A Pilgrimage of the Soul: The Camino de Santiago
Ludwig Wittgenstein proposed that the attempt to articulate and linguistically conceptualise a ‘meaning of life’ was doomed for failure from its inception. Why? Because language is a human construct with inherent limitations. His contention was that meaning cannot be truly verbalised through language, for meaning is something which transcends our linguistic and rational capabilities. In a similar vein, perhaps the essence of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage is impossible to truly convey through the medium of language.
In all my foolishness, I shall nonetheless attempt to do so.
The First Step
“Cognito ergo sum (I think, therefore I exist)” — Rene Descartes
I suffer, therefore I exist. A variation — or perhaps even an evolution — on Descartes’ iconic observation on the nature of human existence, for the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage is a daily confrontation with suffering through the guise of physical, mental and emotional hurdles.
The word ‘pilgrimage’ has diminished in use from our common parlance (and also as a psychological concept), possibly due to its traditionally religious connotations. Stripped to its origin pilgrimage means “any long journey, especially one undertaken as a quest or for a votive purpose, as to pay homage”. Well the Camino de Santiago is long, over 800 kilometres for those who begin the Camino Frances in Saint Jean Pied de Port. And it is a journey, not only of the body but also of the soul. The two become indistinguishable as one becomes fully engulfed in the Camino experience. I say this without any intentional hyperbole. I do not believe that a person can undertake and accomplish the Camino and come out the other side the same person who begun because a sacrifice is demanded of oneself in order to make it to Santiago. The act of walking long distances day after day awakens one’s awareness of their own body and the intricacies embedded in the physical nature of one’s Being. I was surprised initially when I met experienced hikers and walkers who told me that the Camino was unlike anything they’d faced, but it made sense when they explained that walking 30 kilometres day after day continuously for a month punishes the body — not to mention the mind — beyond our perceived limitations.
I anticipate that most readers who have never experienced the Camino de Santiago and its captivating essence are scratching their heads as to how a walk could apparently be so profound. They have good reason for such scepticism. From an objective perspective it makes little sense. Each morning you awake early, most likely sleep deprived by virtue of sharing a communal room full of snoring people, in order to begin walking in the dark (anticipating all four seasons of weather in one day). You must contend with the accumulation of blisters, aching joints, and other physical ailments in addition to mental fatigue. After walking 25–35 kilometres you arrive at your albergue to face into an evening of washing clothes, cooking food and repacking your bag for the next day (along with a beer or two).
You see, we like to aspire to the ideal of objectivity. But that it not how we experience life. Life is intensely subjective, embedded with and influenced by our own filtering framework of reference. The Camino is no different. It cannot be ‘sold’ objectively. The beauty of The Way lies in the eyes of the pilgrim, through their perception. How is it that a first sip of a café con leche (or even a cerveza) can be so blissful; the smile of a fellow pilgrim so emotionally inducing; or the landscapes of Northern Spain so awe inspiring? Many of these things are ordinary. Yet the simplicity and hardship of the Camino — working in tandem — coerces one into a state of pure essence and gratitude. There is no better way to live life.
At this point one is entitled to question whether the Camino is a form of escapism or a microcosm of how life should actually be lived? It is not a black or white question. The simplicity of the Camino’s daily routine forces one back to the roots, which in turn allows ourselves to re-examine our very basic cultural presuppositions and the expectations we place on people, perhaps most of all exemplified through the role our economic output has in defining people’s identity and deciphering their value to society. When you are on the Camino, nobody cares what you do for a living. People rarely even ask you. I know, its disconcerting. Probably due to the fact that our society forces people to mould their identity to what they do rather than who they are. On the Camino everyone is merely a peregrino.
Divinity on the Camino
“The way people treat each other on the Camino is how God intended all human beings to treat each other in society” — my friend Kate, from California
It may be useful for the reader to insert whichever word they prefer instead of ‘God’ so that the essence of this wonderful observation can be appreciated by everyone through the incorporation of their own conception of metaphysics and omnipotence (if any, even). The divinity and unity of life is laid bare on the Camino. The way people treat each other through their generosity, compassion and kindness is humbling. There is this concept of the ‘Camino angel’, a person who provides you with something or someone at the time you most need it. In addition to this idea I had kept hearing people say that “the Camino provides”. I understood what they meant — but it was like reading an inspirational quote. Until I had truly lived and experienced this reality, it felt abstract. My story came in the form of a French lady named Sylvie, who stopped to inquire about the cause of my hobbling one day. She proceeded to walk with me (very slowly) all the way to the next town, a full 6 kilometres away. We barely spoke as we walked through the never-ending Meseta Desert countryside. It was a special moment. There was a divine element to Sylvie’s presence. She walked by my side, providing me with the moral support required to transcend my physical pain. She told me that I should just listen to my body, and that everyone must walk their own Camino. I will likely never see Sylvie again but her kindness and selflessness will remain with me forever.
The Camino is a great teacher too, providing lessons where necessary. In life we suffer injuries and setbacks — physically and metaphorically — and we must learn how to deal and overcome them. And so it was that when my shin splints rendered walking impossible, I had to accept the fact that my body required a couple of days of rest. A former version of myself would have been too egotistical and masochistic to surrender to the reality of the situation. But the Camino demands a humility and vulnerability that obliterates any sense of egotism or pre-conceived expectations.
The other lesson I learnt was that the people who come into your life during the Camino only stay there for as long as they are needed. Sometimes that can be hard to accept. And some wounds take longer to heal than others, for the nostalgia of memory can simultaneously be a source of bliss and despair. But perhaps the acceptance of this fact is the first step towards reconciliation and to seeing life only as it is, and not as we’d like it to be.
