A few weeks ago, I wrote about my participation in a poetry writing half marathon. As preamble to this week’s post, below is the prompt given for the 23rd hour, and the “list” poem I cobbled together from the book on my desk at dawn that Sunday morning, after 10 hours of writing 10 previous poems.
Hour 23 — Write a poem about harvesting something, it could be anything from clams to apples.
A List for Harvesting Creativity
Know that you and everyone is creative.
Tune into your ideas, impulses, dreams and hunches.
Make it up. Experimentation leads to innovation.
Expect surprises.
Mistakes are part of the process.
Rules can serve. Rules can hinder. Learn the difference.
Self doubt is part of the process.
So is rejection.
Keep your habits fresh.
What you don’t know is as, if not more, important than what you know.
Saying “no” is foundational to saying “yes”.
Play.
With thanks to Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act: A Way of Being (2023)
Now that I’m back to walking, often solo, in preparation for another long distance trek (destination and details to come), I’ve returned to listening to podcasts and audio books to help pass the time. I found Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act on Spotify and as I’m reading it for a monthly book study, hearing the author read his pithy chapters, the transition from one into the next marked by the ringing of a bell, has been as delightfully edifying as the book study conversations.
The list above captures a mere fraction of his self acknowledged “noticings” about what and how to open possibilities for a creative way of being. This past week, I was struck by his chapters on listening, and patience.
“Listening is suspending belief.”
Rick Rubin, The Creative Act
Given that we listen not only with our ears, but with our whole bodies, our filters of acculturation, beliefs, perceptions, and biases affect what we hear. Learning to listen with an awareness of these influences opens possibilities and grants us freedom from unconscious and accepted limitations. While I know this, to hear another say it, meaningfully hit home.
“There are no shortcuts.”
Rick Rubin, The Creative Act
So opens the chapter on patience. But it could be the mantra for entire book. I stopped walking and replayed Rubin saying:
“When it comes to the creative process, patience is accepting that the majority of the work we do is out of our control. We can’t force greatness to happen. All we can do is invite in it and await it actively. Not anxiously, as this might scare it off. Simply in a state of continual welcoming.”
To do otherwise, by letting our cultural predisposition towards efficiency govern instead of responding to life in sync with its revealed rhythms and not our imposed agendas, is an argument with reality. Another deep resonance.
On my writing desk, beside Rubin’s book is Suleika Jaouad’s The Book of Alchemy. A gift from my sister, with a focus on journaling, its subtitle, A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life, suggests its hugging up against Rubin is not a coincidence.
I wondered if last Friday’s photo and poem feature were simply too much for readers, as few opened the post, either here or on social media. Perhaps if I’d titled it, “I Am NOT Happy,” and posted another photo, instead of using the title of Ilya Kaminsky’s poem, “We Lived Happily during the War,” with my photo of an actual Ukrainian door burned in the invasion, it might have evoked more curiosity and less reluctance. Please know this is not a critique, simply an observation AND acknowledgment of so much fatigue, despair, rage and fear, AND the wise self-care choices we each need to make, including what to click and read, and what to pass on. Though I must take a moment to acknowledge, with deep and abiding gratitude, another’s post that cracked open and gave me permission to name what I’d named in mine.
Karen Maezen Miller, an ordained Soto Zen priest, wrote last week, “I Am Not Free,” in which she unabashedly and vulnerably shared the impacts of and her feelings about the current goings on in the USA. I won’t go into detail, but to read a Zen priest – one whose writings have always hit the mark for me, and to whom I have occasionally, naively attributed a well-practiced, placid, equanimity – use the words “terrified,” “furious,” and “hate,” was one of the most reassuring pieces I’d read in weeks. One from which I did feel free.
Last week I attended a session hosted by my library’s new writer-in-residence. “Music and the Practice of Poetry,” it ended up being a wonderfully playful experience in understanding the importance of rhythm to writing and reading aloud poetry. As recommended, I brought something to write on, in this case my black journal of bits and pieces of writing transcribed over the years from my journals, letters, emails, social media posts. A collection of “seeds” that when I reviewed, saw how several had sprouted and blossomed into poems and essays. Like this piece, written in 2014, its essence rooted in last Monday’s post, “Rest.”
“I hear a murmuring of rest, OK, yes and then the air smelling sweet and cool. There are berries to pick and laundry to hang. Groceries to buy and friends to call. This could be enough. For right now is enough. Ease back into life here at home. Give thanks and send blessings to all those suffering.”
Or this one, that I wrote and posted on Facebook exactly six years ago today. Its simple truth and prescience like Kaminsky’s poem.
And how I’ll end this post:
“There are the times when a poem becomes a prayer, an image the beautiful antidote to the day’s atrocities.”
Last week, I received a lovely anonymous response to this blog, originally written and posted three years ago. An unusual occurrence given the time lapse, it’s lingered. Then, thinking about what to write for today’s post, being tired from another viral infection and wrung out from the aftermath of the latest brutal undoings in the USA, I’ve accepted as gift the right timing of its reappearance and have chosen to repost it now.
Three years later, its essence still fresh, its message more relevant, though the context and circumstances quite different.
