Camino de Santiago, Day 27: El Burgo Ranero to Reliegos

Le Monde

Well, today was beautiful and emotionally overwhelming.  Ripples from my meeting yesterday continued to affect me today.  Strongly.

I awoke to find a note tucked under my door.  In it, Femi recommended two songs to me: By the Rivers Dark by Leonard Cohen and She’s got the Jack by AC/DC.  And he recommended silence.  And he tucked in the Tarot card which came up as the ultimate representation of “me” by adding the numbers of all my other cards together last night: Le Monde (The World).

Wikipedia says:

The World represents an ending to a cycle of life, a pause in life before the next big cycle beginning with the fool.^[4] The figure is at once male and female, above and below, suspended between the heavens and the earth. It is completeness. It is also said to represent cosmic consciousness; the potential of perfect union with the One Power of the universe.^[5] It tells us full happiness is also to give back to the world, sharing what we have learned or gained.

Interestingly, I did not read this Wikipedia description until now, writing this post.  Which makes what happened on this day so extra amazing to me.

Walking out of town I saw an old man, who was blind, shuffling down the freeway beside the Camino.  He held a staff and with it he stayed on the road, feeling for the soft ground beside the pavement.  He was a local, carrying no bag or water.  He was praying.  I stopped for breaks and therefore continuously caught up to him.  All at once, watching him, I got so overwhelmed by the tenderness of us humans; our desperate need to connect and gain help from something greater than what we can see.  The vulnerability of us all was embodied in this man and in an instant I was reduced, again, to tears.

And then, I sense the presence of my grandmother walking beside me and others who have loved me and are no longer on Earth.  And then a second wave of emotion came over me, thinking about some of the things Fami had told me.  All of the sudden, time stops – my feet keep moving – tears pour out and I wail like a child.  My eyes are so filled with tears that I see only colors.  For once in my life I see clearly:

I HAVE IT ALL.

I HAVE IT ALL.

I HAVE IT ALL.

ALL MY WORRIES AND FEARS ARE NOTHING. MEAN NOTHING.

I HAVE EVERYTHING I WILL EVER NEED AND I AM SO BLESSED.

There is nothing that could make me happier or more complete.  The pure joy of this revelation makes me cry for an hour.    Everything seems amazing.  I can not believe how lucky I am to be walking the Camino.  I can not believe how lucky I am to be alive.  I can not believe the beauty in the sound of my breath or the sun on the grass.  I’ve never before cried from joy.  I guess it’s about time.

Today I walked 12.9 kilometers (about 8 miles).

Photos of the Day: