[Gocamino] Transformation on the Camino

[Donald Schell]

Transformations on the camino -

It's intriguing how hard it is to talk about or write about.

I remember a blur of walking day after day with great joy.  It felt 
strangely natural and familiar to be traveling so light and to do so 
ceaselessly.  Something washed away the whole notion of 'hike' or 
'hiking.'  It was just walking and more walking, patient in the moment, 
but holding a distant pilgrimage destination enough in mind to keep the 
steady pace, heal the blisters, sleep off a bit of flu-y cold  and keep 
going.

As a Christian priest who was mostly skeptical of the legends of how 
St. James's body came to be in Spain, I began with more attachment to 
the Camino than to Santiago itself.  At a certain point, like being 
swept along by a gentle breeze, I felt the huge number of people 
(ancestors for any of us with any European roots) who had walked the 
same path.  I often wondered at the breadth of goodness and malice, 
holiness and hypocrisy that the old texts of the pilgrimage 
acknowledge.  I felt I was part of a millenium-long line of people, 
hugely catholic in the old Greek sense of inclusive and universal.  I 
knew something in me was like any one of them and felt and saw (before 
I thought and said to myself) that pilgrims don't judge one another.

A zen-like contemplative pleasure in walking emerged.  The delights I 
felt, as Kathy expresses so clearly were in moments, movement, 
sensation, life and patience and time enough to be present to them.

The hospitality of the people along the way, offers of smiles and 
wishes for a good camino grew on me.  On the camino each pilgrim is a 
stranger, but a kind of stranger who belongs, passing through, yet part 
of a very old, very stable community, a fleeting human image holding 
for that moment a place in the landscape that others before have held 
and other after will hold.  Whenever I felt myself part of this, I was 
moved to gratitude and to wonderful matter-of-fact humility.  'Doesn't 
matter who I am.  All that's needed here is a pilgrim.  I'll be that 
pilgrim.'

Though there were the moments of anger, suspicion, competition and all 
those ordinary things, they were remarkably few.  I was moved by the 
frequent kindness pilgrims and the people along the way showed one 
another.  The simplest things became important to me - noticing them, 
welcoming them, receiving them gratefully.

And I was always grateful to attend a pilgrims' mass, going in any town 
that offered one (if I'd arrived in time for it).  The 'pan' in 
companions was evident there.  And I felt so many times the logic of 
the old iconography portraying James (and sometimes even Jesus) as 
fellow pilgrims.

The second time I arrived in Santiago and went down to the crypt to 
pray, I realized how much I'd come to love the destination from walking 
the way.  I was surprised to notice that my 'intellectual' conviction 
that James's bones weren't there no longer mattered to me at all.  All 
the logic of the arguments and probabilities was still there, what 
mattered to me was that I was kneeling where thousands and thousands of 
pilgrims had knelt.  With them I was grateful for the company and 
overjoyed to be honoring the memory (and who knows, maybe the bones 
too) of one of the Sons of Thunder who walked so many kilometers over 
the hillsides of ancient Galilee with Jesus.

love,
donald

On Mar 11, 2005, at 11:54 AM, Kathy Gower wrote:

> Brooke, et al
>
> Transformation isn't always so easy to define...
> or, to see materially, as you well know.
>
> For me, being able to sustain walking in another environment where I 
> was in tune with nature's rhythms and being mindful of myself and 
> others was incredibly empowering.  Aha...I can do it and if I can do 
> this, I can do most anything....
>
> Working hard to make myself known brought back how challenging that 
> can be, even in one's own environment, and a great empathy welled up 
> for those who are unable to do, for whatever reason.
>
> Slowing down also led to a conscious decision and not so easy nor 
> complete transformation into being more mindful...on my own second 
> Camino It didn't take long to forget that intention and when I went 
> the second time, to France, I got the same hasty blisters and arrived 
> at the gites ahead of the others to find them closed or to be 
> admonished by some of the hosts.  When I took up that "transformation" 
> again, it was delightful to speak with the cows and sheep along the 
> way and stop to notice some of the dolmens I had whizzed by. Attention 
> and gratitude stick with me now.
>
> There's alot to be said about the transformations, however seemingly 
> insignificant or earth shaking they may be, and being able to talk or 
> write about them is one way to unlock them for yourself.
>
> I for one would love to hear from others on the topic.
>
>
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