The Rhythm of Pilgrimage Part3.

So after a few days the body has caught up with the aspirations of the mind. This does not mean that all will be easy it will not. Although you will have become much fitter than you have been for a long time, you are still working at a high level of energy expenditure. You will get more and more tired as time goes on. If you are not blessed by the need to be back at work on a certain date and you have an open fight ticket, then it is possible to rest more often. But this is not available to many. It is not easy to stay fresh for the whole of the Camino's 55o miles. Pacing yourself helps, bit that Ryan air flight is not negotiable and you will have to push yourself to keep to a timetable. All that being said it does not mean that you have to rush the whole time. Unless that is that you have planned the trip to the hour. And you have overestimated you abilities. This is the province of the young. The restless need to get on and get there is an enemy of a satisfying pilgrimage. So allow space in your pilgrimage for a days rest now and again. So let's return to day four onwards. By now the pains are less and you are walking with ease. If you started from St Jean the country is getting a little less hilly and the walking is good through the Rioja. pleasant vineyards and little villages are a joy, at first, but so is human nature one does get used to them. There are sights that enthrall. I remember one morning coming up to Ganon. The Church was visible on the hill ahead. The moon was full and setting. It was broad daylight. there was a moment when the moon sat on top of the church tower as though it was impaled on the weather vane. And the moon looked so close that it appeared that it tower of the Church and the moon were exactly the same distance away. Unforgettable. Now you begin to think about everyone you have left behind, the joys and the problems. This drifts into the the dark corners of memory to those places where the unresolved lurks. You begin to work them. After a few days one gets to a place of peace. The work now is to be on the deepest level. One enters a space where time losses its relevance. I only have this distance to walk and I have four hours to lunch. I am deep with myself and experiencing a certain detachment from the immediate reality. This is an important place to be. Jesus said seek and you will find. Use the space for this most spiritual of all quests. You can switch off and become a walking zombie, many do. The unspiritual most certainly do, but you Child of God are able to experience an Emmaus experience. He is walking right next to you. Those senses that have have been switched off for years back at home are coming to life. It is although you developed a whole new set of senses. You are not able to see him, but you know he is there. Let God now work in you.

The Rhythm of Pilgrimage. Part 2

Time to set out. The planning and the

packing are over.The flight, like as not

thanks by Ryan ( let me charge you per

breath on my plane and you can sit

on the wing) is past and you

have got yourself to St Jean de Pied de Port

without major event.

What now? Excitement; Concern that this

is all too much; A feeling that it would be

nice to drop out and become a tourist; all

these feelings come to the surface, and many more.

The beat of the drum moves on consumed by the slow relentless

pace of events. It is almost like a conveyor, which is pulling you

towards that start in the morning.

The sense of moving on will be with you until you arrive at Santiago

or dropout. It is however a feeling that must be

watched. It is easy to miss out on some of the greatest experiences of

you life, because you are unaware of what is really happening to you.

This rhythm that I am beginning to write about must be channelled

to understand all that the Camino has for you. The rhythm is

important~ in part that is what you came to engage with. It is

different from daily life. It is an emptied out day. At home there are

so many things that demand your time. Most of the time there are too

many to deal with in one day. The day becomes overcrowded with the result

that life becomes one of pressure. On pilgrimage there are only a few

things that you have to do. They are :- get up, walk, have breakfast,

walk, stop for coffee, walk, have lunch, walk, arrive at the destination,

rest, wash, both you and your clothes. eat, go to sleep. You might

slip in a few postcards/email and visit a couple of sights along the way.

That's it. Nothing more. Leaving a great deal for time to reflect on life.

It is in this space that you begin to get to grips with

all those problems that you have been pushing aside for years

All those memories that are too painful to confront. They and kindred

things are like a suitcase that you have stuffed for years with parcels.

All with a label that says to be dealt with some other time. The suitcase

is bulging, held shut by leather straps that are about to give way.

All this bursts out. Now is the time to deal with it. The stripped out

day allows for this deep healing of the soul. But it doesn't happen yet.

