Reading, reading, reading

In one of the first posts I made you a promise that I will come back to a more educational part of the preparation for the pilgrimage. Apart from the technical / regular organisational aspects and the physical training I was also reading social media sources and books written by pilgrims. It is more than informative that I mention it here since what I had read before setting off had inevitably influenced my own perspective. Even if I made every effort to be as impartial as possible. And I did. The list is limited here to the most important sources since listing all of those I consulted in some way would make this post one long and possibly not that captivating list of raw data. The social media sources are all to your left in a recommended blogs section. Among others, you will find there The Solitary Walker or Amawalker blogs. As for books, there are more than enough out there published on the topic. Below several of them that have been useful and informative to me, in an alphabetical order:

• Elizabeth Gilbert; Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia
• Fernando Morais; Paulo Coelho: A Warrior's Life: The Authorized Biography
• Gideon Lewis-Kraus; A Sense of Direction: Pilgrimage for the Restless and the Hopeful
• Paulo Coelho; The Pilgrimage
• Shirley MacLaine; The Camino: A Journey of the Spirit
• Zeno Howiacki; Moje Camino. Dziennik uczuć prowadzony w drodze do Santiago de Compostella

Enjoy the reading!

Another topic – on 7^th January: http://lourdes-pyrenees-camino-de-santiago.blogspot.com/2014/01/photo-gallery-and-contest.html 

I announced a contest. Unfortunately, none of the questions and messages I received has been interesting enough to publish it here, together with my reply, so this time additional photos will have to wait for another chance.

PS. This post completes the content I intended to publish here as a partial fulfilment of the commitments I have undertaken in the application for a Lord Rootes Memorial Fund award. This does not mean that I will not continue publishing new posts. It simply translates into my fulfilling the said commitments.

PS.2 Funny thing, although it has been almost three months since I walked the streets of Santiago de Compostela, I have just been reminded one of the lessons I have learnt there. Reading about the balance between technology, social media, online life, the Internet and what many call “real life”, I came across a paragraph stating that it is invaluable to focus on the present moment from time to time. The present moment, the place you are in and the people surrounding you. Completely agree. During the pilgrimage I experience the beauty of looking at the world around you and seeing that world. Try do that every now and then. :)

A human experience - part 3

One of the direct causes of Zeno Howiacki's decision to walk the Camino de Santiago was a book by Paulo Coelho. Maybe the most famous book about that pilgrimage. Definitely a reason why so many people from South Korea come to the south of France and the north of Spain. At least if you believe what a girl from there told me when we were entering Nájera. For the Brazilian writer it was this walk of almost 800 km that changed everything about his life. In his biography it is presented as one of the turning points on his way to becoming a writer. In a different scale, but the same happened to a Spanish pensioner I overheard when she was saying that before the pilgrimage she hardly knew herself. It is impossible not to mention here the volunteers that come and work helping pilgrims and the owners of those special albergue along the way who devote their lifes to caring from those who walk to Santiago. Two of them, a Brazilian and a woman from Italy, they moved to Spain and decided to start their own albergue. Now they live maybe 10 metres from the road through which passes the pilgrimage. She has walked the entire 800 km four times. As she remarked, each of those pilgrimage has been completely different from the previous ones. Life changing.

It might seem that a pilgrimage is full of contrasts and contradictions. If it is life changing for those mentioned just a paragraph before, and simultaneously, a holiday for others, a statement this is certainly strongly substantiated by many examoples. Regardless of how one evaluates it, there is a group of people making a pilgrimage as their holiday. A hospitalero (Spanish for a person working in an albergue) from Ayegui has described this phenomenon as “Ibization” of the Camino de Santiago (from Ibiza) and he clearly understood it in a negative way. Yet, numerous people I have talked with were more than happy to be walking this pilgrimage and to be on their vacation. When you discussed it with them, you could see a genuine smile of pure exhilaration on their faces. Can anyone simply negate this? To give you an example, a woman working in New Zealand in a job that she loved but also in a job that was intense, fast-paced and all-consuming took 6 week off to recharge her batteries. She decided to make a pilgrimage and she walked to Santiago de Compostela having experienced many unique moments along the way. Of course, there will be people who would seem disinterested, or maybe even disrespectful, but in judging them you would become more irreverent. You do not know why they are really there and a person can be hiding their motivation really well. Especially if it is very personal to them.

A pilgrimage can indeed be very personal if it is understood as a was of getting to know yourself. Marcel Proust wrote years ago something that applies here. He said that, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”. The pensioner mentioned above certainly saw herself with new eyes. So did Elisabeth Gilbert after she travelled to Italy, India and Indonesia as described in her book. This has also been the fate of a German who read Indian philosophers that I run into in Santiago de Compostela. They could have changed everything but they did not need to. A pilgrimage might have changed it already, or at least a part of it. And that was enough.

