What The Camino Provided For Me

 

A transformative experience

In August of 2018, I set out on a hiking journey across the north of Spain on the Camino de Santiago-a network of walking trails serving pilgrimage to the shrine of the apostle Saint James the Great in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain.

I was told time and time again by those who have walked it that “the Camino provides” -I didn’t know at the time that this trip would bookend a major turning point in my life.

Not only did I walk alone, I walked daily, carrying all my belongings in a backpack, following waymarkers on the side of the road, sleeping at “albergues” (communal hostels) along the way without any advance reservations. To add to that; I was not a young woman. The Camino showed me is that it is possible to be exhilarated and terrified at the same time. I learned that this was what ¨truly feeling alive¨was like.

One of the first lessons the Camino provided for me is the value of time alone and that we are never really alone. I discovered that walking for extended periods of time produced great mental clarity. It felt amazing. I felt a connection to myself. I learned that there’s nothing wrong with singing out loud in the forest and hearing your echo or crying out and letting go of all the negative thoughts can feel so freeing. I discovered the magic of the forest.

I realized that I still had the time and resources to start writing- something I had wanted to do since I was a child-before life got in the way. I had thousands of stories percolating in my mind. I learned that it is impossible to hold both fear and gratitude in the brain at the same time. It can only be one or the other.

I did not know that, by being on the Camino, I was putting myself in a place to be irrevocably touched in such a mystical way. For the rest of my life I will be on a search for a transformative experience like this.

There is a lot to be said about the notion of creating our lives with the experiences met on any given day. That was life on the Camino.

There are way markers in life, as in the Camino, if we just bothered to look for them and paid attention to their arrival in all their subtle forms.