The plains of La Mancha – Taming the Windmills of my mind.
Distraction free camino
I was surprised to find myself still walking after my visit to the doctor in Almansa. He was very doubtful about the outcome of his work on my knee which, on this Camino in early 2011, threatened to sabotage my pilgrimage. I was still in considerable pain as I headed for Alpera cursing ADIF. This state-owned company is responsible for the impressive rail infrastructure in Spain – which has received 800 million euros in European aid up until last year. The Camino was diverted time and again because of engineering works by ADIF which failed to respect the path of the camino, carving a new high speed rail line along many kilometres of the route obliging me to make lengthy detours around the new track. Although the Province of Albacete is mainly flat, this new railway line had many high bridges which placed a huge strain on my knee and I realised my indignation with Adif was running out of all proportion when I began planning terrorist attacks on giant earth movers..
Pharaonic works by Adif, the Spanish State owned rail construction company.
“Pray all the time”
At the start of my Camino I had “a message” which I somehow associated with St. Therèse de Lisieux. I felt I was being urged to “pray all the time” and had set about trying to do so. I was combining all the types of prayer I knew, repetitive prayer, the rosary, petition, thanksgiving, praying for others, Iona prayers, centering prayer and silence: indeed anything which came to me at the moment. Overall, it didn’t seem, in these early days, to be too much of a challenge. Even my knee seemed to loosen up as I repeated over and over , “Jesús en tí confío.”
Reaching the signpost where the Ruta de La Lana departs from the Camino de Levante.
The doctor in Almansa had suggested to me that I take the Wool Route (Ruta de La Lana), which branched off northwards shortly before Alpera, on the next day’s walking. It was only when I pointed out to him that he was treating me for a badly damaged knee and that I had chosen the Camino de Levante for its lack of mountains that he seemed to note that he was proposing a route which passed through some of the wildest country in Spain and would be demanding even for a pilgrim with two good knees. This doctor turned out to be an active Amigo del Camino and his professional advice to me was to keep on walking as long as I could. His medical outlook is obviously holistic. He said, “If the pain eases in the next week, then it should be fine for a month or so – at least until Santiago”. he was a doctor with Faith.
The road less travelled
However, this level Route through the Plains of La Mancha, was like a big dipper with all the new bridges, and my desire to pray all the time was being defeated by my anger with ADIF. I was reigning my fury under control and away from acts of violent destruction. Instead I was incubating gentle plans to denounce this company for all sorts of mal-practice. With luck I might stumble across some impressive corruption scandals which cling like sweet after-shave to some of the Spanish political class and their works.
Windmills of my mind.
“So saying, and commending himself with all his heart to his lady Dulcinea, imploring her to support him in such a peril, with lance in rest and covered by his buckler, he charged at Rocinante’s fullest gallop and fell upon the first mill that stood in front of him; but as he drove his lance-point into the sail the wind whirled it round with such force that it shivered the lance to pieces, sweeping with it horse and rider, who went rolling over on the plain, in a sorry condition. Sancho hastened to his assistance as fast as his ass could go, and when he came up found him unable to move, with such a shock had Rocinante fallen with him.”
A pilgrim should have his mind directed to God and here I was embarking on the crossing of La Mancha, where the Camino de Levante coincides with the Don Quixote route with my head engaged with the slaughter of corporative giants. I suppose I dreamed of being a great pilgrim just as Don Quixote believed he was a knight-errant. The new motorways and railway lines were in my path: to be defeated with vigour, bravery and honour.
An obligatory detour for a motorway under construction. The Camino goes in exactly the opposite direction.
There was more than a bit of Don Quixote in me at that moment. The desire to do battle, to join in the war, to start a fight, to win an argument against today’s Goliaths have been with me all my life. Often they have been obsessions with a perceived injustice which injures many, myself included of course. Yet I was a hero who always tried to avoid pain, so I had become strategically tactical, litigious, manipulative and menacing rather than physically aggressive. I didn’t ever want to risk everything, but none of this compromised my heroism: I would win the approval of my Dulcinea by my daring intellectual agility. What a load of cowardly nonsense: windmills of my mind.
La Mancha – vanishing points.
Uninterrupted pace.
Much of the Camino de Levante in the Province of Albacete, once the challenge of ADIF has been met, is composed of long, flat and straight paths with few buildings or trees. Vines or maize are grown in fields alongside: the maize is genetically modified and new, Spain being Europe’s laboratory for Monsanto. “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every grain which proceeds from the labs of Monsanto” – with this thought I kept alive my own temptations to engage in warfare as I contemplated the contrast between the ancient culture of the vine and these acres dedicated to uncontrolled GM production, man’s supremacy over nature and predatory desire for wealth. The GM fields had sophisticated irrigation systems so that nothing would fail and, as if to provoke me further, they had even sown the crop right over the Camino.
The Camino exposed after the harvest.
The Camino, however, works deeply within and slowly, step by step, unfankles the fankled, straightens the contortions in mind and heart, resets priorities, simplifies, empties and fills the self with light, with lightness, with love. I know what it feels like to have devils cast out of me, to wonder how on earth I could have been so caught up in an obsessive fantasy of over-powering some anonymous company, being the Superman who rights all wrongs in global industrialisation. My obsessions faded as the days slipped by and I strode the horizontal kilometres of La Mancha. And with this devil gone I felt free, full of the lightness of liberation. I know there are more devils around, but they are closer to home and are my real work, my invitation to inner transformation, which is what the Camino is for.
Step by step and steppe by steppe, I utter a prayer for “Faith, Humility and Trust” adding compassion, because this was the moment to do so. The annoyance has gone and I begin to enjoy the silence, the emptiness, the lack of distraction in the path vanishing into the horizon. La Mancha is exorcising many demons in its plainness in the endless kilometres straight ahead and behind. My breathing is regular and deep and conscious. I am aware that I have a rhythm in my pacing, my pains no longer weigh me down; and I am present, just walking. I have shed the noises and obsessions and how wonderful it is to stride with mind, body and spirit in harmony and a prayer in my heart.
Nine days after Almansa – el Toboso
I arrived in El Toboso nine days walking after visiting the doctor in Almansa where I had feared that my Camino would be curtailed by my knee which I had injured two days before setting off on this pilgrimage. The pain had gone, I had walked in snow and gales, had slept in fields and hostals and once in a shelter with an illegal immigrant who smoked ceaselessly, but I was still walking. This Camino de Levante was taking me by the hand and accompanying my every step with peace: this Way was a way into prayer, prayer which for the moment seemed natural, easy and flowing, often wordless and silent. La Mancha seemed open to the heavens and it didn’t matter at all that the Dulcinea was nowhere to be found: I was as empty as the February fields and I was filled with peace – simply to be here was enough.