Monday, September 14th
Yesterday was a rest and creativity day for us. When I considered what to teach in writing class, I sensed that we were at the point in the retreat where people were ready to go deeper. So I chose a prompt that would help to catalyze the inner work of letting go and transformation. I based the class on the theme of masks, beginning with this poem by Mark Nepo:
Not a One
By Mark Nepo
A funny thing happened on my way
to being awake. I outgrew all my masks.
Not a one fit. Not the one I called my
past. Not the one I called my dream.
Not the one I wore when sad. Or the
one I wore when trying to be happy.
I saved them all like favorite shirts
I thought would fit when I became
myself again. But that was a mask, too.
Then, just the other day, I was more
present than lost, and had to put down
the mask I called my story.
And today, a gust of light filled my face.
I felt it on my skin and in my soul.
Now, anything is possible.
The prompt I gave the group was:
Tell me about a mask you’ve worn. Tell us the story of that mask in your life. Tell us if and how you still wear it or if you have retired it from use. Or tell us about a mask you are letting go of now.
I gave them a half hour to write. The writing and sharing that followed was profound and heartfelt. I could feel the power of the retreat taking hold.
Afterwards, we wrote a piece in which a body part talked back to us. My feet and calves had a lot to say to me. They loudly complained after the fourteen miles I’d made them walk the day before.
After lunch, I took a long, deep nap while Brenda taught an art class on how to use ink and watercolors to depict a stone wall. I thought it was a marvelous choice. Incredible stone walls surround us everywhere we go. Like these:
Here’s Brenda’s lesson plan:
I’m sorry I missed her class. People were raving about it at dinner time. But I really needed that nap.
After dinner, as the light was starting to fade from the sky, Urmilla and I went for stroll up the country lane behind our hotel. I hadn’t stretched my legs all day and neither had she. It seemed an evening constitutional was a good idea.
Here’s what we saw as day tipped into evening.
We were delighted when this local farmer drove his cow home from pasture. Turn up your sound.
The Blessing of the Silent Dark
Over dinner, Meg and I decided that we wanted to get a really early start the next morning. Like many pilgrims, we wanted to start walking in the dark. There’s no daylight savings time on the Camino, so it stays very dark until after 7:30 in the morning. Meg and I agreed to start walking at 7:00, just as everyone else was starting breakfast.
We started out in silence, walking the Camino alone, just the two of us, for a long time. We walked to the beat of rubber-tipped poles hitting asphalt, the swishing of the legs of my hiking pants, the roar of a faraway car, an occasional rooster crowing.
We were walking on a flat, even surface, and the dark was an enveloping comfort. After a while in the pitch dark, we decided we needed just enough light to see the trail markers so we didn’t lose our way. Meg put her headlamp on the lowest setting and hung it around her neck. It gave us just enough light to make out the yellow arrows guiding our way without ruining the delicious ambiance of walking in darkness.
This was the first light we saw:
Ten minutes later, we turned around and were rewarded with the first light of day.
This is Meg (and some bats) exultant in the silent dawning of the day.
Before long, we were walking in the full light of day, reveling in the calls of European robins and the cawing of crows. We stepped through hundreds of prickly, green, needle-covered chestnut burrs, the outer casing that protects the smooth brown chestnuts inside.
For a while, it was still just the two of us. As day dawned more fully, Meg and I spoke more. But we both loved the silent darkness we had shared. And these natural tunnels built from trees.
I felt like I could keep walking forever.
An hour into our walk, we heard the first human footsteps coming up behind us. It was a pellegrina witha bell tinkling on her pack. She was the first person we encountered. A few minutes later, we saw another pilgrim. And another. Then a cluster and a group.
But we’d had that delicious silent beginning. It felt like our secret.
Further up the Camino, we stopped at a church and I lit a candle for a loved one back home. We were handed a religious tract and got our pilgrim passports stamped.
As the morning opened before us, we passed more and more pilgrims. Bells jingled on the necks of sheep in a distant field. The day heated up. We peeled off layers.
As I buckled my pack back on, I heard a vague murmur in front of us. I couldn’t tell what it was, but as we got closer to the group in front of us, I thought maybe they were praying. I couldn’t be certain. It was a low drone I was hearing. Their group was moving a lot slower than we were, so we moved to pass them. And as we did, my guess was confirmed. They were praying in unison to Jesus. I thought maybe it was Latin, but when I listened more closely, it was English. Meg said she could make out the Lord’s Prayer and she thought maybe the Nicene Creed.