I hope this finds you bearing up well, dear friends. We’ve had less than two months of this near incomprehensible, yet strategic dismantling of our world by the Republican administration of the United States. When I take a “holy breath” (thanks, Tenneson) the shock of it all softens into feeling grief and uncertainty (mine, the world’s). Those tears stuffed inside my head cold escape, and the feeling of fear for my country and the world again emerges. This is not “politics as usual,” and while more subtle, nor life. Yet, I must feel lightly…cope lightly…walk ever so lightly.
Much love and kindest regards…
“It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. I was so preposterously serious in those days… Lightly, lightly – it’s the best advice ever given me…So throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly. Lightly my darling…”
Aldous Huxley, Island, 1962
Reading this quote last week it landed, more than lightly. Funny thing is I thought Huxley was advising “slowly my darling.” Musing on that for several days, recalling nearly a decade back, when at a week-long movement intensive – I there quite literally to “sweat my prayers” (Gabrielle Roth) – I met a woman recently retired though pursuing her independent coaching practice. She told me she never scheduled herself before 11 AM, preferring to enter each day slowly. I’m sure I countered with something like me being a morning person, liking to rise early, getting a good start on my workday.
Looking back, I was driven in that first year of “retirement,” striving to make a success of my independent coaching practice, not knowing how it would all work out after the decades’ long security of a pay cheque arriving twice monthly in my bank account. In those early months, I remember saying I needed to “make hay while the sun shone,” and secured contracts with people I enjoyed, doing work I loved. But I was exhausted. I remember falling asleep at a Friday night cooking class a couple of days before we flew to China for what ended up being an intense two-week tour. That whole trip I was cold, with photos showing me bundled in toque, scarf, and coat. I suffered through a couple of migraines, and within weeks of our return, developed Bells Palsy, a condition that left its indelible mark. A mark that to this day reminds me to go slow.
In my experience, while going slow is akin to walking lightly, it’s not the same. Trusting last week’s confusion, when I follow its thread, I see how going slow reveals the extent to which I am not “walking so lightly.” Lately, when I slow down, stop, sit still, or simply pause standing to notice the sky, step outside with Annie and breathe in the new day, sadness suddenly arrives. Nothing too pronounced, so it’s been easy to dismiss as I start moving or shift my attention. Despite its subtlety, it’s a sadness that’s been here for several weeks. I’ve alluded to it in one of my first posts of the new year, and last week’s when I wrote about remembering the light in the darkness.
I’m not one who writes to impart advice. In ten plus years of blogging, I can count on one hand the number of posts wherein I’ve listed, recommended, suggested what someone else can do to make their life better. Nor am I “reveal all” writer. Instead, usually prompted by someone else’s words, I disclose some of my own internal meanderings – messy as they might be. It’s through my way of writing – a process that can take several hours – I begin to catch a glimpse of a thread that shimmers, that when I tug, brings me, and perhaps someone else, a bit more clarity.
beauty in a hard place
I was a child taught to try hard and do well. Taking that lesson to heart, I tried too hard, grew too serious, and in ways, too hard. To “lightly let things happen, and lightly cope with them” was not what I saw, was never my lived experience. Fond of saying “it’s all true,” pithy wisdom from a long time ago therapist, helps me both to remember to hold the paradox of it all, and to lessen my need to try hard to understand, to fix, to make sense of it all. In the matter of my sadness – or perhaps the sadness that belongs to us all, and to the trees and the land and the sky and all the beings that have been holding our collective, unacknowledged, displaced grief of late, or since our beginnings – now to apply its wisdom to “feel lightly even though I’m feeling deeply.” Now to lighten my grip. No need to try hard despite the quicksands all about, especially as I try to fall asleep.
“Lightly my darling.”
Lightly, with much love and kindest regards, dear friends.
a fluke becomes magic on Erg Chebbi, Morocco’s sub Sahara
“I want to live the rest of my life, however long or short, with as much sweetness as I can decently manage, loving all the people I love, and doing as much as I can of the work I still have to do. I am going to write fire until it comes out my ears, my eyes, my noseholes – everywhere. Until it’s every breath I breathe. I’m going to go out like a fucking meteor.”
– Audre Lorde, A Burst of Light and other essays
When I read this quote earlier in the month, I thought, “That’s a powerful manifesto… just what I need to claim for myself for my birthday and beyond.”
I’d been home a week from my three weeks in Morocco, basking in the full sensory experience that IS Morocco. I had enjoyed myself immensely – a feeling that’s lingered now a month, delighted with my decision to have returned. I felt deeply content with how I’d shown up – not by bringing the best of me, but by bringing all of me. I used my skills to navigate some tricky dynamics, to ask for what I needed, and to offer what I could, including having “an answered prayer” in a room mate, simpatico were we in many ways. (Not everyday do you have a room mate who suggests we meditate daily.)
Travelling solo meant I needed to stretch beyond several comfort points, and while I had some inevitable moments of anxiety, scared even the final morning in Marrakech when my driver never showed, I tended to myself with care, regularly checking in, quietly reassuring myself. My boundaries were intact, yet flexible.