Before I conclude these deliberations, if a pilgrimage is all of the above for different people, is there anything that is common to all pilgrims? I will most likely never know who was it, but someone did write a sentence on the bunk bed I was sleeping in few days before arriving in Santiago. It said, Camino es la vida, what means The Way is life. The first impression might be that outside of the normal life, that is, when on a pilgrimage, that you can feel that you are alive. However, when you consider it for a moment, it may actually be the other way round. On a pilgrimage you are alone and with other people. You see beauty and you are challenged. You go far and yet you stay in one place. You get to know yourself and you take a holiday. You change your life. A pilgrimage, it seems, is a human experience that we all live and share. Even if we do not notice it or try to forget it.

A human experience - part 2

When I have set off to undertake what I committed myself to in the application for the project, I intended strongly to do it on my own. I knew I would meet other pilgrims, talk with them, socialise. But the pilgrimage was to be my own done by myself. A hiker I spoke with in Refuge Wallon-Marcadau agreed with me. For him, the beauty was in the solitude. He purposefully was choosing the mountains he was hiking in bearing in mind how many people go there. He wanted to be on his own with the nature and the challenges. I doubt there are any official statistics on the matter, however, in all probability, there might be as many people making a pilgrimage alone as there are those who do the same with company. At least, I have meet numerous representatives of both groups during the realisation of the project. Some of them told me that they wanted to come with someone they knew, either for the comfort or for the need of companionship. Yet others, as a guy from Colorado, would conclude after more than a month of a pilgrimage, that people were the best part of a journey. Some pilgrimages are made alone, others cannot be made by yourself only.

Beauty is something that both those who travelled without companions and those who were walking in a group agreed about. Beauty is an indispensable part of a pilgrimage. Whether it is a physical beauty of a landscape that extends for kilometres ahead or an inner beauty of the changes that are under way. For a woman from Australia it was the beauty of the old architecture that for the Europeans is something they do not even pause to think about. Yet, for her it was what her pilgrimage was about. For a Bulgarian it was the beauty of being able to visit places you would have never come to otherwise. For a Lithuanian it was the beauty of el Bierzo and Galicia. For a citizen of the United States it was the beauty of visiting Spain. Beauty in all shades and forms.

Physical effort and a challenge might be seen as the antitheses of beauty. Even so, many responses about the meaning of a pilgrimage I heard could have been summarised under those labels. Zeno Howiacki, who walked both to Częstochowa, a religious capital of Poland, and to Santiago de Compostela, would be one person who supported this understanding of a pilgrimage. In his book about the latter of the journeys he defiantly asserts that for him a pilgrimage was how he challenged himself and his addition. The first pilgrimage to Częstochowa brought with it a challenge of stopping drinking, the second of recovering from the consequences of years of the abuse of alcohol. If it was not sufficient, when on the Camino de Santiago he was fighting the pain in his left leg. Not after he walked too much too fast. From the first day. On the other hand, a story of three guys that at some point were walking around 40 km a day, they were from Hungary, Italy and Poland, is not that dramatic but it too does revolve around the physical effort. When they came to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port they did not know each other. A desire to walk as fast as possible and to challenge themselves as much as imaginable brought them together. They explained that it was easier to “run” the pilgrimage with some company running it together with you. 

(to be continued)

 Photo: The Pyrenees

A human experience

An exploration of the meaning of a pilgrimage in the 21^st century – this description of the blog explains one of the reasons behind my expedition. Below you will find the first part of the article I wrote attempting to provide an answer to a question, what does a pilgrimage mean now? Enjoy the reading:

Throughout this blog a word “pilgrimage” has been repeated over and over again. There has been a pilgrimage to Lourdes, to the Pyrenees, to Santiago de Compostela, to Finisterre. Others have made it when travelling to Jerusalem, Lumbini, Rome, Kumbh Mela, Mecca, Meherabad. The list could go on and on, and on. It seems that almost every place can be a pilgrimage site now. You might even have an impression that more people than ever before are making their own journeys to places of particular interest or significance, to borrow a definition of a pilgrimage from the Oxford Dictionaries. This might be even correct considering that there are more people alive now than ever before in the record history. If in fact we all, or at least a majority of us, are, have been or will be on a pilgrimage, what is this pilgrimage actually all about? Is it really simply a type of a journey indicated by the professors from Oxford?

