Five years on, five things I learned walking the Camino De Santiago
Reflections on a spiritual journey from France across Northwestern Spain
On this day in 2012, I walked, stumbled, then half-ran onto the Praza do Obradoiro stretching beneath the western façade of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Northwestern Spain. I was tired, sweaty, sunburned. It was the culmination of a walk that began on a sunny Sunday morning five weeks before, although I had mentally begun the journey seven months earlier.
Physically, I covered somewhere around 500 miles, walking from St.-Jean-Pied-de-Port in the foothills of the Pyrenees in southwestern France to Santiago de Compostela, believed to be the final resting place of James the Greater, the apostle of Jesus. It is a route that people have traveled for centuries. Peregrinos, or pilgrims, first reportedly began making the journey around the ninth century A.D., seeking indulgences for the remission of their sins. Peregrinos travel from place to place, collecting stamps in their pilgrim’s passport from monasteries, hostels, municipal offices and more to prove that they have made the journey. Today, people from around the world walk portions of that route, some seek forgiveness, others to create space for meditation and mindfulness, others because it is simply a beautiful walk, and…
