Courage along the way - 199 kms today

There is much to say about the journey and abut the experience. I have discovered the greatest insights come to me in the early morning just as the sun comes up over the horizon and it is still quite dark. We walk in stillness and quiet reflection and there is only the sound of foot steps crunching in the gravel as the time passes and the dark grows into light. I have learned that courage comes from being able to face what happens along the way and that everything does not always go according to expectation. I have learned that each step is one more towards a feeling of great peace within and that there is much to be noticed along the way if you only take the time to look up and around at the beauty and the stillness.
There are many interesting companions along this way. there is a very old looking woman who walks the camino with a walker, hunched over and looking like she really should be in a rocking chair somewhere. There is another who is quite overweight and struggles to complete 16 kms each day. She is very brave and does what she can sleeping under bridges to rest as she needs to. There is a man who is 81 and just keeps on walking, arriving later than the rest of us, but still cheerful and a good compaion. There is a single woman from Japan, a young man and his mother from South Africa and many people from other parts of the world. All of us bent on one thing and that is to make our way along the camino to Santiago.
We are now 4 as one of my Canadian companions was told yesterday to stop walking and head for home as her knee is too bad to continue. We see different kinds of injuries now, A very healthy looking man we met yesterday has had to stop for awhile with tendonitis and this we learn is from not drinking enough. So now we drink plenty all along the way and hjave to stop in fields when there is not a bathroon conveniently located.
We have walked for the past 2 days on red dirt roads through the beautiful vine yards of the Rioja region and of course the wine in the afternoon and at the end of the day is wonderful and very cheap. Yesterday was a long and hot walk along mostly paved roads and so by the end of the walk, me feet were very sore and tired. After a nap and some rest, it is much better. Today we have walked another 22 kms and have arrived at a gold mine of an alberque. A small village with a place which has 60 beds, all of then in 2 bed room which is a wonderful change from the large dormitories that have been the experience up to now. Today is a festival day and so there is music in the square and the church bells ringing wildly adding to the general flavour of the area.
We have been offered a bottle of wine from the hostess here and are thankful that they are do warm and caring to the pilgrims each day. Yesterday the hospitalero of the alberque who is called Michelle from Germany. spent an hour making crepes for all of us. The cost each day is very low. yesterday was 3 E for the night and today 6 E for the 2 bed room for each of us.
I am conscious of my thoughts each day and pay special attenton to what I notice along the way as we walk through these wonderful little villages with all of their ancient history. building decorated by flowering plants in basket on the balconies and the people who seem to disappear and then come out in full force at 5 or 6 pm to the local square to socialize.
I am happy each day to just get up a walk and to contemplate what occurs to me in the moment. I enjoy the feeling of power and fitness that I experience in my legs and lungs as we climb hills and power along, particularly after we have found a cafe con leche and a chocolate filled croisant. The simple pleasure of these little things and patterns of living have slowed down my head and I enjoy the feeling of what the Sweedish sugges for pilgrims which is silence, no worries, charity to others, spirituality and 4 others which I cannot remember at the moment.
I think of my good fortune in being able to do this. I had thought it to be a challenge of courage for me and now I see that the challenge is to melt into it. I thought to be alone and I am not and I realize that that is also a creation as we are not alone except by choice.
No one who does this journey is every much alone as there is such a strong sense of community at every step of the way, as people take care of each other in simple and more profound ways and the experience is such that this is what our real life ought to be like.
"We have many people and events in our life and we draw these to us. The opportunity exists in what we choose to do with all of this"................Maggee