Finding oneself on the Camino (part 1)
Via de La Plata: Merida.
The “Ego” in my rucksack.
The person I was when I set off on my first Camino, the Via de La Plata, in 2010 is captured well on the “business” card I prepared for the journey. I must have imagined all sorts of things, not only about who I might meet en route, but about who I was. So many experienced Caminantes have said that the Camino is about finding yourself. I am sure that is the case. Cetrainly I am not the self I thought I was when I set off from Seville on St. Patrick’s day. That was a false self composed of half-truths, half-fictions, too.
For almost all of the first two weeks of the Camino, I walked on my own and only slept in albergues with other pilgrims on four occasions. Looking at the card I must have imagined that I would be being more sociable than I actually was the moment I started walking. For some years I had been involved in self-help groups and obviously thought that my skills as a counsellor would come in handy on the Camino; maybe even be in demand. So I brought my own publicity. The little bundle of cards added to the weight in my rucksack. By Merida I was beginning to shed my self-image as a “helper”. Just beginning, because escaping from this skin took me another year and more and some of it keeps growing back.
Beginning to find the true self.
The Via de La Plata enters the cities of Merida, Salamanca and Zamora by bridges built by the Romans.
Roman bridge, Via de La Plata, Merida
I walked across the first of these on a beautiful spring day just early enough to leave my rucksack in the albergue which was filling up rapidly. This was the beginning of Holy Week and the numbers on the Camino were swelling. This albergue did not open until 5pm but accepted baggage before 1pm. So, unencumbered I was able to look around this Roman jewel where remains of the ancient city are constantly being uncovered beneath the buildings dating from the past hundred years. Only now is their value being appreciated.
Temple of Diana, Merida
I had walked in the previous 10 days more than I had in the 19 years which had passed since I fell causing a compound fracture of my tibia and fibia which subsequently became infected. During these days I had felt a lightness and freedom growing within me, a sense of possibilities in life I had not dreamed of and a joy which came from deep within, below the surface. I had been through therapy, studied a recognised brand of therapy and trained to transmit this therapy – my “business” card said so. However, the hurts and wounds and violences, the roots of all our ills which therapy uncovers do not seem to unearth the beauty, truth and goodness of the inner self which begins to surface on the Camino. We learn in therapy, if it is good, to accept and live with our wounds: we can clear the ground to build our lives afresh. This can only go so far.
On the Camino many people talk of their experiences of beauty, especially the beauty in nature. Others talk of the goodness of people they have met and the kindness of the local populations. There are those who notice that the noises in the head become quiet and the great, important questions in life have the space they to show their true dimensions and forms, often becoming awesome mysteries rather than suffocating nightmares. We see the beauty and goodness in others because we have slowed down and have more time to listen.
How you see, not what you see
The camera reveals how people see as much as what they see and today the internet is full of pilgrims’ photographs witnessing how they are seeing the world with appreciative eyes. We see joyfully, we open our hearts to others and we also find in our bodies capacities we had not known existed. It is no wonder that so many say that they begin to know who they are on the Camino. It is the beginning of a long, long Camino but we have crossed the bridge.
Beauty in form – at sunrise.
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