I’ve learned over years of travelling that my creative practices – photography and journaling with the occasional small painted vignette – give me both wonderful personalized memories and in the moment help ground and grok the rich day to day experiences. As I’ve upped my photography skills in the last year, my journal entries lapsed. So this week I filled them in using ticket stubs, brochures, business cards and photos to prompt my recollections. A touch of water colour to brighten the text heavy pages already embellished with washi tape.
In short, I came home, to use a somewhat passé, admittedly overused description, feeling empowered. Ready to keep on living the rest of my life until “I go like a fucking meteor,” just as I’ve long imagined myself coming in.
Much love and kindest regards, dear friends.
“glamping” in Erg Chebbi, Morocco’s sub Sahara – photo credit: Rebecca Sugarman
I am tired. I feel a heaviness in my chest, a bit of a sore throat, and some sinus congestion. I’m coughing. Today we’re having our hottest day of summer here in Edmonton. I feel much as I did that day in May walking to Padron, where the temperature there had reached 32 C, just as here today (Thursday, July 28). Here and there, now and then, the same cloudless blue sky and dry hot breeze blowing. Coincidently that was exactly two months ago to the day.
I am weary. Remembering, reliving, reflecting on nearly twenty consecutive days and over 240 kilometers walked, with its insights and lessons, joys and griefs, blessings and ordeals… through the elements, immersed in beauty. I am in as much need of completing this written journey, as I was then of finishing the physical one. Careful though, both then and now, to not “snatch defeat from the jaws of victory” – a wise instruction received many years ago from a wise woman – describing our human propensity for distraction and derailment from realizing our intentions. I did then and will here continue, complete, and arrive.
From my journal: “Our decision to leave at 7 am without breakfast was a wise one given how hot it became by noon. Many did the same as the Way was crowded. Again a lovely route thru hamlets, forests, with several cafes along the way. An early stop for coffee and juice as I didn’t have enough energy to eat breakfast before departing. Later at 11 am, another café stop where I finally satisfied my hankering for a fresh salad…few and far to come by.
reminding us of the Way leaving Caldas de Reisthose sun dappled forest pathsIngrexa de Santa Marina, Carracedoa stone wall glorious in clover cover
…Opted for going directly to the hotel – Pazo de Lestrove described as ‘an emblematic 16th c recreational mansion that belonged to the Compostela’s archbishops’ – now a luxury “parador” where weddings and large receptions are held. Waiting for luggage and our rooms, I sipped another icy vermut in the shaded corner of the stone terrace – again that Italian Martinibrand, but learned I’d be able to get the famous Petroni – made from Albarino grapes harvested here in the Padron valley – in Santiago…Laundry dried fast in the heat and huge open window overlooking the grounds and hillside. Slept for a few hours and given the heat and fatigue, opted for dinner in the attractive dining room…”
Pazo de Lestove, Padronroom with a morning view
Legend has it that Padron is the town where the boat carrying from Jerusalem the remains of Jesus’s disciple, St. James the Greater, anchored after his crucifixion. The stone to which the boat was moored, called a pedron, gave the town its name, and rests within the Santiago church in Padron. (Photo of lawn art depicting the legend of the boat and stone.)
From my journal: “I continue to be happy with my planning and knowing myself. While the heat made it difficult to take in Padron and its historic sites, staying here in this old Galatian manor house is another facet in the rich cultural experiences provided by PGW.”
Igrexa de Santiago (background) leaving Padron
Sunday, May 29, 2022 – STAGE 18: Padron to Teo-Al Farma
“Imagine the moment when you ‘hit the wall’ on your journey. You’re tired, you’ve lost track of your original purpose of taking the pilgrimage. Your feet hurt, your eyes smart, you are feeling angry with other travelers in your group or toward the local people you are encountering. What do you do?
Try taking a day to brood. Take your good old time, by yourself, and sit on it. Time and patience are the most natural therapists in the world…
Think of the darkness as potentially healing…the appearance of what Spanish poet Frederico Garcia Lorca called ‘duende’ – the dark sounds in music, dancing, poetry, the ritual of the bullfight, the roots of all arts…the dark and quivering companion to the muse and the angel…”
Phil Cousineau, The Art of Pilgrimage, 1998
St. James- Sant Iago en route to Teo
And there we have it. I hit my wall on that penultimate stage. Yes, I was tired. No hurting feet, but my eyes smarted with tears. I hadn’t lost my purpose but was questioning it and myself. And yes, I had been feeling angry, and a range of other emotions off and on. From my journal: “So if a chest cold is helping me feel the weight of what I have been carrying – the need to get it off my chest – today’s head cold feels like sadness and the tears I need to shed…Walking alone I wondered about my Camino, what it had all meant. Thinking about others I knew who had had epiphanies, profound insights, almost mystical realizations. Talking softly to myself, and God, through the silent Sunday village lanes, I said knew I hadn’t come in search of a miracle. I came to say ‘thank you’ … that every step had been a kiss on Earth, every step a prayer to Earth. I began to cry and could have sobbed were it not for my fear of waking the village from its Sunday slumber…For the weight on my chest, in my heart, on my back, since the beginning…the judgement, worry, disappointment…I cried. For the near relief we are almost at Santiago, not without its challenges…I cried. For the ‘letting down’ of all I had been holding in the months prior, in preparation and planning…I cried. For the fears I’ve carried…I cried.”
