Walking the Camino de Santiago
Thoughts about the spiritual aspects of the Camino.
Yesterday after arriving in the city, I spent an unconscionable amount of time running errands. I have a room here for two nights, which allows me to completely empty and rearrange my backpack. Somewhere, tucked deep in a pocket, I found a tiny folded up map of some unknown town in France. The errands included replacing some missing or lost […]
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Today was my 40th day walking on this pilgrimage. It seems a significant day, though the actual walking portion was not too long. I was up and packed fairly early, but breakfast options along the route were a little limited. I left to hit a nearby panderia, but they didn’t open until 7 AM. It turns out that this was […]
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Today was a lesson in listening to your body. Or, rather, a lesson in listening to your foot and not your stomach. Or perhaps, today was a series of lessons that I need to learn, or remember. Jacopo and I shared dinner last night with a Canadian couple, Etienne and Colleen. I immediately noticed that both of them wore the […]
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Serge sure puts on a spread! Dinner with the other pilgrims in the gîte was enormous, and enormously fun, even if most of the conversation was in a language I can’t understand. Breakfast was similarly generous, and I had a hard time getting out the door. We finally left about 7:00 AM. My goal today was the city of Moissac, […]
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We sang vespers with the sisters last night in Gramat. I have prayed Vespers frequently in both English and Latin (and more usually, a combination of the two), but this is only the second time I’ve prayed them in French. This is the mother house of their order, and the sisters here were few in number and gray haired. This […]
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Today was a day of beautiful forest trails and way too much roadwalking. I left the gîte at about 6:20 this morning in search of a café for breakfast. The sky was just beginning to lighten, and I hoped to luxuriate a bit with a cup of café au lait and a pastry. It was actually chilly enough that I […]
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Y’all It has been a day and it’s not even lunchtime. Date: 16 August 2023 Place: Pistachio House I am really trying to blog but I am out of practice. Bear with me as I catch you up… because reasons. 5am. Awake. See a plethora of messages from Thom about missed connections. Once again… he pledges never to fly through […]
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Introduction These rules are hard-won through experience. The emphasis here is on practical – these will not necessarily ensure a more spiritual or fruitful pilgrimage, but perhaps a less needlessly difficult one. If you’re looking for some of the spiritual lessons I learned, those are on the page titled Cultivating Pilgrim Spirituality. And obviously, these rules don’t include your everyday […]
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There’s just something about a cloister that invites contemplation – and photos. They are, after all, meant to evoke Eden. This is the cloister of the Monasterio de la Magdelena, now an albergue rather than a monastery. Spain’s government seized all Spanish churches and monasteries in the 19th century in their own version of what Henry VIII did in Britain. […]
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We are all now finally back from our Camino. Those of you who have been following along know that – in addition to the physical and mental challenges – the Camino is a powerful tool for discernment. I’ll get back to what we were discerning later, but I was again reminded that walking the Camino is truly a time and […]
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