From the Camino: My idea of the countryside of Spain was formed by my viewing of The Man from La Mancha, a barren landscape, cropped, low and dry. That is true of some of Spain, as there is a large extent of flat plains and low lying hills, but it’s a varied country with lots of sunny beaches, forested mountains, low lying hills, miles of olive orchards, and the cool and green north. Depending on where pilgrims start, they just might see some or all of that.
The first weeks of my long Camino passed along the Basque coastline in the August sunshine, high up in the coastal hills, with wildflowers in abundance. The views of the coast were amazing. I remember one day, in particular, right at the beginning, where I walked for eighteen miles and my feet were admittedly sore. Curiously, I hadn’t remembered that, only recalling it from rereading my journal. My unaided memory was only of the excitement of actually walking in such a beautiful place. I easily remembered the verdant green hillsides and the stunning blue of the ocean, seen from way above on the Camino trail. Later, after arriving in Getaria, I took a swim in the Cantabrian Sea! I remember how very cold and wonderfully refreshing it was. There’s something so restorative about being in nature. Seeing sunrises and sunsets, viewing the coastline and lapping up the waters. The Camino makes that possible. Shouldn’t life?
Gen 2:7-9 – 7 Then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. 8 The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and placed there the man whom he had formed. 9 Out of the ground the Lord God made grow every tree that was delightful to look at and good for food, with the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
For reflection: We have a mythic memory of a God-gardened place where we belonged. We were made for it. It was a home made to match our needs for nourishment, and to delight us by its fruit’s appeal, where there was abundance, variety and sufficiency. Perhaps there is a primeval part of us that is only at rest in gardens and greenery?
The word, in Greek, for “garden” is paradeisos, from which we obtain the English word, “paradise.” Might the farms, fields and forests of Portugal and Spain, or wherever we journey, give us a glimpse back into that place, and satisfy our hunger for that home?
With mythic recollection guiding us, we remember our entrance, all together as the human race, into that place. It all began with the very gasp of God breathed into us. Our first inhalation was God’s exhalation. Whenever will we be in such tight rhythm with God that we can attain that synchronicity with God again? Might our stepping away from the imbalances of modern life, breathing in the freshness and the beauty of the wildlands, the fecundity of the farmlands, the mysteries of the ocean, with the sun and sky above us, allow us to let go of old patterns and seek a new rhythm, an inner stability that breathes in an out with God? It could happen if we let it.
We might need to be deliberately conscious of the beauty, which might mean we have to drag our attention away from travel discomforts, or how warmly the sun was shining down upon us, or how the straps of our backpacks leave us tender in spots. We get to choose. Will I be overwhelmed by the aggravation or the beauty. Will I dwell on the mundane, or breathe with God.