And then I remembered…
The night dream I had had many months earlier of me with my elder “heart sister,” she who had guided me on my vision quest a couple of years ago. We were standing apart but facing each other, folding a large cloth item, like a sail or a sheet, something that goes better with two people folding together. Each of us holding the edges, she said, giving me guidance as elder sisters do, “You know, Katharine, every step matters.”
Every step matters. Every step I had made walking this Camino – kiss or curse, prayer or pain, joy or judgement – it mattered. None were better nor worse. Let it go. Walk it out. Every step matters.
“It’s the fourth Sunday here. I am so tired and wonder, will I remember… the roses of every color imaginable, stumbling through fences, cascading over stone walls, standing erect against ancient chapels, guarding secrets, holding scents?…Will I remember the abundance of beauty, from simple to sublime? I feel so full, yet I’m unable to discern anything. I am tired. I weep and pray I will remember. My photos will help me, and too, these words on these pages.”
And then I remembered…
I had walked with wonder as my companion. That in heeding the advice of theologian-poet John O’Donohue -to make a journey a sacred thing by ensuring to bless my going forth – I had emailed my three elder “heart sisters” to ask for their blessing. One, practiced in shamanic arts, gave me the gift of journeying for an “elemental” who would accompany me throughout. Named “Wonder,” and embodying the form of a young speckled fawn, “she” attracted that essence in the poetry I had serendipitously found and scribed in my journal before leaving, and in the myriad experiences along the Way, where each day was an unfolding of magnificent beauty: alleyways abundant with roses; stone walls covered in fragrant clover and jasmine; eucalyptus forests dappled with sunlight, their scent wafting in the rising heat; sea and surf in every shade of blue pounding on golden beaches, and rocky shores; skies heavy with sodden grey clouds rolling down mountains bringing veils of rain; fresh briny sweet seafood, simply prepared, drenched in olive oil and smoky paprika; local wines that complemented the local cuisine; and innumerable cups of ubiquitous cafe con leche.
That, as I had written in my first post about this Camino, when I left Canada in May to realize my twenty-year dream, I, like Peter Coffman wrote in Camino (2017) , would be walking “because I knew others who had gone, and the experience filled them with wonder.”
My epiphanies.
wonder on the Way
Much love and kindest regards, dear friends. One more day.
Portuguese Coastal Camino Stage 15: Pontevedra to San Mauro (San Amaro) Stage 16: San Mauro to Caldas de Reis
Caldas de Reis, Umia river
“If you ever get the chance, go alone. Walk alone, travel alone, live alone, dance alone. Just for a while. If you ever get the chance, learn who you are when the world isn’t demanding you to be one way or another. Most people only know how to stand on their own if someone else will stand beside them. Don’t let that be your story. When you get the chance, know that the opportunity to walk alone, even for a bit, is a rare gift, one that will hand you insight that can change the course of your life.”
Brianna Wiest
walking alone across thePonte de Burgo
I got that chance during the 15th stage when my companion chose to take a day off to recover from the previous day’s fall. Even though I’d been walking more or less on my own with my companion bringing up the rear, today I’d truly be walking alone. This would be a short stage where upon arrival in San Mauro, I’d need to contact the transfer service to take me back to Pontevedra. I was a bit anxious about how that would go, given some challenges the last time we called for a transfer taxi. With a forecast of sun and 30+C temperatures, I opted for an early start, giving me an early return to do laundry and more exploring in Pontevedra. From my journal: “Today’s stage, ‘alone together’ with other pilgrims was a rest… cold and fresh as I walked at dawn, through Pontevedra’s historic centre, down cobblestone streets embedded with blue twinkling lights marking the Way, crossing the wide expanse of the Ponte de Burgo.”
Past homes, parallel to train tracks, then on a busy road to more train tracks, finally in the sun dappled shade of the Reiris woods, to the stage’s destination at the Café a Posada do Peregrino, boasting one of the oldest credential stamps on the Portuguese Way. There, under the flower laden, pergola covered café, filled with pilgrims taking pause and refreshment, most of them continuing on to Caldas de Reis, I enjoyed another culinary delicacy: “sharing fresh Galatian octopus – boiled, sliced, sea salt, hot and smoky paprika and EVOO – with Denise from Ireland (first met in the hotel lobby in Baiona, then in Vigo and now here in Pontevedra) in gratitude for calling my transfer taxi.”
“I returned to the hotel around 11, just as the sun was coming around to my balcony, perfect for drying clothes and boot liners. Napped and showered, I did more exploring – the Basilica of Santa Maria, Alameda and gardens, the ruins of Santa Domingo. Ice cream and pharmacy stops…video call home…then another great Italian dinner steps away from the hotel…Buonasera bella!”
Friday, May 27, 2022 – Stage 16: San Mauro to Caldas de Reis – Another sunny, cloudless blue sky morning, that would bring even hotter temperatures sooner in the day. I woke feeling unwell. A headache, a sore throat. Dreamt of taking a rapid test so heeding its wisdom, I bit the bullet, googled what happens if I tested positive in Spain – nothing – and swabbed. Thankfully a fast and fifteen minutes later, unequivocal negative result. I’d felt my immune system wavering in Arcade after sitting there chilled for several hours following the preceding two days walking in relentless rain. Then, those few moments of feeling deep fear seeing my companion immobile proved enough to topple it. I’d walk the remaining four stages to Santiago under the weight of chest and sinus congestion, coughing, and growing fatigue.