Having read several books and social media websites, having gone on three different pilgrimages which can also be considered one long pilgrimage, I am still struggling with that question. Giving my own answer does not settle the issue since that response would have come from a single pilgrim. Considering that only Lourdes, one pilgrim destination, if you will, is visited annually by between 4 and 6 million people, an answer from a pilgrim hardly stands a chance of comprehensively covering the topic. In fact, to use a word 'pilgrimage' in itself might be seen by some as an overstatement. Mainly because of its strong association with religion. Gideon Lewis- Kraus, asked by an interviewer about the waning authenticity of pilgrimages nowadays when they are becoming “just this kind of backpacker jaunt”5 completely rejects this approach. He bluntly states that when, “Your feet are coming apart ... You've been walking for eight hours in the rain. Authenticity is the last thing you care about.” This opinion is shared by an increasing number of people. As a Spaniard from Madrid told me, they are making a pilgrimage because they feel like it. They have a need for it. And it does not have to be a religious need understood, at least, as being connected with this or that religious institution or organisation. At the very same time, it can be this type of motivation that will be driving a pilgrim forward. That would make them decide to walk through the doors of their house in the first place. The pilgrims I have passed by so many times in Lourdes came there exactly for this reason. Both are equally valid, neither is better or worse. One clever person I met made it very clear to me. When a topic of people supposedly making a wrong kind of pilgrimage came up, she replied with one sentence. This is their decision. Four words, that is it. Your pilgrimage is simply your pilgrimage. The person sitting next to you, even if they completely disagree with your motivation for walking, does not and cannot invalidate your journey. Pilgrimage is something you are on. An answer to the 'why' question does matter, and very much so, but its content, whatever it is, will not mean that you are not on a pilgrimage even if someone says otherwise. It is something you are on.

What comes to mind when one thinks pilgrimage? In all likelihood one of the places mentioned above, or a location of an analogous kind only somewhere else on the face of the planet. What unites these images is that they are somewhere far away from your home, from your life. A person from France met in Mansilla de la Mulas said that this is the case because it is hard to be free in normal life. That to go on a pilgrimage one needs to go away from whatever they consider the usual. Many do agree with that. A person from Belgium I run into on the first day in the Pyrenees explained that he is hiking because it is about going away, walking away. More opinions could be quoted here. Nevertheless, there are those who would dare to disagree. A reply would be that to go on a pilgrimage understood as a journey somewhere there is no need to physically move from a place X to a place Y. You can travel inside of you. You can grow inside. You can develop and experience without having to board a plane that is going to take you 2 or 5 thousand kilometres away from the airport. A dad of a friend inquiring me just days before my flight asked if I really needed to go that far to do what I was hoping to do. The question got me thinking. The answer would be not always and not necessarily. 40 or so days later when I was again in Poland another person I was talking with about what I have lived through said that she has experienced some of those things without going on a pilgrimage. That she could recognise and understand what I was saying even if she has not walked the Camino de Santiago, has not hiked in the Pyrenees or nor she has visited Lourdes. A pilgrimage is a journey far away but it is also a journey right where you are.

(to be continued)

Photo: Shortly before Ponferrada, the Camino de Santiago

The last days

14.10-18.10.2013

There are two rituals that you follow when you arrive in Santiago. Two in addition to the Compostela you can receive from a pilgrim office. They are the hug of the apostle and a visit to the tomb of Saint James. The first one is when you go up the stairs behind the altar and you can literally hug a statute of Saint James if you want. The second is when you go down the stairs behind the altar, although from the other side, and stand in front of the tomb of the apostle. You can simply be there, say a prayer, reflect, do really whatever you feel like. I followed those rituals a day after I arrived in Santiago. On Tuesday I continued my pilgrimage further to Finisterre which a thousand years ago, before the Camino de Santiago became a Christian trail, used to be the end of the pagan pilgrimage to the end of the world. Back then the existence of the Americas was an unknown fact for the majority of Europeans and Finisterre together with its Costa da Morte was as far as you could go. I arrived there in a car with one of the Lithuanian girls I have met before and we hiked the last 3.5 km from the city to the lighthouse. It was raining heavily so to see the ocean you had to go down the rocks next to the lighthouse. I did. The awareness of the fact that you are in this place, at the end of the world, was worth getting soaking wet. Even if you could only see what was as fas as 10 metres in front of you. After coming back to Santiago I have been walking around the city, meeting people I have met before who just arrived or who were having a lunch or a dinner somewhere around. I have tried the octopus which is one of the most traditional Galician dishes. One of my favourite things to do in the last four days was to sit in front of the cathedral in the main square (there are four squares around the cathedral) next to a shell on the pavement. A shell is a symbol of the Camino de Santiago and it is also where the arriving pilgrims come first. I have seen some of the friends I have made before in this square. On the next to last day I went to the Museo de las Peregrinaciones y de Santiago fulfilling the last remaining part of my expedition. In there you can find out a lot about the history of the Camino de Santiago and pilgrimages in general. You can also see an exhibition that might help you reflect on your efforts. Having done that, the next day early in the morning I went to the airport and after 40 days of my pilgrimage, which has been an experience impossible to fully describe with mere words, I flew to London and then to Lublin.

