PILGRIMAGE (IV) - CHOICELESS AWARENESS

Puente la Reina

The Pyrenees are a hard start, but a great one because once you’re over that (and over sleeping with twenty strange men), you pretty much know you’ll continue. A great start, too, because they are silent, grandiose and soaringly lovely, and you know there are more such wild, joyous landscapes to come… although not for a while. For the first few days in Spain the landscape was very varied: green foothills, pretty villages, not-at-all pretty villages, considerable time spent walking through prickly brush and along melting, roaring main roads in the endless peripheries of Pamplona, not to mention the afternoon spent skirting an isolated factory, where murky, viscous effluent trickled all around and across the path. Gulp. Spain in its endless variety, and many forcible reminders of what an extremely hard, rocky, prickly country it is!

I don’t drive a car and have always walked everywhere, in town and country. But the thing about a long, linear path is that it has to continue no matter what, so it takes you where you’d never normally choose to walk. And you keep going – no option. What a long walk has, though, is rhythm. It has joy and satisfaction, too, even on a bad day. A bad day is a good day when it’s over. So the good/bad duality, the instant evaluation, starts to be eroded.

When I summon sensory memories of the Camino, so much comes rushing back: sand, rock, rain and heat, prickly scrub and panting uphill… and the texture of cheap, slightly sticky nylon bedspreads. Walkers’ hostels that are free or extremely cheap, run by churches or local authorities, were sometimes furnished with loving care, more often a parade of the discarded and the tacky. They were sometimes not too clean, and you never knew who you might wake up next to. And they were palaces, cherished homes for a night, exquisite nests for exhausted bodies. Many years later, I read in Buddhist texts about ‘choiceless awareness’ – just experiencing the stream of phenomena as they are, not rushing to classify and judge. It’s a tough concept for the children of consumer society. A difficult concept, but not so difficult in reality. Here is the only available bed in a one-horse place and you need to lie down on it now, soft or lumpy, clean or grubby, alone in a cavernous dormitory or cramped in dubious company. You have no choice. And it’s fine. It’s a liberation.

I went walking on the Camino alone, over forty, and not particularly fit. A daft, graceless enterprise, it was, with low expectations. Of course, I’d limp and sigh and linger while taller, fitter, younger more experienced walkers would keep passing me and disappearing over the horizon. They did. And that was a liberation too. Only this path, this time, these aims and obstacles, and a miraculous, relieved arrival somewhere every day.

Eunate, photo by Michael Krier, UK Confraternity of St James

I’m so glad I set off alone, for so many reasons. You aren’t really alone, of course, on a path walked by so many – far fewer eleven years ago than walk it now, but still I never went a day without meeting other pilgrims, walking and on bicycles. In October, outside the Summer holiday season, some were young and unemployed; some, like the bank-manager and the psychiatrist, had left their jobs and were unsure what next; many were newly retired from work and free for the first time ever to leave home for many weeks, people like S and E, who left their home beside Lake Geneva on foot the day after E finished work on his 60^th birthday. They set out accoutred with Swiss comfort and precision. By the time I met them several weeks later, they’d posted home their sleeping bags, all their books except the Spanish dictionary and most of their clothes. They each had one change of underwear only, and when it wore in holes they looked up the Spanish for knickers and purchased more

I could speak to most of the pilgrims in English, French or Spanish. Being much in demand as a translator made up for my slow pace and small daily distances. Fit, fast walkers could cover 25 or 30 miles in a day. I, on the hard, stony, uphill-downhill path, with my stuff on my back, could cover 12 or 15 miles, and more than once I had to stop for a day, my feet swollen, burning and leaden.

Quickly, though it was wonderful. New friends and new landscapes every day. Movement, achievement, variety sufficient unto themselves. Life reduced to the path, and the path as a metaphor for life. Just one foot in front of the other. Choiceless awareness.

In the Rioja vineyards, near Logroño: photo by Michael Krier

Comments

[Pica]

I once had the chance to go to Santiago from Madrid. On horseback. I didn't take it -- even in the early 70s it was a very expensive trip and I was very young and not Catholic and the whole idea seemed odd -- but how I wish I'd done it, reading this. Nowadays I'd be far more likely to do it by bike...

[Jean]

It's a terrific bike ride, I think, but, well, walking - human or horse - is the authentic experience, as done for a thousand years and more...

[udge]

(o)

[Ill-gotten wealth]

Children go to "heaven". They must behave apprioriately, think correctly and be genuinely god-fearing. Their innocence is their superiority, reflected in the favor in which the gods hold them.
Religions teach that old people to go to heaven when they die. They don't. Old people are reincarnated. It's children who go to heaven.

