The journey of a 1,000 miles begins with ample preparation. In my case it will be at least 119 kilometers equivalent to 60 miles. Pilgrimage does not start when you take your first step on the Camino. It starts with the heart.
Those who walk have been preparing for it for a long time, perhaps their entire lives. It begins with a yearning in their heart. They have an inner need, a purpose, a desire. The call to walk, sometimes in excruciating pain with the threat of physical injury as well as the danger of theft and assault, comes from a well deep in the heart of the pilgrim.
At first, it flutters like a wing of a butterfly in your cranium—”Hmm, wouldn’t it be nice?” Then it tugs a bit harder. “Take time to enjoy the journey, slow down. Pray and walk so that you find the rhythm in your soul.” For those of us who go on pilgrimages in the religious sense, the act is itself a step of faith. Sometime it because a wager with God. “Listen, Sir, if I take time out of my life, go the extra mile, You have to do this for me.”
Pilgrimage is a secret quid pro quo with the Divine Judge.
Like I mentioned in my previous post, I am going to find direction. I am losing my way to find the Way. His Way. I walk because I hope that by the end of the journey I will have arrived at a decision. I will have made a choice in the cross in the road of my life. I want to walk once and for all in the direction of my dreams and am praying that my way coincides with His.
Not to mention that the Camino de Santiago has held a mystique since the early Middle Ages. During undergrad English studies, I wallowed in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Those characters were all on the Camino. Since Martin Sheen’s film The Way, pilgrimage to Santiago has spiked in recent decades. But besides the “commercial” popularity of walking the pilgrimage route, I believe there is a deeper archetypal reason for setting out on pilgrimage.
There is something intrinsically human in the act of searching for meaning in the otherwise empty expanses of life. We all search for purpose. We need to feel secure that our acts, however humble and ordinary, make a difference in the scheme of things. We need to know that we matter, that there is something bigger than ourselves directing the course of our destiny. Pilgrimage is the physical manifestation of the soul’s search for meaning. Like I said before it is embodied prayer. In the journey of life, the Way imbues Meaning and value to an otherwise inscrutable path. By using the metaphor of life as a journey, the pilgrimage sanctifies the very road it takes. The pilgrim in the guise of Everyman becomes somebody special, somebody who can become holy.
It is the act of walking that gives meaning to the Way.
Yes, I have been searching for the Way for a long time. I have long wanted to be on the Way. I have been preparing to walk from the time I was born. Perhaps you too.
At the mid-point and fast descending, I find I am no longer a tourist who seeks the novelty of famed cities, who thrills at witnessing great sites and masterpieces of cultural creation. No, I am not in my thrill-seeking 20s anymore. Now when I travel, I am searching for places that have meaning, not just random dots on a map or bullet points on a bucket list. I am no longer a tourist; I am a pilgrim. This makes all the difference in how I see things and what I am open to. As a pilgrim I am seeking to discover and uncover the hidden landscapes within me. The journey on the outside is a pretext for the journey on the inside. (This is a large part behind my available “tours”.)
Yes, friends, the pilgrim sets out well prepared to take the road months in advance, if not years.
Buen camino.
For the practical preparation, of course, I had to:
-book a flight
-buy guide books
-buy molefoam and a first aid kit
-buy a flashlight
-buy a poncho
-buy protein bars
-buy a backpack
-buy good hiking shoes (I went with Ryka as they are especially ergonomically adapted for a woman’s gait)
-buy thermal underwear and hiking socks
-organize my pills and asthma medications
-buy an adaptor
-arrange for a PCR test two days before my flight
-arrange my art supplies, my journals
-think twice and three times about the clothes I would bring
-train my legs and back by walking through the park every day for an hour with my pack on my back
-prepare my family and my finances in my absence
-attending vigil almost every night for the past month praying for direction
-and lastly, find an old shell from the time I walked Jones Beach. It is the symbol of the Camino. Mine is not scalloped but it will do.
