Walking the Camino de Santiago
Thoughts about the spiritual aspects of the Camino.
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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It’s Galicia, and that means rain! Mostly of the cool, drizzly variety familiar to those of us living in the Pacific Northwest. Started the day early, and I completely failed to get breakfast or coffee. I broke the cardinal rule of the Camino Primitivo: stop in every café. And for this, I suffered. Lovely quiet trails through the Galician forests […]
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Today we crossed from the principality of Asturias into the province of Galicia, which was itself a kingdom of old. We had planned to be out the door by 6 AM, and had prepared accordingly with prepackaged breakfasts and a handle on where the coffee maker in the albergue was. In the event, it was 6:40 before we made it […]
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May the second looms large in my life. On this day in 2013, Francine and I walked into Santiago de Compostela for the first time, at the end of our first Camino. At this point, Francine had been walking for almost two weeks, and me for more than a month. I can’t describe the joy of that day. Arrival in […]
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After Foncebadón we come to Cruz de Ferro – the Iron Cross – the highest elevation on the Spanish portion of the Camino Francés. This is a place of importance for those pilgrims walking this route. It’s easy to explain, but the experience of it is something else again. At Cruz de Ferro there is an old tradition. Although I’ve […]
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Fun fact: on this day back in 2016, Francine and I arrived in Rabanal. Today’s photo, however, is a look back at the village under the rising sun as we leave, heading for points farther west. Always, we journey to the West, but it’s important that you turn, from time to time, and reflect on where you’ve been and your […]
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Although the map below doesn’t show it clearly, after San Nicolás del Reál Camino, the path runs just a few meters from the N-120 highway, paralleling the road all the way to our destination of Sahagún. Along the Way, we passed this mileage marker. Now, many times pilgrims will leave a little memento on top of these. I’ve seen everything […]
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After Moratinos and about twenty minutes of Meseta walking, we spied the next little village half-hidden in the distance. This is San Nicolás del Reál Camino, population 43. It was in this little stretch that an idea for a Camino novel came to me, along with its last line. Although it’s evolved over the years, at its core it’s still […]
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