Nowthat’s a cappuccino!
But for now, relieved I was covid free, we met our driver who delivered us the short distance to San Mauro to begin the four hour walk to Caldas de Reis. From my journal: “Transfer back to San Mauro went without a hitch. Joined the ensemble walking at 9:15 am. We stopped early and I ordered a cappuccino, the owner gesturing for me to wait outside. Little did I know what was being prepared for me! A spectacular whipped cream concoction, now on top of those 2 perfect glazed donuts at breakfast! This stage had at least 4 cafes. At another we sat in the sought after shade drinking radlers, probably not the best idea after whipped cream and the rising heat.”
A mid-afternoon arrival at our destination, again waylaid by misunderstanding the directions to our hotel and eventually guided there by a local woman to whom I gave one of my remaining gratitude gifts, we checked in, settled, and walked across the bridge to the Taberna O Muino. Its outdoor terrace, situated in the shade over the river, was a cool respite with temperatures now in the low 30s. From my journal: “Tapas at 2:30 – the owner kindly seated us despite saying it was full and we had no reservation, then when I asked, seeing people leave, he moved us to a better table. Another ‘coup’ as the terrace was filled with locals and the occasional peregrino ready for a leisurely Friday afternoon multicourse lunch. Had my first sangria – too sweet for my liking as an accompaniment to food – razor clams (not as good as those first ones in Castelo do Neiva), manchego cheese, white chorizo (uncured and unsmoked so like Italian sausage, it needed to be cooked), fried sardines which despite being “small” were not the finger length fried-to-a-crisp variety we’d savored at the tapas bar in Triana a few years earlier. A complementary EVOO cake for dessert that unfortunately got only a sampling, being full and hot.”
Caldas de Reis has been a thermal spa-town since Roman times, with medieval travelers documenting its similarity to the famous baths in Baden, Germany. Our “relais” Hotel Balneario Acuna (1812) featured a beautiful thermal pool and throughout the town there were numerous thermal fountains.
hotel’s thermal poolthermal fountain walking out of town
As I’d been feeling increasingly under the weather, and with the next day’s forecast for more clear, hot weather, we chose to forgo breakfast for a 7:00 am start, to walk the 20 kilometer stage to Padron before it became scorching. Hindsight would prove us right, and too, the truth of these words scribed into my journal on Thursday, May 26, walking alone to San Mauro:
“‘I do not go into the forest to be alone.’ She said, ‘I go to be with the ONES who speak without human words.'”
This was one of the shortest stages, under two hours, less than 8 kilometers, but with a steep climb through the transmission corridor early in the walk. With the sun shine, blue sky, and cool breeze, it was an invigorating start to the day, getting heartbeats up and leg muscles warmed as we continued to have episodic glimpses of the large and long Ria de Vigo, the lifeblood of the region. Reminded of the Galicia’s Celtic roots, we met a piper in the woods, busking for coins, a preamble of what we’d encounter in Santiago.
True to the witnessed weather patterns and forecast, by the time we’d arrived in Arcade, several hours too early for checking in to our hotel, the clouds had rolled back in bringing afternoon showers. From my journal, Tuesday, May 24, 2022:“…we nursed coffees in the hotel café, and partook of the Arcade iteration of a ‘ploughman’s lunch’, each of us ordering one of the two options to share: ham and cheese pie made in puff pastry; a simple but delicious and easy to replicate chick pea soup with smoky chorizo; cod baked in EVOO and paprika with boiled potatoes; marinated shredded pork with fries; and a simple but good creamy cake. Finally checked in, with our bags having arrived…a hot shower to kill the inner chill, nap and now at 7:30 hoping the sudden cloud burst passes so we can walk the 15 minutes up the road for signature fresh oysters…Of course arriving earlier than the norm, we had our choice of tables at the lovely Marisqueria Arcade: a dozen fresh oysters, and finally tasted percebes (an homage to the women harvesting at Oia, and thank god I’d watched that YouTube video to know how to eat them!!!) with grilled scampi, and the famed Spanish albarino wine. The finishing touch sating my sweet touch, a complimentary snifter of the region’s cream liqueur.” On the walk back to the hotel, I discovered what they did with all those oyster and scallop shells.
Arcade oysterspercebeswall art
The next day’s stage would bring me to, what in hindsight was my favorite stop along the Way, Pontevedra. Somewhat ironic because our arrival had been marked by the morning’s earlier mishap when my companion tripped and fell on the path. From my journal, Wednesday, May 25, 2022: “What started out as another cool, fresh, and sunny walk thru woods and villages, heeding the advice of 2 different men – one playing the archetypal ‘fool,’ carving and selling his wares in the woods – to take the flat ‘complementario’ route by the stream in the forest vs the exposed hot mountain climb, was well worth it…until she tripped and fell and I stood terrified for those first few moments…immediately many on the path were there to offer support and wish us well…intuitively I accepted the wise ministrations from the young Portuguese men, one with first aid training, and his friend, a padre. Bases covered, I wept with relief and gratitude.”
my totem
Not to be denied, I held its impacts and implications together with the comfort taken in asking for a room change to one with sunshine and a balcony from which to hang my sink-laundered clothing, and a solitary exploration around the city’s historic centre with camera in hand. My first icy vermut (what, Italian Martini and not those fantastic craft pours I’d fallen in love with in Andalusia!) – another generous pour – sipped al fresco at a café perfect for people watching warmed my soul in the late afternoon sun.
