Mid-Stream and Swimming

Sometimes it seems though we´re swimming through a sea of green since the wheat fields blowing in the wind looks like green waves in an ocean, especially here now where we´re walking. We´re traversing a meseta across Palencia and Junta Castille y Leon towards the town of Leon now. The land is vast and one feels part of that expanse. Today we walked a straight dirt and rock road without variation for 10 straight miles with no town in sight and no sound of road. It was like a desert and one´s feet really felt like wheels just step by step turning towards our destination - the next town - which never appeared but at the last since it sat just a hundred feet or so below the meseta on which we walked. The wheat fields surrounded us and sometimes the way was lined by a row of poplar trees. The feeling now on Day 15 of continous walking - day after day - is profound in the sense that one is really absorbed by the feeling of the air on one´s skin, the sight of the red earth beneath one´s feet, the sight of the sky and clouds, the play of the little birds darting in the wind, the steady repition of step by step going by some internal momentum that seems only to have a destination now that is a volition to reach the end of this land mass. Indeed, this will be the Atlantic ocean! The terrain of Palencia, a province the Romans inhabited in 900´s and before, is mostly flatlands, wind and sky. The air has been cold here these three days that we´ve been walking, and the town architecture has been Romanesque, though the towns have been much littler than the ones we found earlier on the path, and without the traditional town center as we´re formerly used to walking through. It´s so interesting how it changes and we don´t know what to expect, yet there is so much in common day to day. We walk through the morning and into the afternoon, then we find a place to take rest, we shop in the local store in the evening for fresh food to cook, we cook in the communal kitchen of the places we stay, and we share conversation and sometimes food with the others we meet on the path. Last night we were sharing a table with North Americans only! This was the first time we had such company alone since mostly we are meeting Italian, French, and Spanish travellers. The company of pilgrims last night was a couple from Canada, a couple from Atlanta, Georgia, a man from Mississippi.
The accommodation has mostly been in the municipal albergues where we share a dormitory style room with others, but this changes and from time to time we have a double room, and-or we stay in the parroquial albergues (which are donation only, and so a very different feeling since the persons there are there to serve the pilgrims as volunteers and there´s no need for the pilgrim to give any money remuneration, but most do) ... The parroquial albergue at Granon in the province of La Riojia was very special. We stayed in the quarters just attached to the church an even there was a doorway and small hall entry way into the back of the church, San Juan de Batista! We even were able to walk up the tower into the bell room, but it was shockingly loud!! We stayed in a loft room on sleeping mats with about 16 others. There was a skylight just above my mat and we could see the stork´s nest on top of the small bell tower! The sunlight streamed in at that spot, and that´s why I chose it. The hospitalaria who led us up to the loft asked which place we´d like and we went straight for the window. We got there and landed means we unpacked and lay down on the mat to rest, stretch, listen to the conversations of others coming in, talking too ...
One person says, ¨One thing about this camino (this walk), it´s not boring. It´s different every time.¨
Truly! Every day, though walking, is quite different, even when the landscape is scarcely changing as it has been recently!
Another woman comments to us right as we settle into our spaces in the loft, ¨It was like a gateway opening when I came into this albergue here in the church and the hospitalar (the volunteer) offered me a cup of water. I was so tired and it seemed as if he saw, and just gave it and let me sit quietly.¨ She was profoundly moved, and it´s like that sometimes ... some surrender is there and there is some opening that is moving and freeing the heart towards greater lightness. She was so cheered by the effort of that volunteer, and he was so happy to selflessly give. He also walks the camino and knows the strength it takes, and so he can see and give what´s needed, and we are not always so open, but then to receive this open heartedness just opens our own heart ... The parroquial albergues have more of this sincere true pilgrim spirit ... as it´s a place where nothing is expected, but what is needed is given. The two men serving for two weeks at this one prepared a meal for 44 of us from the donation monies that had been given the night before. We all set up and cleaned up, and we all really appreciated the small confines, the piano, the guitar, the good spirits of one another ... That evening some of us went into the back of the church and had some prayers up in the very old choir stalls ...
People are coming for many reasons on this camino. It´s usually a mix, but it is also either religious, cultural, spiritual, or for physical fitness ... One young woman told me when I asked her what brought her ... ¨A lot of things - some good - some bad.¨ Someone last night said that the walk will change you ... no matter what. Indeed it is interesting to everyday make this concerted effort to walk, and towards a destination that is so far away ... We do this in life all the time as we set goals and reach them. Perhaps here only is that it´s confined in a limited space of time and the camino is one´s sole occupation ... sort of like a 10-day meditation course in ways ... only different.
Perhaps in about 6 days time we will be ascending another mountain up to 1,500 meters, and then we´ll be well on our way towards the ocean and to Santiago. We´ll write as often as we can.
All friends, family and loved ones are in our thoughts.