Photo: Finisterre, the Camino de Santiago

Santiago!

09.10-13.10.2013

During my pilgrimage I have passed by several monasteries, some of them being the most important monasteries in their countries in the past. Samos was one of them. I arrived there early in the morning after leaving Triacastela, in a way, by accident. When you leave Triacastela there are two paths to follow, a shorter one more direct to Sarria, and a longer one that passes through Samos. 7 km longer. I intended to go through the first one, however, as it was still dark when I started walking that day, I mixed up the paths and ended up going to Samos. Later, I was glad that this happened since that variant has been really beautiful and being in Samos when it was foggy is something hard to forget. There are more places on the Camino de Santiago where you choose between two, or sometimes even more, paths. Some follow more traditional routes, some have been developed by the associations of friends of the Camino de Santiago. This time I did not go as I wanted to initially and when you are on a pilgrimage this might sometimes be the case. 

Sarria, the city I have just mentioned, is located around 110 km from Santiago de Compostela. Because of this it is a place where many people start their walking the Camino de Santiago as in order to receive a Compostela, which is an official “certificate” that confirms your pilgrimage, you need to walk at least the last 100 km. Compostela has been given to pilgrims since the Middle Ages and except for your name (or only your surname if they can translate the name) it is all in Latin. Although not all pilgrims feel the need to have it, or, in other words, it is not why they go to Santiago, for others, it is a proud possession. As you have probably noticed, the majority of my Camino de Santiago went through Spanish territory. However, there much more routes to follow if you wish to make a pilgrimage to the tomb of Saint James and some of them start as far from this Galician city as Lublin in Poland, Dublin in Ireland, Oslo in Norway or Tallinn in Estonia. Regardless of where you are coming from, you experience the customs and traditions of the places you are crossing and then same has been in case of my stay in Arzúa. I was already well aware that during fiestas in Spain almost all of the shops are closed, however, it skipped my mind that that Saturday was El Día de la Hispanidad. As a result, since I was running short of food supply and since there was an important day in front of me, after the usual shower, I went into the city and it took me something like 30-40 minutes to find the only shop open in the entire Arzúa. Normally, it would have been 5-10 minutes, but if you have the right motivation, and food is definitely an example of that, you can look for a shop 4 or 5 times longer. After I have eaten and rested for the remaining part of the day, I was eager to leave the albergue early in the morning. Especially because Santiago de Compostela was only 39.8 km away! I was not sure if I would be able to walk that much in one day. I have never walked that much during the entire pilgrimage. I was simply walking and checking every now and then if I am still able to continue. It turned out that I was and my entire body was bouncing with energy and joy during that walk. It just wanted to be in Santiago now! Monte do Gozo, which is 5 km before the city, is a place from which for the first time the towers of the cathedral are visible (it was raining when I was there so this time they were not visible). From that place I did not have to walk using my feet, the enthusiasm about what was happening was driving me forward. Just before I reached Monte do Gozo it started to rain but that was not important at all. I walked into Santiago with a huge smile on my face, I shouted something a few times, some of the people I passed by were smiling, a driver beeped his horn and I just continued. Through the rain, without thinking about the fact that I was really tired, even if I felt it, just in the direction of the cathedral. And minutes later I arrived there, I have made it to the cathedral, I touched it and I was there!

Photo: Galicia, shortly before Santiago de Compostela, the Camino de Santiago

Recommendations

Taking into consideration the mere length of the expedition alone, to give a full account of all the practical recommendations for such a journey would have taken up a significant amount of time. Given the abundance of the similar texts available on-line, my intent here is to give you two short recommendations only partially related with the organisation. In fact, they are more concerned with the attitude of a person undertaking a pilgrimage than with how to go about booking or researching what is waiting out there. ;)

Go unprepared! - By saying this I am referring to the amount of preparation done in advance, not to the fact whether one needs to prepare at all. Just to clarify, one does need to do some preparation. However, having said that, I would recommend not to become too focused on or too stressed about the preparation. Consciously leaving certain aspects of the journey unplanned can be a well thought-through move given that it might aid the overall experience. People are often too focused on getting it right, and right according to a certain conception, so as a result they are more likely to miss on the actual and authentic things that happen along the way. Going unprepared could be a part of letting things just happen during a pilgrimage.

Do not try to plan or control – The second recommendation is related more with the realisation stage of the expedition. Personally I have attempted to plan a day or a few days in advance during a big part of the project. Having completed it, I would recommend not to follow my example. Planning and controlling might create expectations, sometimes unnecessary expectations, and distract from the present of what you will be experiencing. I do not suggest not doing any planning at all, however, fully living in the present time has been an invaluable experience for myself and it also can teach you a lot.

 Photo: The Pyrenees