people greet eachother everyday,
"buon Camino"
and they ask
"why are you walking the camino?"
usually I replied, "...because...I just felt like walking"
People told me many things, and people walk for many reasons. I never told people the real reason why I was walking...I don't think they told me either...but we all walked (or cycled) all the same. Didn't matter how fast or slow or our reasons why.
What we learned is for us, those lessons are for us individually alone.
What I remembered was the morning....watching the sun rise. Being a bit afraid to be alone...tagging along to wait for fellow pilgrims going ahead to give myself the illusion not to feel as if I was really as alone as I really was... afraid of the wild dogs I heard about....afraid of the dark...still.
the mornings and the evenings were my favorite.
watching the curve around a bend after walking so straight for so long that you think the landscape may never change. how grateful I was to see a bend in the road, a tree, a mountain, a stranger...anything new! ....after everything had been the same for so long.
There is a lot of time and space to think and that's what i wanted. that's what i like. I had my broken knee and people told me to stop walking because of my injury, but I only had a month to complete it, how could I? so I turned my pain into a meditation. I learned the most from that.
some man told me that the constellations in the sky align on the road and that is what truly makes the camino sacred and special. as for myself I'm not sure what I believe about it...all I know is that...
...that road felt like a life -time for me....and it changed me.
one man told me my future under a tree and another man told me my past lives and how to meditate and understand mysterious symbolism through architecture and pictures.
I climbed alongside a thorn bushed covered rock face over a river and found a sacred cave.
I cried the whole day before I reached Santiago because I didn't want to stop walking....
and when I reached Santiago I rejoiced.
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