"One is always nearer by not keeping still."

It has been a week since I last posted. I did write a whole post a couple of days ago but once again my phone managed to delete it before I could publish.

In the past week we have walked 140 kilometers and faced various challenges, but we're still walking and are now approaching Santiago. To date we have walked 240km. Last week we completed a series of full stages, including the one known as the "leg wrecker" and another couple of 24 km walks with steep inclines and descents on slippery, stony paths.

I will try and summarise some of our adventures over the past six days.

We had three very long days from La Mesa traveling through the Asturian mountains until we crossed into Galicia and came down to O Cadavo. On the first of these days, the one known as the "leg-wrecker" which goes from La Mesa to Grandas de  Salime began in a downpour. The children did not even hesitate or question the wisdom of setting out in the pouring rain down a steep stony slippery slope. Instead, they donned their rain jackets and stoically set forth on a 24 km wet walk without complaint. The journey took us down to the reservoir at Grandas de Salime and then on a steep incline up out of the valley.

Once we got to the top, the sun had come out and we arrived at a beautiful casa rural in San Julian, filled with beautiful flowers.

The next two long stages to Fonsagrada and then on through to O Cadavo felt fairly relentless and tough. Aching feet, blisters and a sense that there would never be enough rest at each stop did take a toll. Some misleading info in our guidebook promising cafes and grocery stores that turned out to be closed led to a loss of morale. However, in the midst of this, there were joyous moments of picking wild cherries and wild strawberries, washing tired feet in cold streams and endless imaginary games that the children invented along the path. Local villagers also took pity on us ( or took pity on the children!) and fed us and gave us coffee when the cafe we were counting on for lunch had closed down.

We have settled into a rhythm where we arrive at our stop for the night, shower and do laundry….we only have two sets of clothes as we carry everything….so daily laundry is essential! Then we relax until supper and then get ready for the next day so the morning doesn't require much thought and we can "get up and walk". Often we have  dinner with other pilgrims and so there are now several familiar faces on the road. These dinner conversations have been wonderful sources of ideas and laughter and inspiration. 

One conversation I had with a German Buddhist who works in a monastery in Germany as the monastery cook.  He does a camino every year and said to me that he sees hundreds of people in crisis who arrive at his Buddhist temple to meditate and volunteer so they can deal with their problems. His response to them is to tell them they " just need to buy a pair of shoes and walk ( the camino)….that will fix their depression or addiction or relationship problems in a way that no amount of meditation will ever do".  

The last few days have been a Galician cultural extravaganza. Firstly, we celebrated the festival of San Juan which marks the summer solstice and involves lots of fire symbolism and literal bonfires and burning of alcohol scented with lemon and spices which burns the bad spirits and bad luck away. 

We then spent the night in Lugo during the Arde Lucas festival where the whole town dresses up as Romans or Galicians and re-enacts battles.  Couples can get married in the traditional celtic ceremonies, which last for a year and for seven subsequent years the couples return and the woman is asked if she wishes to continue with the marriage. Only after seven years of renewing marriage vows and rites is the marriage declared permanent. At least …this is what I understood!

Rob and I had expected to read a lot on this trip, but interestingly are not mentally in a reading space. It is almost as though the more achy and physically exhausted we feel, the more alive our thoughts and minds are…so we spend lots of time talking about all the thoughts and ideas that bubble to the surface as we walk. 

I have definitely had some crises of confidence this week, where I have really struggled with the physical toll that walking over 20km a day with lots of elevation …can take on one's body.   But I am still walking….and learning so much from doing this.

The poem that has been in my mind over the past few days was on the first page of my A Level Literature poetry collection from 30 years ago. 

Thom Gunn and the Beat poets and their restless existential doubt….all seem quite pertinent to the state I find myself in where I am "On the Move" in such a physical sense. The whole poem is wonderful and I have included it below….but the last stanza has been particularly on my mind….especially when there seem to be a million kms to go …" one is always nearer by not keeping still". 

We keep walking even when injured or tired ....and the sense of being nearer prevails for us on so many levels.

On the Move

BY THOM GUNN

"The blue jay scuffling in the bushes follows

Some hidden purpose, and the gust of birds

That spurts across the field, the wheeling swallows,

Has nested in the trees and undergrowth.

Seeking their instinct, or their poise, or both,

One moves with an uncertain violence

Under the dust thrown by a baffled sense

Or the dull thunder of approximate words.

On motorcycles, up the road, they come:

Small, black, as flies hanging in heat, the Boys,

Until the distance throws them forth, their hum

Bulges to thunder held by calf and thigh.

In goggles, donned impersonality,

In gleaming jackets trophied with the dust,

They strap in doubt – by hiding it, robust –

And almost hear a meaning in their noise.

Exact conclusion of their hardiness

Has no shape yet, but from known whereabouts

They ride, direction where the tyres press.

They scare a flight of birds across the field:

Much that is natural, to the will must yield.

Men manufacture both machine and soul,

And use what they imperfectly control

To dare a future from the taken routes.

It is a part solution, after all.

One is not necessarily discord

On earth; or damned because, half animal,

One lacks direct instinct, because one wakes

Afloat on movement that divides and breaks.

One joins the movement in a valueless world,

Choosing it, till, both hurler and the hurled,

One moves as well, always toward, toward.

A minute holds them, who have come to go:

The self-defined, astride the created will

They burst away; the towns they travel through

Are home for neither bird nor holiness,

For birds and saints complete their purposes.

At worst, one is in motion; and at best,

Reaching no absolute, in which to rest,

One is always nearer by not keeping still."