The New...

So now my year has entered a new phase ... I am back to 'work', well, new work for me . I was very excited to take up a position with Canada World Youth as their Development Officer for Global Learner Programs (many of you will recognize this as the organization I have run my school's Costa Rica projects with for the past several years). Its a short 4 month contract, but just enough I felt to get a sense of what it is like to work in the not-for-profit sector do some educational work outside the classroom and an opportunity to excercise my transferrable skills (turns out ... I have some!!). I am really enjoying things so far ... the quiet 'yogic' environment of our office space, time to have meaningful discussions, hour long lunch breaks, limited 'homework' and most of all working with people who are hard working and enthusiastically & wholly committed to the work that they do in this field, there is a good, positive, hopeful energy present working in this sector.

Just by way of transition ... I must mention that over the past few weeks while 'reintegrating' back into my life here I have noticed often little things that spring up in front of me asking questions like " is this still how you want to do this" ? or ... is this really how you feel? Reminds me of the Pirsig quote: 'The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away. Puzzling.' However, I would like to / am trying to confront these little things ... Martin (oh yes!! we did meet him again in the end!!) says that in many ways the camino begins once you get back home and I try to keep this in mind when I confront the changes I see in myself. It has been nice to chat (thank you technology this time!) with camino friends about this re-integration phase ... in particular I am missing our 'team red flag' (see photo above) we liked to think of ourselves on 'the amazing race' (camino edition) from time to time & created thoroughly hilarious commentaries for ourselves and other 'teams' involving fellow unsuspecting pilgrims... if only they knew the names we had created from them "the ponytail singers" to give you an outrageous example...) From left is Audrey who I met in Rabbanal and had many adventures and laughs with including coffee breaks in unusual places, trying to pin the heart shaped sand message on Jacques from France and singing opera to budgees ... Vin & I are center and Martin the miracle cream man who rejoined us in Sarria!

It was Martin who gave me this poem in Santiago... something for the future...

The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

And I must follow, if I can,

Pursuing it with wary feet,

Until it joins some larger way,

Where may paths and errands meet.

And whither then? I cannot say.

~J.R.R Tolkein

Learning & Unlearning

Home now in Toronto and am lucky enough to have a few days to slowly get back to my life here giving me plenty of time to process and revisit the weeks, days and moments that have in some ways gone by so quickly, but in another way I also feel that time entered another realm on the camino... days felt full, I think this is because I was slow... it is such a contemporary cliche " life is racing by"... infact it seems quite the opposite to me now... life is still, it was me that was racing by.
Once I settled into a pace on the camino, I began to notice the metaphors that the walk brought into focus; it is often said that walking the camino de Santiago is like a walk through life... a small journey in the face of a much larger one. During the walk, I learned much... historically and culturally of course, but I also found many lessons in the ways of living. Here are a few thoughts on lessons learned:
Number 1:
Even when I thought I was alone, even when I intended to be, planned to be, I was never truly alone.
Number 2:
It was logistically impossible to plan ahead once the camino was begun for a multitude of reasons... this taught me something very important...to look to and live only in the moment, making decisions only one day at a time... it seemed that the long journey was possible when I didn't let the future destination and its great distance overwhelm me.
Number 3:
When I found myself in a set of circumstances that I did not intend, or even tried hard to avoid I began to realize it was best if I just learned to relax and see what happens next ... inevitably something or someone interesting would present itself / themself and generally, I was better off for the change of plan / intention.
Number 4:
I learned the importance of walking my own pace. If you try to keep up with others or try to have others keep up with you, someone will get hurt.
Number 5:
Always there were people who would walk alongside me for a time and then I would lose them for a time, or maybe forever. I learned to let them go, knowing they had a different path, a different pace to walk that was influenced by other variables beyond my control & I really enjoyed the time I had with them.
Number 6:
Arriving at Santiago / 'Ithaca'... many thoughts on what was learned about the destination versus the value of the journey ... best described in C.P. Cavafy's poem 'Ithaca' ... I will try to attach this somewhere...

Santiago

Although I believe it to be true that Madrid is an utterly beautiful, romantic city, we arrived this morning having taken a sleeper car on the night train from Santiago to what felt like the most chaotic place on earth... walls of concrete, commuters... heck, people that work! (this was eerily absent in some of the tiny northern villages... more on the decline of the rural communities of northern Spain later...)
Yes. We made it to Santiago yesterday after hauling ourselves through the last 20km mostly by starlight so that we could be present for the pilgrim mass at the cathedral at noon (one of many pilgrim rituals...) The feeling upon arrival into the Cathedral plaza was indescribable for so many reasons... The first thing I noticed of course was the imposing size of this cathedral... one of the largest ever built by human hands, most of the limestone was brought by pilgrims to the site for years on end. It dwarfed every other cathedral we had seen along the way. The second thing I noticed was the tourists... hundreds of tourists who had stepped off their buses mere meters away and walked into the square with multiple well suited translators. Of course with hoards of tourists followed the hoards of vendors and hawkers with walking staffs and scallop shells (camino paraphanalia)... I even saw a group ask a fellow walker if she would pose for photos with her credential (kind of like a passport that gets filled with stamps along the way to prove your camino) And then, to the back of the square we saw our fellow walkers. Everyone was embracing, laughing, crying, sitting, staring... and it was like this for the rest of the day... everyone just stayed in the square hoping to welcome others as they arrived that they had lost touch with along the way. Vince and I both had people we hoped to see again and before we caught our train we saw each one of them. It was magic.
Vince has flown back to Canada now and I´m in Madrid for a few days. I thought it would be nice to see the Prado, do some shopping... you know, ´civilized stuff´. Went to the Prado this afternoon, its huge and impressive, but I somehow got lost more times inside this museum than on the whole camino ... and I had maps! After this I went up to the ´high street´Calle Serrano in the hopes of replacing my camino shoes with something a little more lovely... nothing fit... or maybe I just didn´t want it to?
I know I have alot more to say about this camino, so although the journey may be finished, my thinking about it is not... stay tuned...