We kept walking and the sound of their prayers faded behind us.
But their singing wasn’t the only music we heard today. We also came upon this fellow. Be sure to turn up your sound. His music was lovely. I watched for a while and put a Euro in his hat.
You see all kinds of things on the Camino. Like this mobile jewelry shop built in the back of a van.
Then there was this stacked car graveyard. I didn’t remember seeing that before.
This crest embedded in the sidewalk.
This house grabbed our attention. Half of it was in disrepair, but the other half had a smokestack and an antennae.
There was a lot of ancient and modern side by side.
The morning was sliding by. I was getting hungry. A few hours after we set out, we reached our “second breakfast” stop. We’d been promised that the pastries and coffee here were very good.
But I wasn’t interested in a pastry. I ordered a meal. Today, “second breakfast” was my first breakfast.
A few members of our group caught up with us there and we continued on together, our walking pace well matched.
In our 28,351 steps today (that’s my count; everyone ends up with a different number), we walked through a couple of urban areas today. That’s the thing I find most thrilling about the Camino, even the third time. I just can’t get over it: I’m not going for a hike in the woods. I’m walking across a country!
That means traversing farmland, villages, towns, woods, walking down highways, across bridges, and in and out of cities. And wherever the Camino goes, yellow arrows point the way to Santiago de Compostela, the kilometer numbers always counting down toward zero.
Yellow arrows come in all shapes and sizes. But every time there’s a choice to make—which path or road to take—they’re always there.
Sixty-five kilometers to go!
After we left second breakfast, the temperature kept going up. The only good thing I have to say about heat on the Camino is that almost everyone wears shorts. If you’re into legs, as I am, there are lots and lots of gorgeous, sculpted, bulging, taut, muscular, shapely calves out there—both men and women. I am an equal opportunity appreciator of physical beauty. There was a lot of luscious eye candy out today.
It wasn’t far from the place I had my eggs to our official lunch spot, and since I’d just had a huge breakfast, I didn’t stop with the group for lunch. Before I left them, I took advantage of the bathroom and this fountain in the back.
I dipped my hat in the cold water and plopped it soaking wet back on my head, shivering with delight as the chilly water dripped down my back and arms. It felt so good, I drenched a bandana in the cold water and tied it around my neck. Sweet relief!
Refreshed, I went on alone. But almost immediately, sweat started dripping from my face. As my mother used to say, “It was a scorcher.” I mopped my brow and drank from my water bottle, filled with lemon-lime electrolytes, and kept walking.
Despite the heat, I liked being on my own. Walking alone on the Camino reminded me of being on my own in Berlin. I could stop whenever I wanted to stop, sip water every time I was thirsty, take pictures whenever something intrigued me, jot notes in my little notebook as I pleased. My observations deepened when I was alone. My thoughts did, too.
I actually like both—companionship and solo. I liked alternating between the two.
An hour after I’d dipped my hat in the fountain, my hat was dry and I was flagging in the heat. Then I came upon this and doused my hat again.
While my hat was still damp and I was on my third wind, I passed over this beautiful Roman bridge toward Melide, our destination for the night.
As I walked through the city toward our hotel, I stopped to admire this huge mural, part of “Las Estrellas del Camino, or “The Stars of the Way,” an art initiative that pays tribute to the people who keep the spirit of the Camino de Santiago alive along the route. This particular mural, by Galician street artist Mon Devane, features an older man in a wide-brimmed pilgrim’s hat and cape, with a walking staff, a stand-in for the everyday people (hosts, volunteers, longtime locals) who’ve kept the Camino’s spirit alive for generations, rather than a specific historical or religious figure.
Twenty minutes after passing this mural, I emerged into a busy street in Melide. Our lovely air-conditioned hotel was just a few blocks away. As I checked in, I noticed a rotating video ad for massages above the reception desk:
- masa je craneal: cranial massage
- masaje podal: foot massage
- masa je del pelegrino: pilgrim’s massage
I immediately signed up for a pilgrim’s massage before dinner. (It was wonderful.)
Then I went to my room and tried out Brenda’s new (to me) method for handwashing laundry. I thought I had this laundry thing nailed, but yesterday, Brenda told me she actually gets in the shower with her clothes on, uses the soap in the shower and lathers up her clothes while she has them on, then rinses them in the shower, takes them out, wrings them out by hand, then rolls them in a towel, wrings them out again and hangs them up overnight. I tried it. What a great system!
Don’t you love my Camino socks?