Capela da peregrinaConvento de San FranciscoPraza da Ferrería
Discovered once home, these words became another source of solace, and a most apt description of my Camino, its purpose, and its gifts:
“In the fields, she stopped and took a deep breath of the flower-scented air. It was dearer to her than kin, better than a lover, wiser than a book. And for a moment she rediscovered the purpose of her life. She was here on earth to absorb its wild enchantment.”
Portuguese Coastal Camino Stage 11: Corujo to Vigo Stage 12: Vigo to Redondela (In lieu of Friday’s photo and poem feature.)
Vigo, with its oyster and mussel flats in the Ria de Vigo
“There are no wrong turnings. Only paths we had not known we were meant to walk.”
Guy Gavriel Kay, Tigana
And so describes the next stage. After a night of thunder, lightning, and rain pelting down on the balcony, morning dawned with heavy cloud cover, puddles, and mud. It would be a wet walk. From my journal, Sunday, May 22, 2022: “Lo and behold, if Carlos, our driver yesterday, didn’t come back to take us to Corujo, our starting point for and a suburb of Vigo, missed when we’d walked along the coast and never did merge back onto the ‘official’ route. Walked thru the quiet village, mostly along the small murky creek, on muddy paths busy with Sunday saunterers, cyclists, dog walkers…thru the Parque de Castrelos, into and up residential streets. We overshot and had to back track, asking for help to find our way to the hotel, but en route, on the pedestrian main street, stopped in a pastry store selling empanadas – octopus and scallop – and ate them in the rain – checking off another culinary ‘musttry’…Bueno!!!”
Vigo. Spain’s largest Atlantic seaport, and Galicia’s most populated city, with an ancient history of Celtic and Roman settlements. When I’d returned home, our Camino friends from lunch a week ago in Viana do Castelo sent their photo slideshow of their walk. In response I wrote: “As one photographer to another, how similar and then how different what catches our eye, and makes for a wonderful photo. You saw a Vigo that I missed completely – one rich in history, texture, colour. Perhaps it was that we had walked in the rain, got a bit misdirected finding our hotel, but it felt so urban, cold and industrial…your photos gave me a fresh and more balanced perspective.”
But then again, we did taste those famous empanadas. And right outside our urban hotel, I spotted the first and only Illy coffee sign of my trip, and opted for a quick Americano before dinner – the best coffee since leaving home – which became a belated birthday celebration with chocolate cake, my companion’s treat. “Eat dessert first!” so I’m told and did, with gusto!
Another Monday. Another day of walking in the rain, to Redondela – where the central and coastal Portuguese Caminos converge. From my journal, Monday, May 23, 2020: “Straight forward walking up and out of Vigo into fog, mountain mist and steady rain. Thankful for having invested in that pack raincoat. Kept dry but damp. Finally learned that those dark containers we’d seen heading out to the Cies Islands were mussel and oyster flats. Saw hundreds of them along the Ria de Vigo.
Walked along forest paths, thru residential areas so no cafés. Finally I said out loud ‘I wish someone would invite us in for a hot cup of coffee.’ Not a minute later I see painted on the tarmac, ‘Coffee Bar’ with an arrow pointing up to a sweet little home café – warm – serving hot, homemade chicken soup! We had the place to ourselves, but a half hour later, every pilgrim walking to Redondela was lined up and out the door, stopping to dry off, warm up, and get their stamp.”
By the time we’d finally walked into Redondela, seeing many more pilgrims on the streets, the sun broke through to reveal its 19th c viaducts, 15th c church dedicated to St. James, and Alameda Park and gardens.
There’s an oft spoken saying among those walking that the Camino provides. In the rain, in need of something hot to drink, seeing that yellow painted sign on the tarmac seconds after asking was an unequivocal example. Too, the numerous strangers who pointed us on the way, or gave us directions when off route, weary, and wanting to find our accommodations. The server who saw a woman in need of the care an extra large glass of wine would ensure. The pharmacists in every town, knowledgeable about and prepared for the range of walking ailments – from heat rash and the ubiquitous blister treatments, to sunburn, colds, bruises, inflammation, and infections. Or in a later stage, the “peregrinos” soon present when my companion tripped and fell, their support and skills a much appreciated balm to her limited, and thankfully superficial injuries, and to my recovery from those initial moments of feeling terror as she lay facedown, motionless on the ground.
One of my travel strengths is asking for help from strangers. A lesson from my father, that if I don’t ask for what I need, how would anyone know what to offer? I’ve learned that asking for help gives another the opportunity to be of service. An encounter which, despite language differences, creates connection through a gesture made, a smile shared, a vulnerability acknowledged, an open heart in need. It joins us in our shared humanity, making for memories and stories that uplift and amplify kindness, generosity, and gratitude…reminding us, this is the way.
