PILGRIMAGE (VII) - ENDING, UNENDING

Alone again, in the very flat lands.

Photo: Michael Krier, UK Confraternity of St James

At the spanking new refugio in Burgo Ranero a note was pinned to the noticeboard from the sweet Spanish woman with whom I'd walked for a while back at the beginning. "Jim" [sic], she had written, passing through a day  or two earlier, "I hope it goes well with you and you're loving the Camino as much as I am." Yes, I thought. Yes, in spite...

In Burgo Ranero I bumped into S and E again and their breezy wit swept me along towards León. We arrived there together. A lovely, cultured city, we thought, blinking a little, surprised to be in busy streets. In the cathedral we sat beneath the high rainbow windows and let the warm light fall through us. It felt good.

I was tired, though, tired from walking 300 miles, but tired mostly from fear and then from love. More than three weeks of my month off work had passed, and I was only about two-thirds of the way to Santiago. As we were returning to the hostel that night after dinner, the cathedral's silhouette bent over us, it came to me that León could be, for now, my Santiago. I wasn't going to walk any further.

León Cathedral: photo by Michael Krier, UK Confraternity of St James

After spending a day or two there, I caught a bus to Madrid, which was hot and surprising - another country.

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"Mmm. Lovely. Interesting. Very old path, you know. More than a thousand years..." My busy, workaholic colleagues didn't really want to know, and the lessons of the Camino sat in my mind, seeds germinating slowly.

Six months later, I saw a small ad in a Sunday paper for a holiday on the Greek island of Lefkada. Quiet, green. Guided walks, and an opportunity to learn about the Alexander Technique. Among the lessons of the Camino was how much energy I spent when walking on bodily tension. So my mind pricked up. I'd never been on an organised group holiday, never thought I was the kind of person to do that. Perhaps I was becoming a different kind of person. I went, and learned, in a blue-green, sparkly, relaxing place, a little of how to be in my body and let it flow forwards, instead of clenching and pushing it. And there I took the decision to leave the job that had consumed me for years.

Agios Nikitas, Lefkada. Photo: Images of Greece

An odd Summer it was, 1997. A long Summer off, when tensions broke and assumptions shifted. The 'New Labour' government took power and I realised I had no great hopes of it, not much faith left in the party politics that had been the centre of my life for so long. Princess Diana died - the random, dramatically unexpected.

I could have gone back to Spain and completed the walk then, but didn't. Instead, I went back to Greece - Lefkada had been my first visit - and spent a long time looking at ancient ruins, thinking: huh. what now?

Back home, scrabbling to make some money from temporary work, I came upon a Buddhist meditation class in Central London, and many lights went on in my head and heart.

Back in a full-time job, I missed the daily multilingualism of the political organisation, and went back to college in the evenings to get my post-graduate qualifications in translation. In that class I made new friends, something I hadn't done in all the years I was just working, and never thought I would again.

Things were not wonderful, but in small, important, increasingly pervasive ways, they changed. The Camino was a walk back towards a self I'd lost by fleeing from difficult emotions into compulsive overwork. I learned there to trust myself and others a little more, to be a little more open and kind. The small things that change everything.

Things are not wonderful, but I've never again thought about killing myself, as I did often when I'd worked all the time for weeks and weeks, and then spent a whole weekend in bed. Although it's elusive, there's a faith in something I can reach out and touch. Not something 'out there', but right in here; a capacity to breathe through the barrier between self and time, space and others. I learned to touch this from Buddhist teachers and from many hours on a cushion. But I felt it first on the Camino, walking until I stopped thinking, feeling tentatively through that barrier to those walking alongside me and those who had walked before and were still in the stones under my feet.

I've never been back to walk the last part, from León to Santiago, though I always thought I would one day, when the time was right. The Camino de Santiago has become hugely popular in the intervening years. I doubt I would enjoy walking with crowds. I could do it in Midwinter, perhaps. And perhaps I will, one day.

But in a way it doesn't matter, because what I learned there is that the path isn't linear, there is no destination. It's not all about control and striving and pushing. It is qualitative, not quantitative. It is here, now, going deeper, this breath, this look. Never finishing, but always complete.

Photos: Michael Krier, UK Confraternity of St James

I forget these things constantly. Then something reminds me, like Dale saying 'pilgrimage' the other day. And I reach for it and try to bring it to the next thing - not to control and stress and worry, not to mistrust and clench and withdraw again, just to really be here. 

Comments

[Winston]

The word "pilgrimage" had been in my head while reading this, long before you used it. Jean, whether you return and take that last piece of the trek, you have already done what so many of us have neither the courage or resources to do. We become so engaged with debts of all kinds that our freedom to pursue and find ourselves and our world gets too often lost. The experience you have had enriches the person we see and know through your words. Thank you...

[Pica]

Jean -- tears in my eyes. I think Winston's right -- you have done what so many of us have never taken the time, made room for. It's a sweet lesson and I'm so grateful for your generosity in telling us the whole of what you did. And continue. One foot after the other...

[dale]

(o)

Thank you so much.

[zhoen]

(o)

[Natalie]

What they said and a big thanks from me too, Jean. You've made me think about the inner/outer pilgrimage/journey, wondering if I could define what/where mine has been. Connecting the inner journey to an actual physical place is important, I think.

[marja-leena]

Such an inspiring and awesome journey that you took, and continue on, Jean! Thank you for sharing it. May the journey still be sweet.
(And I love the new photo of you here, you are beautiful!)

[dave]

Yes, a very satisfying essay all around.

As I recall, the León cathedral was the nicest one on the entire Camino.

[Henrik Hansen]

I found you blog from google blogalert, and I hope its allright to comment.
You are absolutely right about the camino. It doesn't matter if you finish in Santiago or how long you walked. There is no distance... Its more about you and what revelation or insught the route gives you.
I plannede to walk from Leon to Santiago april this year. I walked to Ponferrada, stopped because of injuries and then from Sarria to Santiago. I had to much speed and stress, and the Camino stopped me. I got started again, with help from to sweet angels from Valencia - I finished in Santiago, but I allready got fine insight before Santiago.

[udge]

Marvellous. Thank you for posting these, Jean.

[beth]

Jean, thank you so much for writing this story, this journey. I'm very moved by it too.

[Richard Lawrence Cohen]

Beautiful and inspiring, Jean. Thank you.

[sky]

Jean, this was such an inspiring groups of posts; I could not stop reading. Thank you so much for sharing such personal challenge and triumph. You open us all to the idea that there are wonderful gifts we can give ourselves if only we are willing to explore. :-)

[rr]

Oh Jean. You are an inspiration. Thank you so much.