Spiritual, Cultural or Interior Conversion Thread

[Michael Wyatt]

Hello Preston and all--

The scope you sweep across in this message is too much to take in.  Please
continue, say more, send bite-size bits.
I want to pick up on one aspect.  I am at the moment, as I brood on my time
on the Camino, fascinated by the different qualities of different sections.
I was very lucky to be able to walk from Roncesvalles to Compostela in five
weeks.  I was struck by the different "qualities" of the sections and the
way in which they, as you say, mirror back an identity to the pilgrim, but
also seem eerily to parallel what is going on inside.  This seems to me no
small part of the spiritual dimension of the walk.
For example, the walk in Navarra and La Rioja seemed to me saturated with
the historical identity of pilgrimage: Roncesvalles, Puente La Reina,
Estella, Najera, Santo Domingo de la Calzada, and San Juan de Oterga, to
name a few.  In all these places, I was very aware of the reinforcement of
the pilgrimage historically (structures nearly 1000 years old, certainly
800).  I was also aware of the strong sense the Associations of Friends and
the Confraternities had that they were continuing an inherited tradition and
that present pilgrims were being invited to recognize themselves in this
historical current.  Only in this section did I come across priests offering
pilgrim blessings.  Only in this section did I also come across the Opus Dei
as a present influence in the pilgrim hostels.
THat ended at Burgos.  Stepping out onto the meseta, I, at least, had a
strong sense that now "I" was becoming a pilgrim; I realized "I" was
committed to walking this whole thing.  Oddly, that stretch of the walk,
with its emptiness, does reinforce that sense that I had of ownership; I no
longer needed the training-weels of Navarra and La Rioja.  It also struck me
that the sense of "reconquista" was overwhelmingly strong on the meseta:
towns established by sheer will rather than by any sense of natural appeal
or convenience, towns as boundary markers or benchmarks, whose names "bark"
at you--Castrojeriz, Carrion.  I found myself walking alone much more often
here it seems.  Navarra had been very chatty and companionable: I joined up
with a group deliberately.  In La Rioja, I loosely met up with folks, but
had no sense of our walking "together."  In Castilla, I would spend entire
days on my own, and often had no sense of where other pilgrims were; some
dropped out of my trajectory and I never saw them again nor knew where they
ended up.
Leon was the next big transition for me.  I stayed with the Carbajal nuns
and was grateful for the reminder of the "spiritual" or "religious"
dimension of my walk.  It felt like I was being tuned up for the final
stage, somehow recommiting myself.
Nearly everyone talks of the Cruz de Ferro and O Cebreiro.  The two big
mountain passes of course had a sense of challenge, but also of risk.  ONe
of the men I had walked with died in the ascent to the Cruz de Ferro
(heart-attack), and I passed his roadside cross and stopped there to
remember him and pray for him.  Somehow, I had a sense of clear "project" in
those ascents.  Having owned pilgrim identity on the meseta, here I sensed
that I was "proving" it on these heights.  I think that is a natural
reaction, but self-deceptive, because (as Coelho so clearly proves) one can
think one has done what there is to do--very testosteronish.  Again here, I
formed partnerships (some welcome, some not), and had a strong sense of
walking together, helping each other make it.
In Galicia--very estrogenish--I nearly lost my mind.  Lush green, yes
celtic, yes magical, rolling hills, little paths, flooded streams,
cowshit--all of it disorienting, because the historical and religious
underpinnings of the Camino disolved.  No Confraternities looked after the
hostels, no great castled reconquered cities marked the stages, no churches
loomed, though the ambiguous witness of Samos was there.  For the first
time, I had no idea if I was walking west or north or....   But in all this,
the gift was that pilgimage was reduced to essence, simplified, boiled
down--just me walking in the woods, keeping my vow.  Pretty zenny, when I
reflect on it.  The deepest joys I felt washed over me in Galicia; I stepped
into the deepest peace there.  The worst storm I walked through (killed
folks) I walked throug here.  Companions were incidental, but welcome.
Monte de Gozo was like an innoculation, a sampling of plastic and chrome
McCulture, a reminder that this dehumanizing is also a human achievement and
also is the world.  Zen without beauty?  Probably not, since there is no
evidence of mindfulness.  But it was a good reminder that I live in THIS
age, not in the Middle Ages nor in a fantasy.  What will I do to return?
And how will I manage it?
Santiago, then, for me, was very joyful.  All those grinning saints in the
Portico de la Gloria were grinning with me....
Maybe this is not what you meant, but I certainly felt that the inner and
outer corresponded, perhaps as Eliot's objective correlatives.
Thanks for the opportunity to reflect.
Please fill in with your own version of what you meant.
Michael