“As you start to walk on the way, the way appears.”
Portuguese Coastal Camino Stage 10: Baiona to Coruju – adjusted to Praia Patos Free Day:the Cies Islands
Cies Islands
Half way through my Camino and the “ordeals” I’d mentioned in an earlier post were coming to bear. Despite waking to a glorious sunny day, my mood was cloudy. Again, a couple of FACEBOOK finds, written in my journal with the title, “thoughts for my day that re-ignited my love and joy”:
“I worried alot.
…Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven, can I do better?
…Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing. And gave it up. And took my old body and went out into the morning and sang.”
Mary Oliver, I Worried
And this one:
“I was in darkness, but I took three steps and found myself in paradise. The first step was a good thought; the second, a good word; and the third, a good deed.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
Breakfast with time taken to unpack matters weighing heavy meant for a later start, something we’d need to contend with as the temperatures rose and blistered feet swelled. (Though as I write this now, nothing like the record breaking heat both Portugal and Spain are experiencing – so intense that many are walking at night, or canceling their Caminos altogether.) And our decision to ignore the GPS route to continue walking along the coast would prove less successful getting to our endpoint, though a cooler and beautiful alternative.
Crossing over the River Minor via the jagged 13th C Ponte da Ramallosa bridge with St. Telmo watching over :
Walking on the boardwalk by one of Galacia’s golden beaches, Praia America, with its steeple and domed mosque in the distance:
To finally eating our packed lunch at Praia Patos, further north along the coast on the other side of the peninsula, where, in the hot and hazy distance, we saw the next day’s destination, the Cies Islands:
Cies Islands from Patos Beach, Nigran, Galacia Spain
Maybe it was the blisters, or the bee stings, or the blazing sun, but when my companion acknowledged her need to call short this stage, letting us make use of the nearby hotel to call a cab, she gave us both the gift of an early return to Baiona to enjoy a leisurely lunch over a bottle of “rosado,” some sight seeing, and to organize the cab to Vigo to catch the morning ferry to the Cies Islands the next day. From my journal: “The chapel of Santa Liberata (1695) commemorating Baiona’s martyred daughter and 1st woman in the world crucified, and the Collegiate Church of Santa Maria-Virgen de la Rosa – I felt very much the feminine spirit of this place…how today we had dipped into the wounds of the feminine – as mother, daughter, women…and how in the surrendering to need, giving us a most beautiful day.”
“Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.”
e.e. cummings – written on my journal page, Friday, May 20, 2022: STAGE 10- Baiona to Patos
The following day brought a cycling back around to cool, overcast weather. Maybe a blessing as we’d be hiking in the elements with limited shelter on the fixed ferry schedule I’d reserved months earlier. The Cies Islands are an archipelago of three islands in the Atlantic at the mouth of the Vigo River. A designated natural reserve with pristine white beaches, cliffs, and fragile flora and fauna, access is restricted with ferry crossings pre-booked online. From my journal Saturday, May 21, 2022 – “Free Day” Cies Islands: “Like clockwork! Front desk reserved a taxi and Carlos picked us up promptly in his immaculate CRV, drove us to Vigo and was there again at 6:00 pm to return us to Baiona. Perfect weather for walking on the ‘Ruta del Alto do Principe,’ to the cliffs on the north island – Monteagudo – facing west onto the Atlantic and the lighthouse – Faro de Cies – in the distance. Ate lunch and then relaxed at the harbor, people watching and waiting for the ferry. Taking a ‘rest day’ I realize my fatigue. But once I clarified with lovely Paola from PGW, who I met tonight, on how we proceed tomorrow, I’m ready for the long walk to Vigo. ‘Stay on the blue GPS route,’ she instructed. “
Back in Baiona, those laden skies opened up, pouring as we crossed the street for dinner, and for most of the night, with thunder rumbling and lightning flashing across the sky. By the time morning came, it lifted enough to set out with Carlos, who having returned, would drive us to the next stage’s starting point, Corujo.
Reflecting that day on the Cies Islands, I recalled my solo travels in Italy, to the time when sitting sipping icy limoncello on the boardwalk at Monterosso al Mare – the first of the five villages of the Cinque Terre – I watched two silver haired women disembark from the train, obvious trekkers with their boots, backpacks, and poles. Inspired by their presence, I made a mental note that I wanted to be like them at their age, which I’d imagined to be in their seventies. As fate would have it, these words appeared on my FACEBOOK feed later that evening:
“Aging is no accident. It is necessary to the human condition, intended by the soul. We become more characteristic of who we are simply by lasting into later years; the older we become, the more our true natures emerge. Thus the final years have a very important purpose: the fulfilment and confirmation of one’s character.”
James Hillman
While I have a few years before my hair becomes as silver, I am more becoming myself with every step, and mis-step, taken in this Camino that is my life.
Portuguese Coastal Camino Stage 8: A Guarda to Oia-Viladesuso Stage 9: Oia to Baiona (In lieu of Friday’s photo and poem feature.)
sunset shots from Oia-Viladesuso
“I sometimes forget that I was created for joy. My mind is too busy. My heart is too heavy for me to remember that I have been called to dance the sacred dance of life. I was created to smile, to Love, to be lifted up and to lift others up. O Sacred One, untangle my feet from all that ensnares. Free my soul that we might Dance and that our dancing might be contagious.”