The rhythm of pilgrimage is more than the daily round. There are distinct

phases to the days and weeks. On that first day as you set off up the

hill to Roncevalles you soon begin to feel the pain. You have been doing

walks for sometime now, but these have not really prepared you for

what is ahead and what you are now doing. This mountain seems

to get steeper and steeper and it keeps on, up and up you go. And oh!

my limbs are not used to this. Willpower keeps you going. How can I

give up after a couple of hours on this walk. What would my wife say

You are on you own. Shyness, and the good old reserve, stop you from

saying much to those who follow you up the hill. Anyway you husband

all your energy to get up up this bit. It must end soon, but it does not.

You will by now be aching all over and be short of breath.

Praise be the top at last and a shortish walk down to

Our Lady of Roncevalles. Rest and blissful sleep.

The next morning, Off again. A few pains coming with me today, but

I soon walk through them to that place where I begin to doubt that

I can do this. Last night on my bed I looked at the guide again and

began to realise that 55o miles is a very long way. I must have been

mad to have thought that I could do it. In the dark I fell asleep

thinking that I would do as much as I can, but I will be on the

bus before I get to Santaigo.

The Sun is out and I have been talking to the people who I had

dinner with last night. They begin to tell me a some of their story

and it makes me feel a little more comfortable. They are having

the same problems on this walk as I am, and they have

painful blister in the same place as mine. We go on together.

It is night now I feel awful. I cannot do this even though I want too.

Too far, too long, too much. All I want to do is sleep. So I do. I awake

a feeling a little refreshed, but I am stiff and ache from top to toe.

I will go to bed after dinner and tomorrow I will think about how

I can get home. I do not care anymore about how I will explain this

to my wife.I do not care about loss of face. I want out.

Sleep comes quickly.

Day three. I still have some pains, but I could walk a little this morning.

Besides that will take me to Pamplona and it will be much easier to

get public transport from there. As I walk things easy somewhat.

Again ,I talk to those who are around me. No much and not very

deeply, but it is encouraging. I start to notice the countryside as I look

beyond the painful place that I am in. It seems that it sorta helps. In

my prayers, which have all been of the nature of 'God get me up this hill/

to the next bar/ to the Albergue' I begin to have a few other ideas

pushed in that are not about my exhaustion~ thanks for this beautiful place,

for these people, be with my wife at home. As this takes place I start

to think that today may not be the end after all. Besides I have

walked near 50 miles; almost 10% of the whole pilgrimage.

I don't know if I can do the whole lot, but I can do more.

I stop at an albergue on the far side of Pamplona, where the

owner/hospitaler is famous for the way she works on and heals feet. The

fame is well deserved as she works wonders on me and my feet.

This is the end of the first phase. It has all been about the body. The

distortion of modern life that has made us more cerebral that physical

is being redressed. The body and mind are painfully reunited. The

body has complained every step of the way and has made the mind l

listen to it. A painful lesson, but a good one. This pilgrimage is about

becoming whole. In Christian terms this very good. The whole

point of the little baby in the stable is that God did not spurn our

humanity but he embraced it. The salvation plan includes the

body. In far eastern religions. The body is a nuisance, something to be

overcome and left behind. Not so with us Christians. The body is part of

my spiritual nature. When Jesus returned to heaven, he took his body

with him. So God has a truly human face. We are discovering this

in a practical way. Soon as the body gets up to speed and the mind

interacts with the flesh in a proper manner, it will open up a whole

new vista. More of that later.

This post is now getting too long so I guess there will have to be a

part 3 to this post. Back soon.

