- Time of past OR future Camino
- Some in the past; more in the future!
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Its been a little over 3 weeks now since my last day on the Camino de Santiago & in the space of that time, the memory & the mourning for being back on The Way has its moments of feeling palpable. The journey you’ve all followed me on through the photos I’ve shared does little to truly harness the emotion & humility of being a pilgrim. Contrary to the blue skies & wild flowers, what the photos don’t capture is the pain, the tears, the comradery, the willpower, the love & power for change that exists within the confines of the Camino.
Your life suddenly becomes very simple - Each day you wake before the sun rises, quietly repack your belongings in the dark & you find a reason that compels you to put one foot in front of the other. That reason compels you to walk through pain; through shin splints, tendinitis, blisters, rain & hail. You walk, you eat, you laugh, you sleep, you repeat.
You cry. You cry because you’re happy, you cry as a result of pain, you cry because you’re humbled & you cry because of the deep love & respect you have for nature, the path & the people on it. Often you cry without reason at all.
The Camino makes you family; everything you have you must be willing to share. You share your last Compead, your wine, your burdens, your humour, your thoughts. You share of yourself without limitations, hesitation or personal gain. What you share becomes the testimony of your experience.
You share with strangers & quickly learn that 1 step back is more valuable than 100 steps forward in order to help another without thought for yourself. This lesson quickly breeds change & you see the best version of your Self reflected back at you in the eyes of those who you’ve stopped to help. The compassion, both given & received, cracks your heart wide open & makes it impossible to not be unequivocally changed by the experience of being human. By the experience of being a pilgrim.
The Camino compels you to look within, to be vulnerable, to let yourself need & be needed, to be compassionate; to dig deep into the confines of your heart & to learn about yourself. It tests your limits of physical & emotional pain & spins what you find into the most valuable possession you’ve ever held in your own two hands - The most authentic version of your Self you have ever known.
The journey to Santiago de Compostela is not an endurance challenge, a test of fitness, a competition or a walk about kilometres or miles. The Way is a journey into yourself. A journey into friendship, contemplation, silence, nature, humility, spirituality & gratitude.
To my Camino Family xx
Another I have a hard time putting into a simple word, but I will try to explain. For me the Camino was spiritual in that I felt connected to pilgrims from generations past who made the journey out of penance or dedication. There was something special for me to be connected in some way to others hundreds of years ago. That spiritual connection was deeply meaningful to me. Maybe someone can express it better if you know what I mean.
I simply walk the Camino because it gives me joy. Inner peace. Perhaps that's because it brings life down to basics
Just trying to be a good person.
It's different for each of us, I have seen some people who it has struck like a thunderbolt and has completely changed their lives, inwardly and outwardly and they have followed it. With me it varies but usually that inner peace has gone south after 2-4 weeks, this time it lasted 5 months, so the system does have a grip but it's grip is only as tight as we grip it.I
haven't found it yet ... the "system" still has too much advantage over my "being
For me more like got to get my butt back to work to pay the bills so I can walk the Camino again, lol. No time for pining over a holiday gone past, lol.
the spirit of the journey, in my opinion, is not on the real path, while you are walking it or a few days after returning home, when there is still a mix of joy, nostalgia, lightness and novelty.
What I could define as the "spirit of the journey" should now live within you, in the daily routine of your life.
I haven't found it yet ... the "system" still has too much advantage over my "being".
And it gains more and more meters .... I just have to defend myself.
So I can't give an right answer but I gladly quote these post:
Fabulous post!Of course,the spirit of the camino is so much greater than the above. But those are a few bits that can start to give a flavour.
I can easily relate to your (great) post, as well as many other posts in this thread. Thanks to all!You are right in saying that the spirit of the Camino can be hard to define or explain to non-pilgrims. That's why, whenever I am asked for a word to describe the Camino, the one I pick is "ineffable" (incapable of being expressed in words). There is a Chinese word "tao" for which the Spanish translation is "camino". At the very beginning of the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu says something like "The Tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao." Some things are slippery that way. The act of confining them within the bounds of words changes them and they are no longer what they were, like probability waves collapsing.
All that said, I will play the game and try and capture some fragments of the Tao, the Way, the Camino. Each is just a tiny piece. But perhaps, like a hologram, each fragment contains the whole.
You see the spirit of the camino whenever you see people helping and supporting each other - carrying another's weight when the burden becomes too heavy for a fellow pilgrim, sharing from the limited amount that we carry ourselves when we see another in need, or the local residents with their donativo stands or helping pilgrims who have departed from the path find it again.
You see the spirit of the camino in the connections people make with each other, sometimes in Camino families that can last for weeks, sometimes in fifteen minutes of walking together or while sharing a table at a bar.
You see the spirit of the camino in the connections people make with the land that they are walking through, land that they are measuring and experiencing step by step, day by day, through the cities and peublos, through the fields and forests.
You see the spirit of the camino in the understanding that people gain of their bodies, through the aches and pains, the weariness and fatigue, often the injuries and ailments, but also the growing strength and appreciation of our capabilities and endurance.
