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...

Changing Seasons

Leaving Montbonnet on Day 2 of the Chemin, with mid-April snow on the ground

"Each moment of the year has its own beauty

....a picture which was never before

and shall never be seen again."

~Emerson

Another h/t to George for the quote.

One of the greatest joys I found in the whole walk from Le Puy to Santiago

was the way I passed through the changing seasons as I walked. 

These first few days out of Le-Puy-en-Velay, mid-April

were bitterly cold at times

and twice, there was even snow- a novelty for a Kiwi lowland North Islander!

Glowing...

En route between Astorga and Rabanal del Camino

"Glowing...
this is the thing about pictures of people on the Camino.
This light within...
As if the Camino washed the soul and cleared the eyes."

~Claire Bangasser
in a comment on Johnnie Walker's blog

When I was traveling in France in 2006 I stayed in a hostel in Cahors.
There I met a Frenchwoman who had been walking three weeks
along the Le Puy route.
Her face glowed with a radiant joy.
Speaking to her was what first gave me the idea
of walking the Chemin myself....

Step by step....

With my Quebec friends- first day on the Meseta

"......concentrate on only the next step; and keep walking.

Think about what is working well

- not about your aches and pains.

Don't think about the total number of kilometres you are walking.

Only think about what you are walking today.

Right now.

Step by step, hill by hill, rest stop by rest stop

- that's how you accomplish your goal."

Lynne, from Santiago Forum

I carried these words of Lynne's with me -and on some of the hard early days

when the rain was heavy and the tracks were like streams

and my feet were tender

I repeated these words to myself, and they got me through!

(until finally, thankfulness took hold...)