Walking the Camino - October 2015

The flight from Dublin to Santiago brought us directly to The Camino – the airport was built on the Camino and today the peregrinos (pilgrims) have to walk to the edge of the runway, five miles out of Santiago de Compostela, and go around it. Significant for all travellers to Santiago that they land on the pilgrim path, established over 1,500 years, to continue their own ‘Way’.When we flew in we did not realise the significance – that would wait for our return trip after shedding anger, grief and guilt as we walked back toward the airport days later.The coach journey back to Sarria was longer than we thought. The countryside was reminiscent of Ireland – trees, green fields, farms and rolling hills. We thought that they must get a lot of rain here for everything to be so green – still it was warm and sunny.The meal that evening in a beautiful restaurant in an inland hotel was to be our last taste of the good life for a while. On the next day, the climb out of the Sarria valley delivered the first tumble dryer of emotions. A steep and seemingly endless climb up through a beautiful river gorge took us high into the forest at the edge. This was to sap our strength for the day ahead and place us deeper into ourselves. At the top of the gorge the rain started and across the fields it greeted us in billowing sheets. As Drops of Grace from above, soaking into the very fabric of our being, it seemed already that spirit was sticking to us, all the grand ideas of why we were on The Camino had to be put into the self in the simple struggle to keep going.The next few days we walked in rain, through forests and across hills, mud clinging to our boots. At times it was wet with rain on the outside and sweat within running down our faces. At times we laughed at our predicament as deep perseverance needed to be mustered. At times it was heavy and depressing.This was the stage when we had meditated earlier that morning, to retrieve the child part of us which held the hurt, the suppressed emotions, the ‘why me’, the fear and guilt that we had not been loved enough. The child that had been pushed aside as an embarrassment about their vulnerability. The child who had not been acknowledged and whose pain we carried out in adulthood as our personality, to sabotage our achievements. The child who felt unloved and unsupported and continued to silently cry out in our supposed maturity. Later when the rain eased off we walked in sodden silence along the trail strewn with literally thousands of chestnuts – ‘conkers’ or ‘cheesers’ – so prized by our child as items of value and prestige. There were so many of them on the ground and on the trees that after picking a few it seemed silly to pick up more and so we walked along a path of plenty, no longer needing them. Holding our child by the hand as we walked The Camino we connected with our childhood and over the hours, despite rain showers, the mood became more childlike. A healing of that inner child so long forgotten or thought of from a distance and never acknowledged. So many emotions now came up in the party as the weight of the day, walking with wet feet, straining up long hills, more layers of the ego being stripped away to begin to reveal the truth of the hurt of our child. In the evening after a hot shower, meal and refreshment the children went out to play with some not returning until the small hours. The next part of the retreat was re-calling all the different parts of ourselves which had been left behind in old relationships, old jobs, favourite places we had visited and so on. This ‘remembering’ process in the company of our child also worked well with the rhythm of the Camino walk and the breathing. The latter had become a separate part of us as we noticed our breathing and it kept us present in our pilgrimage to call back all of our parts. Some of the group were having a hard time. It’s just a walk, we all thought – but this was a spiritual retreat for which the energy had been started by Roisin at Rainbow Lighthouse two weeks earlier. We had been walking The Camino before we arrived in Spain and we didn’t realise it. Yes it was only a walk. Over the coming days we used the magic taxis to help some of us. At remote Albergues, which line the route of The Camino, you could summon a taxi which magically appeared in ten minutes to take you or your backpack to the next halt for a few euro. Some just sent their backpacks ahead. They could walk until lunchtime and then take a taxi to where we had planned to stay that night. It was an unusual camaraderie which developed, some went off, some of the group would leave and organise accommodation in the next town ahead. Others remained walking up with them again after a few hours. After our evening meal sometimes the youngest child brought wild in shots of yellow filtered water for a toast, which she christened ‘olive oil’ because of its colour. The drink was nothing like olive oil, it was more like watery wine but it imparted a sweet rocket fuel taste. It left you breathless – but empowered!It was synchronistic that the drink was yellow – the colour of our Aura-Soma Quintessence which we used during our morning meditations; the surrounding colour of Saint Francis of Assisi who walked The Camino hundreds of years earlier; the colour that enabled us to shine in the hardships, the hills, the cold and wet, and helped us to keep going. There was magic on The Camino.