The beauty of life on the Camino
One of the aspects of the Camino I most enjoyed was the dynamic of companionship. There is an unspoken acceptance that everyone is walking ‘their own Camino’. This means that you can walk with a group or another person for however long you wish, and then choose to move on or fall behind when you feel the time has come for a change, without the need to explain yourself. There is a wonderful sense of liberation in not being accountable to anyone else. The mix of solitude and companionship reinforced two ideas for me. Firstly we should not underestimate the importance of shared experiences. Almost all experiences are more enjoyable and more vivid when we are in the presence of good company. The corollary of this is that time alone is vitally important if we wish to come to an understanding of who we truly are. People often avoid spending time solely in their own company because to do so, especially without distractions or background noise, forces one to confront uncomfortable truths about oneself in that abyss of silence. In my humble opinion this is one of the core tenants of life — to strip away who we pretend to be in order to reveal our true essence. Addition by subtraction.
Authenticity
As a result of the increased urbanisation of our society and the associated diminishment of our communal practices we have perhaps lost the art of accepting the generosity of other people, most notably strangers. We always want to be the ones to give, to be the beacon of strength, yet the Camino teaches one that embracing vulnerability and humility is a pre-requisite to surviving, and in turn enjoying, the Camino. Vulnerability becomes a positive trait rather than something to hide. We are no longer forced to produce an affront or a façade for who we truly are or how we truly feel.
The German philosopher Martin Heidegger defined authenticity as a shift in attention and engagement, a reclaiming of oneself, from the way we typically fall into our everyday ways of being. The Camino demands the pilgrim walks with authenticity. Through interpersonal interactions, the solitude of walking and honest self-reflection the Camino induces a sort of psychological peeling away of the curated persona we have built for ourselves. The masks we wear in society suddenly lose their relevance — and their necessity. We become comfortable with who we really are. The question is, can we carry this with us back into ‘normal’ life?
The utility of hardship
There is great merit in knowing our limitations. We often pay lip service to the importance of stepping outside of our comfort zones in order to push our perceived limits and to achieve personal growth. Yet the knowledge of one’s limitations can only come from pushing the envelope to decipher where exactly the boundaries lie. By definition this process means that one will acquire some battle scars. The Camino provides such a platform. The raw exposure of the heat in the arid Meseta Desert, contending with seven consecutive days of rain in the valleys of Navarra or walking 80 kilometers in 30 hours carries one to a state of mental fortitude and resilience that is not possible to replicate through one’s own willpower or ‘motivation’. Religious and aesetic traditions have long emphasised the importance of suffering in achieving spiritual enlightenment, and the brutality on the body certainly brings once closer to these places of connectedness. Pain induces the ultimate form of presence, a word which has morphed into a clichéd phenomena. Time no longer becomes the determining factor on the Camino. We slowly learn that the most important thing is precisely that which is right in front of us, whether that is putting one foot in front of the other or packing your bag for the day ahead. Life consists of a continuum of present moments. The past was once the present, and all the future will ever be is a present experience.
‘Why do you walk?’
This is one of the iconic questions that defines one’s pilgrimage. Why do you walk? Everyone walking had their own story of reconciliation, a deeply held motivation behind their decision to voluntary induce hardship upon themselves. Some people shared their stories almost immediately (often catching me off guard) while others were understandably more reserved in sharing theirs initially. One thing that became apparent to me was that everyone in life — regardless of how you perceive one’s life to be from a third person perspective — carries a heavy burden. If you were to ask everyone to place their burdens in a circle so everyone could see what the other person was contending with I reckon the (fortunate) majority would gratefully retain their own suffering, albeit still unquestionably tragic and unfair, rather than swap with the people they thought had everything going for them. What lies beneath the surface of our public person’s is often far beyond what anyone could imagine. That is why we must treat everyone with respect and recognise that we all have our own crosses to carry.
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step” — Chinese proverb
My memories of the Camino are the hundreds, maybe thousands, of micro moments that still blow through my mind at a second’s notice. I genuinely feel like I can remember every step I took on The Way. And I can. There is an intensity to that form of endurance walking which ensures that one’s mind focuses on little else. The simplicity of walking forced me to detach myself from the incessant thinking, irrational neuroticism and mild background angst that everyday living induces. The time on the clock was no longer my nemesis. Menial tasks like showering, washing clothes and cooking food took on a new form that was engrossing. I felt alive.
The End
“Here I stand like Hercules — not at a crossroads — no, but at a multitude of roads, and therefore it is all the harder to choose the right one. Perhaps it is my misfortune in life that I am interested in far too many things rather than definitely any one thing” — Soren Kierkegaard
In all honesty reaching Santiago was anti-climatic. Perhaps I was too physically, mentally and emotionally drained to fully comprehend the significance of the accomplishment. But it was never about the arrival, even when it seemed that sometimes it was. There always has to be a final destination. It’s a beautiful thought. Our own mortality — our final destination — is what makes life and its accompanying experience all the more beautiful. It’s a basic cornerstone of economics that scarcity increases the value of things. Time is no different. The guaranteed finite nature of our existence forces us to view everything through the lens that it could be our last ever experience. Whilst this can cause great anxiety it also coerces us into a greater sense of appreciation and gratitude. We all know from our own experiences that we tend to take things in abundance for granted. So the limited time we have to complete the pilgrimage of life is what adds value to our journey, much like Santiago adds value to the Camino pilgrimage. Without Santiago there would be no Camino. Without death there would be no life.
One of my closest friends on the Camino, Alessandro from Italy, made a poignant remark as we left the city of Leon. It really struck a chord with me. He said that the first third of the Camino drains you physically; the second third mentally; so that you essentially have nothing left in the tank once you leave Leon embarking for Santiago, the final third of the journey. From then on the only thing that will get you to Santiago is something deeper — heart and soul.
Buen Camino.
