{"id":534,"date":"2013-10-02T12:53:52","date_gmt":"2013-10-02T10:53:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.the-raft-of-corks.com\/blog\/?p=534"},"modified":"2013-12-10T10:09:40","modified_gmt":"2013-12-10T09:09:40","slug":"doubts-tested-meeting-fellow-pilgrim-dead-walk-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/the-raft-of-corks.com\/blog\/doubts-tested-meeting-fellow-pilgrim-dead-walk-us\/","title":{"rendered":"My doubts are eased by meeting a fellow pilgrim. The dead walk with us. Ruta de La Lana Day 3 cont."},"content":{"rendered":"

A meeting in the Saline valley.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

I sat down to tend an emerging blister. \u00a0I had no strength in my muscles and doubted my capacity to walk for many more days. \u00a0It was 8am and I was wilting.<\/p>\n

\"bleak<\/a>

bleak salty valley<\/p><\/div>\n

I became aware of an approaching figure who was obviously a fellow pilgrim. \u00a0A man of roughly my age, tall and hobbling a little, greeted me warmly. \u00a0This Belgian man exchanged the usual basic information which pilgrims share, a process of ranking in seniority on the Camino which in reality counts for nothing but probably satisfies a primitive instinct for knowing our position vis-a-vis l’autre. \u00a0This soon gave way to the nitty-gritty talk about our feet. \u00a0Jacque’s boots were new and pinching and as a veteran on the Camino he knew well that new boots can cause problems but these were exactly the same size and make as those he had just discarded, so he had hoped they would be fine. My sandals were also new and just like my old ones. \u00a0I had made the same mistake.<\/span><\/p>\n

We were on different Caminos. \u00a0Jacques was following the Camino del Sureste<\/a>\u00a0which shares the same route as the Ruta de la Lana up to Almansa. \u00a0From the guest-books in the hostels I was to learn that the numbers who begin the Camino in Alicante, especially early in the year, are just a handful each month and most of these follow the Camino del Sureste. \u00a0Indeed, I had chosen my route because it is usually empty.<\/p>\n

We talked about being solitary walkers and I listened as Jacques told me about his son who had died in 2005. \u00a0“Ah, yes,” I said, “and he is often with you as you walk.” \u00a0I know this because it was one of my first experiences when I began walking in 2009. \u00a0I felt the presence of a former acquaintance, a Jesuit, who was shot dead by guerrillas in Zimbabwe. \u00a0It was not an apparition, just an awareness of presence which can, of course, be attributed to pure imagination. This explanation does not diminish the impact of the experience on my mood, my outlook, indeed on my level of awareness of being. \u00a0Anyway, Jacques confirmed eagerly that his son is often with him. \u00a0I thought fondly of the many other pilgrims who have told me the same, of \u00a0Gerry Hughes<\/a>\u00a0who writes about his sister who drowned. He was aware of her in his walk to Jerusalem, a pilgrimage for peace. \u00a0I remembered my meeting on the Via de La Plata with a mother who had lost a child and spoke eloquently of her consolation in knowing her daughter walked with her.<\/p>\n

\"Where<\/a>

Where Jacques prodded the ground as he told me of his son’s death.<\/p><\/div>\n

Jacques took his leave and left me to put a magic plastic coating on my foot. \u00a0My energy level had changed and my doubts were absent, replaced by a sense of wonder at how two strangers can meet and, in five minutes, explore the limitations of our everyday experience in which our normal discourse is petrified. \u00a0The mundane is usually so dominant that when we break out from it, loosening its sticky, clinging grasp we fly free to experience the unimaginable. While it is possible to claim that the imagination is a complete explanation for this common phenomenon, (an awareness of the dead), imagining those who have died as being present to us is quite different from experiencing an awareness of their presence. \u00a0Philosophical issues matter to me when I am in a state of doubt. \u00a0After my meeting with Jacques this changed. \u00a0I felt engaged again with my Camino and its challenge to all that I take for granted as “normal”. \u00a0Doubting becomes unimportant. Indeed it is the flowering of paradox which grows alongside the camino like rosemary which opens the self to being empty of certainty; \u00a0like the little blue petals which part to offer their pollen to the air and the bees.<\/p>\n

\"Rosemary<\/a>

Rosemary bordering the Ruta de La Lana.<\/p><\/div>\n

The paradox in this moment for me, as Jacques parted on his solitary Camino and I continued on mine, is how, in this solitude, I encountered a fullness of union, with Jacques with my fellow pilgrims, with humanity and nature, with the dead. The communion of saints.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\nhttp:\/\/www.the-raft-of-corks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/meeting-with-Jacques.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A meeting in the Saline valley. I sat down to tend an emerging blister. \u00a0I had no strength in my muscles and doubted my capacity to walk for many more days. \u00a0It was 8am and I was wilting. I became … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7,4],"tags":[1378,19,1377,12],"class_list":["post-534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pilgrimage-and-prayer","category-ruta-de-la-lana","category-the-raft-of-corks","tag-gerry-hughes","tag-la-lana","tag-la-lana-day","tag-la-plata"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-raft-of-corks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-raft-of-corks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-raft-of-corks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-raft-of-corks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-raft-of-corks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/the-raft-of-corks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-raft-of-corks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-raft-of-corks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-raft-of-corks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}