Ian

There is a rhythm to Pilgrimage Part 1

Two good friends of mine;Peter and Julie. Above St Jean

There is also a rhythm to blogs. And this one is right off the scale at the moment.It is also very late. How many times have I written that on this site? I have a love hate relationship with all this. I also paint and that is just the same. I hate to get started. When I am in the water things are fine and I get on and even enjoy it! But there are two things that tick me off .One is all that Html stuff. Sorting the page out so that it does not look like a distress spider has put it together.Even as I write the the blog page is double spacing everything. I didn't ask of it, did you? The other thing is having written a blog something freezes it up so that you can do nothing with it. You know, in your soul that,you are two or three moves away from a total delete.Like a road accident you know that it is going to happen whatever you do. You will make that move that will consign a full post into cyber oblivion. Well ,that is what happened with the last post,done a week ago. I have not had the energy to rewrite it. But I am on the way. So bear with me I am anti cyber at the moment. In contrast I had a great dream last night about being on pilgrimage and it was easy and I was was going along quite fast and far without any pains. It was only a dream.It does not happen like that. It did however remind me of the joys of pilgrimage.

So the excuses and a bit if a rant later I am ready to start the post about the rhythm of pilgrimage, but that will have to be part 2

There and back again,again!

The title implies that I have done all this before and in some ways that is true. The difference this time is marked by the picture above. That is one part of the pilgrimage to Santiago that I have never been on before, going though the door of St James. As I am sure you will know, it is only opened for Holy Years and this year is one. There were other differences. The route was up the Via de la Plata from Ourense. I found it rather hard. That was because of many things, not least, that I am rather overweight at the moment. I am convinced and convicted that I must loose, not a few pounds, but many. Sadly there is no easy was to do this. Cut down on the eating and build up the walking ~the only steps that lead to the paradise of speed and feeling good at the end of a day's pilgrimage. This pilgrimage rather took me back to the first pilgrimage that I walked. That feeling of not knowing what is ahead and often failing to read the signs. For example, on this way there are municipal albergues at certain points. They are there for the good reason that the gaps between them are enough for one days walk. Some are a greater distance than others, this is when the section is easy. The closer together they are ,the more difficult the section. Nut brain , here, thinks in his own way, ' let's plough on, do two sections'. So one day was 11.5 hours walking. Difficulty indeed! This rather resulted in a less than spiritual pilgrimage, or so I thought at the time. The prayer was rather restricted to 'Lord get me up this hill/ to the Albergue. Higher intercession was lost in the physical grunt of getting on. But this is not a disaster. We are not followers of an eastern mystical teaching of spiritual detachment. Our God became flesh and took our flesh into the divine self. Thus we do not renounce the flesh, but embrace it, even when it is difficult and painful. And so another early lesson came back to mind that the shear physicality of pilgrimage can be prayer itself, body prayer. Archbishop Rowen recently said in a conference on Church fresh expressions that 'We should move into the space opened up by Jesus Christ'. This also means that we on a day to day talk hold of the day an make it part of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom is found by possessing life rather than denouncing it.

We are off.

We here we go again. This time it is a very short walk. Just enough to blow the winter blues away. Tomorrow morning I and another member of Peterbrough Pilgrims to Santiago, called Roger, will fly to Madrid. Then on the train to Sahagun and onward to Moritinos to see Rebekah and Paddy to discuss a few things with them about linking our Confraturnity to their work with Pilgrims. We are there until Wednesday when we will be catching the train again, this time to Ourense. We will walk the 110k to Santiago from there. Stay a nighty in Santiago and go down the valley to O Curruna to fly home to Heathrow a week on tuesday. I am really looking forwars to this trip. When I first thought about it,this trip was going to be an early december retreat and it is now lent.Time flies. So farewell for a few days. I may be able to post we shall see.

We are Pilgrims on the journey!

Yeah! I know this has been a long week,and this post is really 10 days overdue. First lesson of Pilgrimage;nothing quite goes as you expect it. Sorry anyhow.

