Taking a Walk

leaving Orisson for the rest of the Napoleon Route across the Pyrenees

  
"Few people know how to take a walk. 

The qualifications are endurance, 

plain clothes, old shoes, 

an eye for nature, good humor, 

vast curiosity, 

good speech, good silence 

and nothing too much.... "

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Reaching out

crops waving in the wind between Montcuq and Lauzerte

"There are things you can't reach
but you can reach out to them
and all day long.
The wind,
the bird flying away.
The idea of God."

~ Mary Oliver

This moment

spring leaves, one morning en route for Moissac

"We have only this moment,

sparkling like a star in our hand,

and melting like a snowflake."

~Sir Francis Bacon

One of the 'lessons' for me on the Camino was that you could spend time 
thinking about your sore feet or other body woes 
or you could just accept them, and instead notice 
and be thankful
and there were always so many things to notice and be thankful for
now, in the present moment.

On an unknown road

 Somewhere after Navarrenx, in the Basque country, nearing the Pyrenees

"I’d rather be stumbling along an unknown road

than safely cooped up in even the nicest cul-de-sac"

~Paul

on People for Others blog

I loved walking down this wet path, under the shelter of trees dripping with the rain. It was refreshing and enlivening. And flat and easy- which was not to be the case on the chemin later in the day!

How can you explain?

 On the plateau above Le-Puy-en-Velay - on the first day of walking

"How can you explain that you need to know that the trees are still there, 

and the hills and the sky?  

Anyone knows they are.  

How can you say it is time your pulse responded to another rhythm, 

the rhythm of the day and the season 

instead of the hour and the minute?  

No, you cannot explain.  So you walk."

~Author unknown, from New York Times editorial, "The Walk," 25 October 1967

It was something very special, the frisson of joy that I knew as I walked into the countryside at the top of the climb out of Le Puy. All going well, I was embarking on something that would let me be a walker in the outdoors for weeks and weeks to come. 
I have just returned home from a Camino gathering in Hamilton: how good it was to be with a group of people who had also walked, and who understood, who didn't need an explanation about 'why' you would do such a thing...

patience

“Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.”

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Quote found on Picturing God website

Small Beauty

"Look closely. The beautiful may be small."   

 ~ Immanuel Kant

A black slug on the Napoleon Route across the Pyrenees.

They seemed to live in thick black leaf detritus -under trees near the top of the pass-

that saturated my socks in black muck that took forever to rinse out!!

Everyday miracles

A few of the many wildflowers seen beside the path en route for Rabanal del Camino

“Take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention.”

~John O’Donohue

h/t: quote seen on the Picturing God blog.

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 

green tree and blue sky

 

En route for La Romieu 

"I thank you God for this most amazing day,

for the leaping greenly spirits of the trees,

and for the blue dream of sky

and for everything which is natural,

which is infinite, which is yes."

~e.e. cummings 

H/T to George for quote

reverence

Approaching Gite DuBarry, near Lelin-Lapujolle

"Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, 

in which you can walk with love and reverence."

~ Henry David Thoreau

Walking on the earth

German couple walking to Orisson in the Pyrenees 

"People usually consider walking 

on water or in thin air a miracle. 
But I think the real miracle 

is not to walk either on water or in thin air, 

but to walk on earth. 

Every day we are engaged in a miracle 
which we don't even recognize: 

a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, 

the black, curious eyes of a child -- our own two eyes.
All is a miracle."

~  Thich Nhat Hanh

Awe and Wonder

The lushness of spring, in the countryside after Lauzerte

"The elemental spirituality is awe and wonder and delight before the creation. 

The mountains, the birds, the flowers, the children

reach out and touch us with wonder and with joy.

We sense a wonderful Creator.

We respond with thankfulness,

sometimes reverence,

engaging with the holy."

~From "We Well People" 

a book about Celtic Spirituality

by  a New Zealand author, John Hunt

To Pay Attention

"To pay attention,

this is our endless and proper work."

~Mary Oliver

walking

Leaving Livinhac-en-haut, 29 April 2008

"Who will tell whether one happy moment of love

or the joy of breathing

or walking on a bright morning and smelling the fresh air,

is not worth all the suffering and effort which life implies."

~Erich Fromm