[Gocamino] (no subject)

[blaroli at aol.com]

Hello you all,

I’ll be leaving for Santiago next Tuesday for a meeting related to a special Arch confraternity project.  Unfortunately, I’ll only be there for three days.

Nevertheless, if there is anything that I may get for you while I’m there, or inquire about, let me know and I’ll gladly do so.

There is a concentrated effort to bring closeness among pilgrims, and, for that end, our views are being solicited.  If you have any ideas, let me know and I’ll pas them on.  For instance, a pilgrim suggested here that when the countries wherefrom the pilgrims hail are mentioned during the Pilgrims’ Mass, the pilgrims from the mentioned countries be asked to stand up and be recognized….. that would be nice.  Most of the suggestions have to do with making sure, somehow, that spaces at the pilgrims’ Mass be more readily available to pilgrims vis a vis tourists.  While that seems to present logistics’ and other problems, if we put our heads together maybe there is a doable way.

And so on.

So, please…. If you think of something in those lines, we can make it known.  Personally, I am fairly convinced that people in Santiago are really trying to do their best for us….. as witness the tremendous work being done on the new Seminary albergue in town following the complaints of pilgrims that found it, justifiably so, in my view, overly burdensome to stay all the way out of town in the Monte del Gozo albergue. 

 

Meanwhile,

 

A Canadian pilgrim, Paul Tobey, who is a professional composer and musician, wrote a piece called “The Road to Santiago Suite” which represents his musical impressions of the pilgrimage.  He also made a 40-minute film about the Camino called “Oh Ye of Little Faith” which is really very nice and very well made; Mr. Tobey apparently has both film-making experience and resources.  Anyone who has walked the Camino Frances will be touched by the way in which familiar land marks are presented. 

The Suite is available in a CD, and it is also nice…. in a sort of an easy Jazz combo way. Perhaps because of my Latin nature and upbringing, I failed to recognize the Camino in the music….but two friends told me that they could sense it.

Mr. Tobey has a website www.paultobey.com where the DVD and cd may be ordered.

The DVD also contains, as an added, feature, a visit with Padre Ramon of the Santo Domingo de Silos monastery which is very revealing since, as a rule, the monastery monks, made world-wide famous by their Gregorian Chants recordings which have sold in the millions and millions,  do not talk to outsiders.

Also, 

When one has read forty or fifty books relating  personal accounts of Camino pilgrims,  one enjoys them for the familiarity and the memories and the smiles they bring…. But it is difficult to become impressed by them. Recently, however, someone sent me a book about a personal pilgrimage that impressed me to a point that I found myself reading and rereading the same page over and over.  The book is called “Fumbling; A Pilgrimage Tale of Love, Grief and Spiritual Renewal in the Camino de Santiago” and its author is Kerry Egan.  It is a fairly small book (228 pages) but it is beautifully written, irresistibly engaging and full of not well know information and simple insights.  The author writes, for instance,

 “The Camino is made up of both the land- the physical surroundings and the physical work of getting through that land- and the people one meets, both fellow pilgrims and those who live along the route.  The very act of pilgrimage- the jump from an idea to the action of walking hundreds of miles in a place where one is a complete stranger…………….Is what makes the place sacred in the land itself, in the air, in the water, present since the earth was formed? Or is it all those prayers, millions of prayers, soaking into the dirt, into the rivers, into the plants, into the people who live along the way?.....”

And so it goes........ throughout.  I don’t remember enjoying a Camino-related book or publication so much since that gorgeous DVD “Within the Way Without” made by English filmmakers.  I can’t conceive of any pilgrim who wouldn’t relish this book.  The ISBN is 0-385-50765-8.  It is written in English and does cover the familiar terrain in a hauntingly touching and lovable manner.

 

Hugs!

 Rosina

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