A number of things have been happening to me in the days since I last posted here. One of them is that I am going to Spain on Monday. This coming Monday 1st March. You may have already worked out that I lead a small confraternity in the middle of England. This fraternity has struck up a friendship with two wonderful supporters of pilgrims who live on the Camino. They are real friends to all who stop by at their place. Anyway this friendship is developing into something practical and useful that allows us be more involved with other pilgrims as they pass thought their hands. For us it is a halfway house to establishing an Albergue of our own. So, I and another member are going to make a visit to them to see their place and cement the friendship. We will be there two nights with the day between to talk and see how they are. But after that......... we are free to go off on a short pilgrimage of a few days, call it a Lenten retreat, Yippee.

We have decided that it would be a good thing to go for a Compostela for the collection, and that means that we must end up at Santiago. I have walked the Camino from St Jean, and also the way up from Oporto. So we have decided to set off from Ourense. 110k . Far enough, but not that far. It has however produced some interesting and I must say surprising thoughts in my head.It has occurred to me that these are exactly the questions that I had in my mind before I went on my first pilgrimage. Questions such as:- Will there be Albergues on the way? Will they be open? Do these folk who give advise on the forum really know what they are talking about? Will it be very cold or will I die on a hillside somewhere for want of food and somewhere to stay?

Now I know for my own experience that the answer to all these questions is that things will be fine. It will be great time. That does not stop the doubts for long. It has helped me see more clearly once again, what it is like to be a novice pilgrim. The answer to me and everyone is held in the wonderful words of Lady Julian of Norwich: All will be well, and all manner of things will be well!

Julian's words call us to faith that what lies ahead is safe and supported by people who know what they are doing. Julian is speaking about the whole of life. This in itself helps us begin to realise that the little worked example of life that we call a pilgrimage is meant to be writ large on our lives. That it is though this nursery experience of pilgrimage that we learn, maybe for the first time what it is to walk by faith.

If you are planning your first pilgrimage, watch the way that the faith you have now that it will be ok turns into the solid assurance of sellos in your credential.And in the words of a sixties song, 'Put your hand into the hands of the man who walked on water'.

The lesson, walk by faith and let others take the load. All will be well.

So, you've signed up for Santiago Pilgrimage!

So, you have signed up for a pilgrimage to Santiago. You have heard the stories and tales from others about this important life event. In some way or another it seems a cool idea. Well, it did when you committed to it. Now you are not so sure. You have begun to think about what it really entails. All that walking. 750 k from St Jean. You are thinking that you were mad to agree. You will never make it. It is too far. You're over 50 perhaps and didn't think that you would take on this sort of physical challenge again. And here you are, with 2,3,4,5,6. months to prepare for the impossible! You are perhaps looking for the door marked exit, so that you do not have to go.....but others are expecting you to be there and you cannot let them down.

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You have found this forum and it has added to your confusion. The old timers speak freely about routes and Albergues. They speak of the generosity of those along the way and it seems too good to be true.

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Well; you can do it, no matter how it feels today and tales of generosity and modestly priced Albergues are true. The experiences of others that are offered on this site are reliable, so make use of them and ask as many questions as you can bring to mind. If it helps, my first pilgrimage is recorded further back on this blog. Read it, who knows you may find it helpful.

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These matters are not really my main concern. I focus on the Spiritual aspects. You may not have thought about this facet of pilgrimage or it maybe the reason you are going or any point between. The one thing that I can promise is that your pilgrimage with surprise you beyond words. You may not have any faith whatsoever or a very small one that is a hang over from childhood experiences. No matter. The spiritual is in every breath of your trip. For some it helps develop their faith, others gain a growing awareness of things spiritual that is in spite of God rather than because of him. The long hours on the hillsides of Spain have their effect. We become reconnected to ourselves and nature. For city types this is awesome But we are getting ahead of where you are now.

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So what do I say about now. That is easy. Your pilgrimage has already started. Everything that you do is part of the adventure. The journey does not start on the plane or at the airport, or even in France, Spain or Portugal, it began the moment you said yes. The preparations are as much part of the experience as arriving in Santiago. So enjoy these days and look to see what they can teach you about who you are and what you need in life!

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I shall be posting on this blog about once per week, So come and join me again. I hope it will be useful. You have my prayers. Ian Holdsworth