Polis - The city of Scout

A trip that is not only a pilgrimage, but a genuine path of rediscovery of one's life. The experience of a twenty-five on the Roman Road to Santiago . I had read that if the Camino de Santiago calls must be answered immediately. The phrase was something generic ...

I read that if the Santiago calls must be answered immediately. The phrase was something generic, so there had been paying attention to the day when talking with a friend I "felt" that before you ask me any question I had to do the backpack and go. At the airport check-in the weight of our backpacks exceeded 10 kg each and are compounded by the epics of blistering and debilitating tendonitis, but none of this seemed the slightest dent in the enthusiasm to walk the last stretch the French way. We had no idea what awaited us, we only knew that we crossed the beautiful region of Galicia in eleven days winning the 200 km that separated us from the destination : Santiago de Compostela . We were certain that it was a wonderful experience, but certainly did not imagine that I walk in to discover the true goal.

Each pilgrim arrives in Santiago, sooner or later, each with its step, pounds on his shoulders, his questions. Do not count the days nor the miles, but rather the experiences to which we open the road. Because the way it never leaves its own pilgrims . Its support is immediate and is revealed in the most incredible indication of whether a farmer has lost the way, to the solace of fruit trees after miles of drought, the medical care of other pilgrims to the hope of passage carved in their faces. Beaming faces of those of us in those eleven days' journey, went out every morning in the dark, backpackers, and with the fullness of who did not need anything else, followed the yellow arrows to the stage next, where a new landscape and further meetings would outweigh the fatigue of a day.

In no way is the same as the previous day. Despite the repetition of actions, its beauty lies in the absence of routine. Every day has the same beginning: wake before dawn, energy breakfast, pack and prepare the way, looking, often with the aid of a flashlight, the yellow arrows scattered along the road. But everything else is unpredictable, and if you abandon yourself to the flow of events we discover how rich may be the hours of one day. How many tests, both physical and mental, those unexpected gifts. The traveler finds himself struggling, alone or in company, with their taboos, their pain, the past and expectations, experiences the material and emotional detachment, the emptiness that grips.

From wonderful metaphor for life, who always elevates the way you encounter with confidence just by living in the present. Present in which about a smile, a greeting and a "Buen chimney!" Ripped along the way. And then you feel part of a much larger family, every physical pain slips on the background to leave room for a will that is constant attention to the other before the road. Attention but also total trust in providence, in the unknown resources of your body begins to talk and tell him, in the spontaneous solidarity and love that pervades every meeting. Because the road was never alone and sharing is total, even for that absence of patterns and forms that we leave behind us.

Being pilgrims undress their clothes to experience the true brotherhood. Everybody has the key with him and yet he always has something to give and receive. The first revelation of the pilgrim is precisely the joy of the essential, which becomes visible only when you start looking at each other with new eyes, more alert and curious, reading the common needs and hopes but also its own history and a 'opportunity for inner growth and mutual enrichment.

Another revelation of the pilgrim is the slowness, the discovery of a time following biological rhythms, which expands in the present. You learn not to hurry, to listen and accommodate your body, the only tool you have, without fearing the limits and indeed with the desire to discover the only way to accept them and overcome them. You learn to enjoy the wait, to enjoy the landscape with all its sounds, smells and colors, its variations of light, its harshness. Above all, he learns not to be in a hurry to arrive.

The goal is not to Santiago, or answers to questions that each brings. The real goal is that every moment you live, is the measure of love we experience in this in relation to the other. You simply find that it is already in us, wherever life's journey.

And then ...
Buen Camino!

Magdalene Ionata