Hafiz
Like following one’s daily horoscope, I discovered when away that a quick scroll on Facebook always reaped a pearl of wisdom for my day. I know its about algorithms and such, that what I post, like, and follow brings up more of the same. But still, it was uncanny how many times a post was especially relevant for the day, or at least oriented my thinking during the kilometers of walking with myself, in silence.
And so it was on Wednesday, May 18, the 8th stage from A Guarda to Oia, these words from my beloved Hafiz appeared, eventually weaving themselves into the chant I composed with the words from Thich Nhat Hahn, and those from my other beloved, Rumi, which I’d auspiciously written on my journal’s page of the same date: “The Soul is here for its own joy.”
From my journal: “Another beautiful coastal walk – this time along rocky shores. Overcast, cool. But again, as the day passed, and now 6:00 pm sitting at the hotel at Oia – really 4 km north at Viladesuso – clear sky, high white clouds. Seeing more ‘peregrinos’ walking – and at “THE” rest stop café at Portocelo, where we shared a terrific homemade breakfast sandwich with cappuccinos, met our friends from lunch in Viana do Castelo. Too, the four American women from the hotel in A Guarda, heading to Baiona. It seems PGW might underestimate distance, as they quoted 13-14 km, when I registered over 17 when all was said and done.”
Percebes. AKA gooseneck barnacles. I’d first heard about them watching Rick Steves eating them in Spain, or was it Portugal? Then, our friends from lunch in Viana do Castelo mentioned them as being a “must try” food adventure…that their father, originally from Spain’s northern coast, would special order them for Christmas at home in Costa Rica, and that they were anticipating this taste of memory and tradition. Walking to Oia, I realized, seeing the jauntily attired woman sitting on the ground with a tarp of odd-looking black things in front of her, that these were them – barnacles, fresh from being scraped off rocks by her and her intrepid team of free divers. Cleaned and sorted before being sold to local restaurants, no wonder percebes are called the world’s most expensive seafood. Curious and adventurous, my anticipation would grow until I finally tasted them a few stops up the coast.
percebes…weird and delicious, in a briny sea fresh way
Thursday, May 19, 2022 – STAGE 9: Oia to Baiona. Waking at dawn the next day, the weather pattern shifted again, with sun and warmer temperatures forecasted. Morning fog settling on the coastline brought a soft outlook to the day’s start. From my journal: “Now it might be having opted out of following the route up through the woods, choosing instead to walk along the coastal highway to Baiona, that our day was wonderfully shorter than anticipated. Just as we’d crossed the highway and passed thru the ‘questionable gate’ to begin the climb, I turned around and there was Tircia, the young woman, who with her parents, had braved the elements with us crossing the river in the outboard at Caminho, walking alone. Deliberating back and forth and hearing her say ‘it’s the last day the route is along the coast,’ I finally made the decision for us, inviting her along the coastal walk. Such a good choice!!! After several days of low cloud, mist, and rain, it was still cool with fog, but beautiful ocean vistas soon shone bright and blue. I realized yesterday this walk has been an ‘Introvert’s Paradise.’ I feel no inclination for conversation or small talk. I feel very good, very light, very pleased that a misstep led me to the empty chapel yesterday morning in A Guarda, where I could get my bearings and guidance, as hundreds have done for hundreds of years before me…to know my next step.”
That stretch of coastal walk was one of the most beautiful, where hitting my stride, I felt myself smile and dance with joy. Having abandoned the map, heeding input from a younger woman’s knowing, and trusting intuition – and the simple logic that by keeping the ocean to our left we wouldn’t get too far off course – we made our way, me walking ahead, singing to myself, the sea and sky. Pausing now and then to take in the magnificence and make a photo, I found myself thinking about what it means to make a commitment, particularly to one’s self – often the most difficult one to make, particularly for women. Remembering the commitment I had made to the Camino the moment I had said “yes” last December, I realized it and my commitment to my life were steps in the same dance. That when I followed its sacred choreography, the more I felt my joy. And that this joy was palpable…it flowed, attracted, and was contagious to those open to catching it. Like the young waiter at the café in Baiona where we stopped for lunch before checking into our hotel.
Sitting al fresco across from Baiona’s marina, I scanned the menu and saw rice with seafood and squid ink. My traveling companion game and having ascertained it would take at least 30 minutes’ preparation, thus guaranteeing its freshness – I ordered, much to the waiter’s skepticism. “Was I sure?” he wondered aloud with gesture. I assured him I knew what I was doing, thanks to those cooking classes back home. Forty-five minutes later, the younger waiter – who had several minutes earlier, assured us it was coming and would be fantastic!!!! – again, with unabashed delight, now presented us the spectacle – a very hot terracotta pot steaming and bubbling like molten lava, rice blackened with squid ink, filled with shrimps, clams and squids, a creamy mound of aioli in the center.
A celebration of joy, that memory-making meal. The pinnacle of joy in that memory-making walk.
“With every step I kiss the Earth. With every step I make a prayer. The Soul comes for its own joy. Dance on, dance on, dance on.”
A Wabi Sabi Life 