You see the spirit of the camino, not only in the community and conversation, but in the silence and space, space away from the distractions of our regular daily life, space where we can see ourselves, where we can see the larger universe and reality, where we can see that the line between the two is not as clear as it seems when we aren't paying attention, space where we can see where we've come from and get some ideas about where we are going.
You see the spirit of the camino in the way it gives so much and requires so little (in fact, if we bring too much it encourages us to reduce what we are carrying), requiring only that we keep putting one foot in front of the other (for those of us who are walking) and move ourselves closer to Santiago.
Of course,the spirit of the camino is so much greater than the above. But those are a few bits that can start to give a flavour.
So true “the grip is only as tight as you grip it!”It's different for each of us, I have seen some people who it has struck like a thunderbolt and has completely changed their lives, inwardly and outwardly and they have followed it. With me it varies but usually that inner peace has gone south after 2-4 weeks, this time it lasted 5 months, so the system does have a grip but it's grip is only as tight as we grip it.
Someone said to me 4 weeks ago some spiritual messages are " Just let go!" which I have tried but it almost feels like I need special instruction in doing this.So true “the grip is only as tight as you grip it!”
I have met people who didn’t get it at all and it was just a walk and I felt so sad for them.
I guess they weren’t ready yet to either grip or to be gripped!
What a fantastic definition.....it hits the nail on its head.....Spirit of the Camino? Orujo!
OK, cheap joke. Serious answer: Camino, for me, is a journey in liminal space to a place of the heart. Time after time I have felt the shift / transition; whatever you'd like to call it.
Dear old Wiki provides (and saves me some typing) "... liminality is the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of a rite of passage, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the rite is complete." Which is Anthropologist speak for that of which my gran would say "The veil is thin here".
Why? Unless something is causing you harm why the need to let go.
The Camino spirit lives on in me. I miss the physical journey but won’t let go of the memories or messages. Hence why I and many of us visit this forum.
Maybe I’m missing something in yr post?
Yes this is my feeling too - 'Let it be' carries a more accurate meaning of what is meant than 'let it go:' Holding experience in an open hand, and when the time comes for it to end, not hanging on but gracefully moving on.Is it perhaps learning to hold things lightly rather than tightly?
I think I will hold moments of Camino in my heart forever: that view, that conversation, that sudden crash of bird-song and sunlight somewhere on the Meseta that allowed me to understand that I had been elsewhere for a while. But I won't worry them; I don't need to gnaw those bones.'Let it be'
Could you clarify ‘William Palmer’, please. Somehow the words remind me of the magical paintings of Samuel Palmer...I think I will hold moments of Camino in my heart forever: that view, that conversation, that sudden crash of bird-song and sunlight somewhere on the Meseta that allowed me to understand that I had been elsewhere for a while. But I won't worry them; I don't need to gnaw those bones.
The trees I planted when the latest member of my tribe was born are flourishing. The sun blazes in between the storm clouds of our latest Atlantic Depression (no allusion intended). I put the garden to bed between the showers, light the woodburner in the workshop for the first time since March.
I have stopped planning a Camino for 2021. I've stopped planning much at all except where the Broad Beans will go in November and when to cull the Kale; which stretch of which Sussex trail I'll devote my Ditch-Pigging to this year and, which way I'll take to where when heart and feet need to roam. Not quite William Palmer "compelled to walk from that day to this between the worlds of magic and of men" but always a pilgrim, always on the way.
I like "open hand". Like a tiny kitten, or bird, or other delicate thing....Yes this is my feeling too - 'Let it be' carries a more accurate meaning of what is meant than 'let it go:' Holding experience in an open hand, and when the time comes for it to end, not hanging on but gracefully moving on.
This is the best thing I've read all morning.I think I will hold moments of Camino in my heart forever: that view, that conversation, that sudden crash of bird-song and sunlight somewhere on the Meseta that allowed me to understand that I had been elsewhere for a while. But I won't worry them; I don't need to gnaw those bones.
The trees I planted when the latest member of my tribe was born are flourishing. The sun blazes in between the storm clouds of our latest Atlantic Depression (no allusion intended). I put the garden to bed between the showers, light the woodburner in the workshop for the first time since March.
I have stopped planning a Camino for 2021. I've stopped planning much at all except where the Broad Beans will go in November and when to cull the Kale; which stretch of which Sussex trail I'll devote my Ditch-Pigging to this year and, which way I'll take to where when heart and feet need to roam. Not quite William Palmer "compelled to walk from that day to this between the worlds of magic and of men" but always a pilgrim, always on the way.
Well put!Amen to all the above. I would add the releasing of expectations. It's hard to follow in the footsteps of all the fantastic stories and not expect great things. Surrendering to the unfolding of what your Camino actually is, instead of what you think it should be! Sometimes the unfolding is indeed, not what you expected or what you necessarily want. Flexibility to make necessary changes is part of the Camino as well.
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