Revisiting the Camino - how was it for you?(!)

[Caminando]

This may have come up before...


I first did the Camino Frances in '90 or '91 from Le Puy. I just loved it.

10 years or so later I did the Frances again from Jaca, thinking that it would be a similarly wonderful experience, but I was quite wrong, quite naive to think this. This second walk was fantastic, but NOTHING like the first by way of inner experience.

Then a few years back I tried the VDP from Salamanca (after failing from Merida -I was maybe 5 days into that before the heat finished me). That was also great, but NOTHING like the first.

Anyway, I will be back on the Camino, but I will not now attempt or expect to recapture that first astounding Way. I will never forget it.

Maybe I've learned something, for once in my life!

:arrow:

 

[lynnejohn]

Caminando -

Very true!

After my first camino, I knew that I would walk the camino as long as I could, and I promised myself that every camino would be a singular and unique experience.
My first camino was so magical, so liberating, so rich in discovery about myself, what it meant to me to be a pilgrim, meeting life-long friends, and of course in discovering Spain and its people. I still begin each camino with anticipation and openness, and allow it to unfold and present itself as it will. But never with the magic of the first!

"You can never enter the same river twice."

lynne

 

[sillydoll]

This has come up before but it always fascinates me. Some people never manage to recapture the magic of their 'first time' and others seem to grow into the camino experience. (I am one of the evolving pilgrims and know that I still have a lot to learn so need to walk many more caminos!!)
I posted this a couple of years ago.

In “Journey to Portugal” Jose Saramago who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1998, said:
'The journey is never over. Only travellers come to an end. The end of one journey is simply the start of another. You have to see what you missed the first time, see again what you already saw, see in springtime what you saw in summer, in daylight what you saw at night, see the sun shining where you saw the rain falling, see the crops growing, the fruit ripen, the stone which has moved, the shadow that was not there before. You have to go back to the footsteps already taken, to go over them again or add fresh ones alongside them. You have to start the journey anew. Always. The traveler sets out once more."

 

[Deleted member 3000]

...I will not now attempt or expect to recapture...

This will make each Camino unique; a good attitude, in my opinion.

 

[lynnejohn]

Sil -
I love that quote - it's beautiful and evocative. I didn't mean that I didn't learn and enjoy new experiences on each and every camino, nor did I mean to imply that after the first I was jaded. Indeed - each camino has been special and ultimately memorable for many unique reasons and I look for that uniqueness each time. In another thread here, someone who hasn't yet walked a camino refers to himself as a "virgin". That's what it was like for my first camino. And as far as I know, one can never be a virgin after that "first time"

lynne

 

[sillydoll]

The thread I was referring to is "Second time around"
There were some good replies then too.

el-camino-frances/topic3531.html#p18804

 

[Portia1]

In Santiago I found myself saying Buen Camino to people and really meaning it because the longest and most meaningful journey is the journey to within. Maybe the physical part was over (or, in the case of many returnees just the first stage), but the journey itself has only begun. So many asked me if the Camino matched my expectations. They were surprized when I told them that one of the first things I had to let go before I even landed in Spain were any expectations. I am still processing.

 

[Caminando]

Thanks all; I enjoyed reading of other experiences here...