Mist in the hills surrounding O'Cebreiro

Mist seen in valleys below on the descent from O'Cebreiro

"What’s it like to be back? We can’t seem to stop walking, and on one of our impromptu hikes, Lisa observed: “I thought it would be somehow more . . . spiritual.”

I thought it would be more spiritual, too. Originally, we’d planned to walk the questions posed in John’s gospel, pondering one question each day. There are some great ones, worthy of weighty consideration: “What are you looking for?” “Do you want to be made well?” “Do you also want to go away?” And Pilate’s hauntingly cynical: “What is truth?”

On the Camino, however, the questions that consumed us were quite different: “Was that the alarm?” “Should I be paying attention to this pain?” “Can we stop for a café con leche?” “Are we there yet?”

So much for John’s questions.

But I could tell you the phases of the moon along the trek, when the first light comes, how the sun glints off the lantern of the cathedral of Santiago. I could describe magical forests in Galicia and how the morning mists create islands of the hills surrounding O’Cebreiro"....

"This is not the spirituality we anticipated; it’s the spirituality we got."

~ Martha E. Stortz

from "Pilgrimage"

an article in Santa Clara Magazine

Summer 2010