how human our limits
that stonewall the old
when back-lit in turquoise
sage-pink and gold
we step fast from old steps
reject habitations
rooted in ivy and lichen and mould
to stretch long through wheat fields
and sing clear to blue peaks
as windmills sift slowly
the breeze that our throats seek
while temperatures rising
drench soft cloth and salt skin
as rugged the weary
pass mountain and memory
to pause at The Cross.
And as the past city life speeds,
my daze upon the Camino sporadically slips into the crevices between sandy screed, my stride scuffs un-timely, once and twice and once again, refining the footfall to the changing crunch of striations in rock and grey-brown earth that’s been pre-laid and pre-pounded by the millions of souls traversing This Way before me.
Founded, pre-pounded and now prepared for us by this Mother Earth who is pushing up her moulton heart to welcome home our weary souls, to reconfirm our pre-laid place beyond these shifting sands of sod.
Foot bottoms touch essences of love, then encroached within the rationality of rubber thin on rock so hard, they fall away.
This new days sun shadow softly calls to soothe minds that even still resist to perambulate upon such pre-occupations of partiality that niggle into this moment the half forgotten worrisome realities of distancing and home.
Shadows follow me far and close friends unknowingly chatter away.. Their words dance with the vistas to cool and delight, to distract the night but even so the internal workings of controlling thought still finds the right to rise unbidden upon my bile filling mouth.
This sputter and spittle upon every incline salts to blend chapped lip and furred tongue to extend fibres in warmth and dampenings to darken cotton and stick to skin and to the very frame upon my back.
I stop and stoop to breathe and chill this urge to just give in, to cool these sweats to no-thing, to engage in nothing but the witnessing of white rings growing freely upon clothing, as my heart sings to the soundings of eardrums that seem well beyond me and as eventually my rich red blood of imagining flows more deeply within rivers that gurgle to meet and greet in the most fulsome expression of coughing fits that are fit to fill this verdant valley before me.
And as time passes, as I gulp into this morning again and once again as I gradually begin to lose sight of my friendly companions, this road opens to become one.
Regrouped, I pick up by baggage and gingerly step into another unknowing clump of determination and propensity to drive my limbs into and through this mid morning slump of will.
Everything passes, this too will pass.
And so my mantra grows and sure enough, back into my stride, I glide and smile to remember that beauty and light naturally unfurls when determination and spirited will gently allows Earth’s tenderness to immerse within my feet.
Theresa of Avila (when speaking about how to move towards the infinite)
‘The secret is determination, decision and will.’
Julian Campo (Chelin) of Rabanal Del Camino
was a rich and successful businessman who became deeply changed by his walk along The Camino de Compostella.
At the age of 50 he left Burgos with seven horses and journeyed to Calcutta where he spent his time, money and energy tending to the sick and the poor alongside Mother Theresa.
When he returned home to Galicia he’d lost so much weight that friends and family didn’t recognise him. This statue sits quietly within the little village of Rabanal de Compostella.
At the age of 54, with 20 kms under my belt and 252 more to go, I slump slightly beside the granite rock of Julian. I touch his cool forehead and hope that he may transmit some radical change in me.
Picking up my sticks, I decide to stop shaving and through the slow blink of this first noon day sun, Julian continues to look blankly ahead.
city slowness 