripening on the trees. Other trees had orange-red leaves, transparent in the morning sun. Early on, some shrubs had masses of dense white flowers that fell in the wind and were blown into tiny snow drifts on the path.

Higher up in the mountains, the shrubs and flowers were smaller. Looking across the valleys on the climb up to O’Cebreiro, the opposite hillsides glowed with patches of yellow flowers.

Stone walls along the path were often thickly covered with lush green mosses, often with the tiniest flowers peeping out.

At Finisterre, mosses and lichens and small flowery shrubs clung to rocks and crevices to survive the fierce Atlantic winds.

Don’t forget the sounds of spring either! Every field and hedge was alive with birdsong. Leave the iPod at home and just enjoy what nature turns on for free. Listen to your feet on the stones, the wind in the trees, distant bells, sheep. Hear your own breath. You will almost burst with happiness - or maybe even song!

Regards

Bob M

 

[lillypond]

>>Don’t forget the sounds of spring either! Every field and hedge was alive with birdsong. Leave the iPod at home and just enjoy what nature turns on for free. Listen to your feet on the stones, the wind in the trees, distant bells, sheep. Hear your own breath. You will almost burst with happiness - or maybe even song!>>

I love your post. Everyday life (Sydney) is so noisy, especially now as I type, I am having a swimming pool taken out of my backyard/garden and three hydraulic drills have been going full-pelt for three days now. I know I use noise, tv, etc. just to drown out my thinking

I thought you might like this:

One day the Buddha held up a flower in front of an audience of 1,250 monks and nuns. He did not say anything for quite a long time. The audience was perfectly silent. Everyone seemed to be thinking hard, trying to see the meaning behind the Buddha's gesture. Then, suddenly, the Buddha smiled. He smiled because someone in the audience smiled at him and at the flower. . . . To me the meaning is quite simple. When someone holds up a flower and shows it to you, he wants you to see it. If you keep thinking, you miss the flower. The person who was not thinking, who was just himself, was able to encounter the flower in depth, and he smiled. That is the problem of life. If we are not fully ourselves, truly in the present moment, we miss everything.
--Thich Nhat Hanh

regards
lillypond.

 

[BobM]

A journey of stillness

Often on the Camino we are so focussed on getting to the next albergue, or to Santiago that we miss what is right in front of us.

Sometimes we make our greatest journeys by standing still and treasuring that moment, that place.

Regards

Bob M

 

[lynnejohn]

And sometimes you appreciate those moments even more fully when you are at home - going through your pictures and reliving those singular moments that were so important. This is what always draws me back.

Peace.

lynne