“The geographical pilgrimage is the symbolic acting out an inner journey. The inner journey is the interpolation of the meanings and signs of the outer pilgrimage. One can have one without the other. It is best to have both.” – Thomas Merton

Disclaimer: This post is spiritual in nature.

Last night I stayed in another ‘donativo’ parish albergue. Like the other 3 I’ve been in we all cooked and ate dinner together (and unlike the first two this one had very comfortable beds). The hospitalero (the volunteer running the place) was such a character; he probably cooks the same meal every night and everything had to be just the way he liked it. “No, not that spoon!…Don’t stir it yet!” But everything with a huge smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye. His name is Miguel and he has overstayed his time because there are no other volunteers to take over. So he’s still running the sweet place in a rough, dead little town way up in the mountains.

This morning he woke us up with Gregorian chanting through the stereo and gave us toast with jam and instant coffee. As I was filling up my water bottles and almost ready to go, he crooked his finger at me to come over. He told me to write my name on a card and wouldn’t let me see what it said until I did. It is a card with a picture of St James on the front, and on the back (in spanish), “You are light on the Camino, faith and honor to our Saint, and you are of value on the Camino.”

He saw me. I didn’t see him give anyone else this card. I thanked him, kissed both cheeks, put my hand over my heart.

And then when I was putting the card in a safe place in my pack, he came and hung a shell with the cross of the camino around my neck. I only saw him give another to my friend who was also helping closely in the kitchen. I thanked him again.

And then when I was almost ready to go he gave me a prayer with my name on it, told me to read it, and walked away. Part of it reads (translated) “How detailed you have been with me! I left home and town to follow your adventure. Arm in arm with you I started to walk. Step by step I follow you without looking back…”

It wasn’t the words that did it, but I started to tear up reading it. He just kept giving and giving until I cracked open. When he came by the last time his eyes were teary too. He kissed my cheek and said “Buen Camino.”

I didn’t want to leave that place but so is the nature of the Camino. And twenty steps out of the door, tears were falling. At first they were for me, just tears of nameless emotion. But then as I walked through the ruined town towards the mountain they were also tears for all the people that had walked to same road before me. And as soon as I turned a corner and saw the Iron Cross in the distance, they were tears for all of us.

I got to the cross just as the last person there was leaving. I put down my pack, walked halfway up the enormous pile of stones, kneeled on the wet ground and just cried. For a good five minutes, full-on crying. I can not describe the feeling but try to imagine a place where people have brought all of their prayers, burdens, sicknesses, losses… For a thousand years. Literally a thousand years and maybe more. I could feel the emotion of this place, from the first site of the cross, all of the pilgrims before me who had struggled for this same thing.

The cross in the distance

I was alone there for maybe 5 minutes, an incredible luxury really, and then other pilgrims that had spent the night in the same place started to filter in. I got one to take a picture of me, still all teary-faced, on top of the pile of stones brought before me, to signify the prayers and burdens left behind.

A talkative german friend arrived and we walked together for awhile with another spaniard, and then I gradually fell behind again. The Camino passed close by the peak of the next mountain, so I left the trail and climbed to the top. There was a little cairn there and a board someone had left for sitting. Here is a bit from my journal:
“I have never been so silent, been so much nothing and everything at once. And I sat on top of the mountain until the rain started, telling me to go.”

The bench

My pack and cairn on top of the mountain

After a good cry I always feel foggy and tired and emotionally spent, so I meandered along the trail slowly, enjoying the magnificent views, letting everyone else pass me. I descended 900 m in elevation today and amazingly my knees held up and I didn’t have any pain.

I had planned to continue to Ponferrada tonight but I missed a turn and ended up walking along the road into Molinaseca for over an hour and it sapped the drive right out of me. But Julia, a sweet girl from South Africa is here as well as a few other people I’ve met since leaving my original group, so I am happy I stopped here.