On one of the harder days where the terrain had been more difficult, the whole group voted on an ‘Olive Oil’ chaser after lunch and, after downing the measure, we stood up and walked straight out and covered two miles in record time! A group of middle-aged Dutch women watched us down the ‘Olive Oil’ and out of the corner of our eyes, as we marched out of the Albergue, we saw one of them come down to their table with a tray full of ‘Olive Oil’ shots!The liquid, whose name we never found out, was obviously famous amongst ‘peregrinos’ because, days later, in the duty free airport lounge before the flight home, some of our group were looking at bottles with a similar looking liquid, wondering if this was the ‘Olive Oil’, when a thirty-something girl, who was a complete stranger, came up behind us, looked at the bottles we were looking at and said “Is that it?”The penultimate day was a difficult one – we were to walk within ourselves to bring the light to our darkness. That part of us which keeps sabotaging our success and keeps us moving in repetitive, unhelpful and sometimes destructive patterns in our life. We were walking forward into The Camino and inner-wards to better understand our darkness within, to find our light.Our last day walking was walking into our light. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and after hours of walking in the sun a few of us yearned for a quick shower of rain. Not a drop. Only bright light. We walked towards Santiago de Compostela in glorious sunshine. Truly into the light. As we walked towards Santiago we came to the airport, which had been built on The Camino, requiring us to walk around the perimeter on our way to Santiago, five miles away. As we walked along the fence surrounding the airport runway we found hundreds and hundreds of small crosses made with twigs. Who had the size of a twig they had been placed in the link wire fence for hundreds of yards. Placed there by weary pilgrims holding hope as they neared the end of their long trek. It was an awesome sight to end their pilgrimage. It was a significant moment. We continued to walk on and neared the suburbs of Santiago. Walking into the outside suburbs of Santiago our group passed a large bungalow with heavy black gates with a Camino shell in gold on each gate. As we walked past the house, a man was opening the gates and he looked at us, another group of peregrinos out of the 250,000 that pass his house each year. As we caught his eye, he lifted his hand slowly in a gentle acknowledgement of our journey. His salute was a sign of respect which had not faded over the years. The numbers of strangers who walk past his home each day had not jaded his feelings of connection with The Way of Saint James – how powerful is that. As we entered Santiago our spirits and pace lifted, we had arrived. The heat grew stronger amongst the buildings of Santiago as we walked down long busy avenues. We were impatient to reach the Cathedral, so it took longer in our minds. For the first time the destination became more important than the journey – although we excused ourselves for this as the excitement of seeing the majestic gothic spires in the distance was tantalising. Adrenaline soaked into tired muscles, painful feet were not as sore and breathing was forgotten and left to the body to sort out, as we entered the ‘old town’ and its maze of narrow cobbled streets.

And there it stood, the majestic square with the cathedral towering on one side and the impressive buildings that lined the other sides. Days of walking across beautiful countryside in rain and sun holding the hand of our child, bringing all the completeness of our energy together, walking into our shadow to find the light of ourselves and emerging drained, hurting, reflective, empowered, valiant and inspired, finding ourselves here in the profound energy of James, the apostle. We lingered around the square for a few hours as it seemed irreverent to leave it after such a journey – even for our five star hotel. The beautiful Palacio del Carmen hotel in Santiago awaited tired bodies in need of rest and recreation, great rooms with major bathrooms and seriously impressive food and drink. The gin and tonics were truly a work of art, taking a full four minutes to prepare. The evening meal was not only superb and in grand surroundings, but full of contemplation and contentment.Before we left Spain Roisin called to say that she had been bed-ridden with back pains whilst she held the energy for us walking the Camino. That is a great example of the “terrible beauty” of energy – while those in the energy on the Camino suffered sore feet and stiff legs, those holding the energy for The Camino couldn’t walk with back pains. All in all – a fabulous clearing!After we returned home we sent a text to one of the participants to see how she was, the reply said “I am sitting here with my feet in Epsom salts and for the first time in my life, my heart is open”.Well, that’s The Camino for you.

Roisin Eve