Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Camino de Levante, Camino de Santiago, la mancha, nada, pilgrimage, the solitary walker, walking
The Solitary Walker has an outstanding post with this title here. It brings back to me all the toughness of those solo, often lonely, miles on the Levante, but the harsh, rewarding beauty and depth of it at the same time. I’m not sure I would enjoy a busy route like the Camino Frances, although I did enjoy the company of Jose Carlos, Michael, Belinda and the few other pilgrims walking beyond Zamora. But there’s something about being, day after day, in the middle of a flat open landscape on your own. You are so deeply exposed. It is walking deep into self, deep into God, deep into nada.
I have a number of favourite blogs which inspire, challenge and feed me, most of which you can access to the left of this post on the blogroll. The incomparable Solitary Walker is currently giving us an excellent series of meditations on walking in all its aspects.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: cancun, Environment, the solitary walker
There are two very good posts on The Solitary Walker’s blog (here) about the climate change talks taking place in Cancun at the moment. One thing (among many) that disturbs me at the moment is how the environment has disappeared from political discourse and consciousness here. It is as vital as everything else. Do what you can to get it back on the political agenda.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: abhishiktananda, Camino de Levante, Camino de Santiago, kiwi nomad, pilgrimage, poetry, prayer, saccidananda ashram, the solitary walker
Another response to the Comments on Into Santiago:
Almost twenty years ago I went to India for the first time as part of an exchange between the British and Indian Student Christian Movements. It was an extremely powerful and formative three weeks, allowing a humbling glimpse into the lives of many people in South India, and particularly into attempts to make social and economic change in that country of extremes.
One of the things that has stayed most in my memory was an overnight visit to Saccidananda Ashram at Shantivanum in Tamil Nadu. This Camaldolese Monastery is perhaps best known as the home of Fr Bede Griffiths for many years, but to my mind its importance is perhaps most to be sought in its foundation by Dom Henri Le Saux, the French monk who became Abhishiktanada, and who lived and wrote some of the very deepest, most painful, and most real things in Christian – Hindu dialogue. (Click here and here for a couple of book recommendations).
Away from the bustle and lack of space of urban India, Saccidanada was a haven of peace and tranquility (although a place where justice and peace are seen as essential elements of prayer). Talking to the monks, I asked a question about the dissonance between the noise and lack of personal space I had been experiencing, and was told a simple truth: The heart of India is silence and interiority.
This was perhaps in the back of my mind when I was writing ‘Into Santiago’ , reflecting particularly on the contrast between the quietness and often silence of the walking with the noise and bustle of Santiago Cathedral and particularly the Pilgrim Mass.
I am really interested in how Robert has noticed the noise of the rain and the runners – I had originally seen them as being barriers to arriving in time for Mass, but – of course – they were noise as well, and are all a part with the noisy Mass and the quiet of prayer.
I will have one more response this has triggered, based on Kiwi Nomad’s wonderful blog of photos and reflections. Perhaps tomorrow – hasta luego!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Camino de Santiago, pilgrimage, poetry, prayer, the solitary walker, Turnstone
All By Myself
I’ve leaned so much
On conchas and flechas amarillas,
I fear I may be lost
Without them.
So now
(Guided by no maps or marker stones,
Pricking no shelled and arrowed way,
No trail angel appearing mysteriously
At a crossroads in the middle of a prairie
To point the right path)
I’ll try contact
Some benign spirit deep within
For comfort and counsel;
Though along the Way I learned,
All by myself, with sweat and tears,
That the more I’m lost, the more I’m found,
And that all roads lead to somewhere and to nowhere.
The Solitary Walker
A poem I want to spend time with from Turnstone.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: John Clare, kiwi nomad, robert macfarlane, the solitary walker
Here is a midsummer cushion that I hope may nourish your soul.
The poet John Clare records the custom of making a midsummer cushion of flowers. This excellent website gives you his poetry. Jonathan Bate’s biography of Clare is scholarly and moving.
Margaret Kiwi Nomad has started a new blog that gives some beautiful meditations on the Camino (and of course the fact that she quotes from this blog is merely coincidental …)
The Solitary Walker has blogged on Robert Macfarlane and reminded me of this series of Guardian essays on our major nature writers.