Children are discounted by adults in society. This is nothing new, for adults have always minimized the wisdom of children.
The gods corrupt people as they age, use trust-building tactics and soon these adults view the children as ignorant, yet to understand the god's system. Ironically, quite the opposite it true:::
The wisdom the gods impart to children, either through their innocence/purity or (religious-based) educational pursuits, are the gods sharing the truth with their most favored people. They teach children to have faith. Understanding the god's geographical clues hurts people because they illustrate negative things.
It's the children whom the gods teach the right way for it is the children who still have a chance.

Females are better people than males
Historically the role of females was as enforcers of decency. Men have god's disfavor and enagage in behavior damaging to themselves and their families. Women who adhered to this crucial role helped the men understand and avoid inappropriate behavior while enhancing decency in their domestic environment. These women sacrifice to help the disfavored:::They are like Jews, scattered throughout Europe to help the misled Christians.
Many disfavored groups embrace "paternalistic superiority" and believe the men are "entitled"::::;If Italian women tried to enforce decency the men beat and raped them.
The gods subsequently used this Italian charecterisitic to corrupt other morbidly disfavored groups, legitimizing this and other associated behavior.

Forgiveness:::Some Meditereanean preaches the virtues of "forgiveness". I guess. It was their kind who fucked up Planet Earth.
The Jesus who preached forgiveness was evil, the same Jesus backed by the god's powers via miracles.
"Eye for an eye makes the world blind." Oh, no::::"Eye for an eye" conditions people and forces them to behave appropriately.
One goal of the Iraq War was to eliminate Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein was an OUTSTANDING leader for the disfavored Iraqis. He kept the peace among the grossly disfavored which, once US pullout is complete, may never be achieved again.
If Saddam Hussein was assigned American urban ghettos the blacks whom resided there would become decent, and their children would have a real opportunity to ascend where none exists today.
"Forgiveness" is yet another dynamic of Christianity which is preditory.
This current environment where the gods punish evil covertly enables the perception of evil rewarded and the indecnecy that results produces a planet which is not sustainable.

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There is one geographic clue I have not addressed in years:::Uranus, a planet tilted 90 degrees on its axis. I have stated in years past that I think this is yet another geographic clue offered by the gods, this one suggesting the fate of planet Earth, that tectonic plate subduction would be the method of disposal:::Earth’s axis will shift breaking continental plates free and initiating mass subduction.
Undesirables will either perish in the government marijuana erradication program "gone awry" or be the recipients of reparations granted by the US government because of it.
Or both.
I believe the New Testiment battle of the Anti-Christ and the Second Coming of Christ will ocurr in subsequent years SPECIFICALLY because these people will be distracted with the money during the event.
When the Earth's axis shifts people will be cast into outer space with gold cards in hand.
I think this was foreshadowed on an episode of the Simpsons where Homer and Bart are on the disfavored ship and eject, only to experience a sense of euphoria, expand then explode in the vacuum of space.

Recall I recently brought up the possible Manifest Destiny-positioned Chinese invasion of the United States (west coast) upon economic abandonment by their clone host tools (economic destruction and deterioration.mp3). They have mentioned this in years past.
Newspaper just made a curious change where they combined the sports and business sections, and to properly read the business section you need to read "backward". Like Asian languages.
Tariffs. The gods are instruct their tools to defend open free trade, as they will to the bitter end. The gods have a script and they need economic (d)evolution sufficient to justify what they have scripted for our future, so they use their tools to adamantly defend this concept of fair trade::::The time for tariffs has long since past.
Recently they have stated that the Chinese are holding US paper. Some patriot W is, selling US debt to communists. Perhaps the invasion will be a way to "redeem" these bonds after they've fallen into default.
Incidentally, the Chinese recalls (lead-based paint on toys, toothpaste, etc) may be in preparation for this invasion, a tactic esuring a percentage of disfavored affected will fight to the bitter end.
I've recently stated how the gods will use the Japanese as role models to the Chinese as China becomes increasingly Westernized. Expect a cultural movement celebrating Japanese culture in decades prior, much as we witnessed in the west in the past.
If we do witness a Chinese invasion on American soil don't be surprised if the very same tactics the Japanese employed on the Chinese will be used on us. Lack of empathy is a dynamic the gods will find important in the context of justification, niggers:::
I've recently stated how the gods will use the Japanese as role models to the Chinese as China becomes increasingly Westernized.
Feedback II.wav
Recall how Americans so frequently laughed at the French for their lack of military response when confronted by the Nazi army. To resist would have been suicide. Their reaction was appropriate. The opposite would be one as we witnessed in Vietnam. These are morbidly disfavored Asians and take great pride in their resistance. The gods DO use their pride in resistance by positioning in appropriate temptation, ensuring minimal sucess.
If events transpire I recommend you respond like the French and not like the Vietnamese. If this is a west coast event it may not have serious effect but if it is nationwide the United States will lose over a hundred million in the South and midwest.