El Peregringo

I mentioned in my post about yesterday that I had dinner with the french couple who arrived so late in Torres de Río. They arrived late again as a small group of us were just sitting down to our own dinner, and we invited them to join us. Like so many of the dinners, language issues tend to dissolve, though in this dinner we had a young woman who spoke German with only a few words of English, a Spaniard who spoke only Spanish (but who didn’t let that stop her from speaking at length to anyone and laughing a great deal), the French couple (she speaks a few words of English, he only French), the hospitalero who joined us (who speaks both Spanish and French), and me. Somehow, we all managed to achieve a deep communication that I think only fellow pilgrims could ever understand. Late in the evening I learned something that literally made me cry. I would have guessed that the french woman was a little older than her companion, but I was very surprised to learn that she is a grandmother and he in his twenties.

But it was the rest of her story that was heart wrenching. It turns out that just over a year ago, her husband of 20 years died of cancer. On his deathbed he asked her to promise to do the Camino, and she agreed. I am a mere 9 days into my own Camino, and I discover that she has walked from Geneva — she has been walking for 10 weeks already. Some few weeks into her promised Camino, she met this young man and they connected as soul mates. She tells me that she is absolutely certain from her prayers, that her husband knew she would meet this young man–a “man of god”– and that in so doing she would be able to continue living her life. I started to cry and she hugged me, telling me not to be sad. She says she is happy because she knows her husband is with god, and that in walking the Camino he has ensured that she will continue to live happily, and to not be alone. I can’t even begin to understand this kind of faith, but it literally arrests my breathing…

So after this powerful event, this morning I began my walk again. As I’ve mentioned before, so far I have walked alone the majority of the time, and today was no exception. As I left Ventosa, the hospitalero having given warm and genuine embraces to most all of the pilgrims as they departed, I’m left wondering at the spirituality I have discovered in one short week. Yes, this has been a christian pilgrimage for a millennium, but I have met many people who are not here primarily for christian reasons, yet spirituality pervades practically every step. As I was pondering this, I came upon something else which stopped me in my tracks and caused me to sit down and cry.

Every day that I have been on the Camino, I have encountered small piles of stones–some actually not all that small. Frequently the piles are placed on top of the concrete or stone markers which indicate the route of the Camino, or upon any small monument along the way. I had wondered about these and considered them to be some kind of spontaneous, group art. In Logroño I learned that the tradition is more spiritual than simply artistic. Each stone represents something the pilgrim wishes to leave behind in his or her life. Perhaps a problem, perhaps some worry. One carries the stone some distance and in prayer, conveys whatever negative idea or issue into the stone and leaves it behind them on the Camino. Here are a few images of what I came across. Even if I could create a sound track and use a wide format camera, nothing could convey how moving this was.

This thing, this Camino may just break my heart.