Side Projects...

Met a man named Hans several days ago and have been sort of ´hopscotching´ with him ever since... He is a big-wig at a Dutch company (or so I suspect from his very humble description of what he does...) funny, actually, in most cases people on the camino take several days to get to the question of - so, what is it that you do in your "real life"... sometimes it even takes a day or so to get to "what´s your name"?!
Hans is a very methodical, organized, planner sort and true to form has several little side projects going on as he walks the camino that involve ´lists´. The one I thought was interesting was the list for what constitutes camino stress. I haven´t asked him why he has chosen this topic, but some of the things on his list are rather funny ... things like: having to walk more than 10km in the morning before finding a cafe con leche, running into the same person day after day that you keep trying to politely get away from, a constant barrage of unsolicited advice from a stranger about how to care for your feet when you are 55 years old... and the list goes on...
I thought keeping this list was an interesting idea... I however, am not interested in the topic of stress... I have found the topic of peace has come up again and again on the camino... every now and then someone will say... "isn´t it peaceful / ahhh muy tranquillo" ... and so, for me, a ´what is peace list´has been taking shape in my thoughts the past couple of days ... particularly in the early hours. Some thoughts for the list so far: Peace is... being patient while you wait for the sun to rise, arriving in a new town and feeling like you live there because other caminitas / caminitos are waving and saying hello, the first smell of fresh air in the morning in Galecia, miles and miles of fields in front of you and not a single sound (except a few echoing cowbells), strangers sharing advice about good Albergues or sandwiches (bocadillos), someone you´ve never seen before coming up to you to tell you that ´so and so´has a knee bandage and they heard you needed one so if you go down the road and on your left you´ll find them in the plaza square; while alone on a stretch of highway a Brazilian man I´d never seen before came up to me and through broken ´portuguese, spanish, english´ politely asked if we could walk the next 7km together as this was was a particularly dangerous section and we should look out for one another... These are just a few instances when I´ve felt peace... there are others, but this list helps perhaps to give sense...
Less than 100km to go now...
Buen Camino,
A.

Solo for awhile...

Hello all,
We´re in Sarria... the last 100km to go!!!
I realize I am leaving huge gaps here ... but it seems that telecommunications are few and far between in rural Spain ... and I am okay with this!
So, for the past week, Vince and I decided to take some solo time just to enjoy the camino at our own pace and to meet others along the road individually. It was good timing since we ´re-entered´the camino at Leon and there were two routes branching off for a little section ... a perfect time to begin a slightly different camino.
We just rejoined each other yesterday at the top of the cordillera Cantabrica at O Cebrerio, a stunningly beautiful celtic village at a couple of thousand feet.
The most interesting thing about the past week for me was the realization that although I had set out alone, with the intention of enjoying some solitude for awhile... you are never really alone on the camino. I had some wonderful moments in the early hours when I set out in the dark with stars above each day... but that was about it really. Typically I would join others for coffee mid morning and perhaps carry on with them for a few km´s and of course you always meet up at the end of the day to recount events and reconnect with those you have seen over the past few days ... its always a nice surprise to see who ends up at the same Albergue.
It was along this stretch that the camino finally began to wear me down a little... had a bit of a cold, first blister and worst of all, shin splints... for those of you who are runners, that term strikes fear into my very core! These were bone breakingly painful shin splints... what would I do... take a bus? Wait it out a couple of days? No. I limped into an Albergue in Rabanal del Camino and within 5 minutes was sized up by an Irishman who just looked at me and said ... are you going to make it? YES! I firmly said (I believed it too!). Well then, he said, you´d better meet Martin... And so, during the most trying day of my camino so far, I was guided step by step by Martin from the UK who has done this before... he continuously reapplied topical ibuprofin to my aching leg and was chatter enough to keep my mind off my pain and keep me laughing through 30km of brutal downhills (but with stunning vistas) from Rabbanal to Molenaseca. (Thank you Martin! I will forever be grateful for you!) When we finally arrived late the next afternoon... I asked him .. why did you stick it out with me? He replied... I just knew you would need somebody today, and this is the camino way.... I haven´t seen him since, but I bought an extra tube of ´Voltaren´the miracle cream he shared with me... and I hope I get to give it to someone else along the way.
Buen Camino,
A.