[Gocamino] on transformations

[tinuviel]

hmmm. hello brooke and all,

what a complicated trail. or when attempt to we verbalize it.

is it transformation or becoming more of oneself? finally listening to
oneself. and then, to hear everything else around one. to hear the people
and the cows and the fields and even the cars.

i remember the mother of a friend from high school once explaining that
growing old, one doesn't change, one just becomes more 'you'. more of
oneself. i think walking the way of santiago is something like that. (a big
jumpstart) settling more into the self. becoming comfortable with existence.
that then, opens up the ability to see outside of the self. it seems we as
humans take a lot of energy and time defining the self but if you become the
self, the energy lightens and opens to all the other selfs with which we are
surrounded.

this evening a coworker asked me if i was 'really religious' when looking at
some reproductions of my artwork, my 'cruces' series made upon return. all i
could answer was i don't know. i think i didn't understand his question. do
i follow a dogma? no. do i feel a power or energy outside of me? yes. do i
live my life ethically and morally as well as i'm able? yes. was i baptised?
yes. do i go to church on sunday? usually no.

there is something incredibly powerful in walking the camino. as donald said
"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 certainly felt the same. (though never thought in terms of
ancestors.) i would be walking and feel/become all the footsteps before me
and all the footsteps after me. it was the most incredible flow. time was
irrelevant. a
manmade construct which doesn't exist. i was on a different plane, i became
part of a river which has no beginning and no end. i was part of an
infinite. i can still feel it. the footsteps are part of all my footsteps.
that understanding is incredible.

i don't have a dictionary here and don't know the actual definition of
transformation. it brings to mind the changing of a caterpillar into a
butterfly. i don't feel i did that. rather, i feel i finally let myself
listen to myself which becomes listening to all.

as i write this, i feel it's very convoluted. very similar to readings i've
come across explaining enlightment. enlightment is such a big word for what
is really so simple. and what we all have inside. my favorite parable of
this is from c.s. lewis' 'chronicles of narnia'. at the end, there are a
couple of .. dwarves?.. who believe they are in a dark, dreary pigsty being
fed slop when in actuality, they are at a banquet with gourmet spread. their
friends are trying to tell them to look at what's in front of them but they
are intent in believing the worst. we are capable of building delusions and
fantasies but if we stop a minute, slow down... everything is right in front
of us.

so maybe the camino lets us slow down. we allow ourselves to stop a moment.
or the blisters force us to stop!

i think of the camino as understandings more than transformations.

as for changes? i do talk with santiago everyday, even if simply to thank
him. i didn't do that before. i hadn't met him yet.

ultreia y suseia, amigos

xox, tinuviel