Does the Camino Ruin Us for Evermore?

[Robo]

There are some great threads running about what makes us keep going when we hurt ( thank you @David ) and another old one re-emerged ( by @Elle Bieling ) around that common topic of why we walk the camino.

I saw an old response of mine to that question by Elle, and it got me thinking:

---

Why do I go on Pilgrimage?
Because while I'm walking a Camino route I have a sense of being 'home'. In a place that feels 'right', a place that makes sense, a place where I feel alive. It seems that this is how our lives should be lived. In simplicity, amongst nature, in the company of good people, away from the crazy distractions of our World and closer to our God or Spiritual heart.

Above all...........to just be.

Being 'home' and 'working' is perhaps something that fills the void between Pilgrimages....

The 'trick' of course, IMHO, is how to make ones life at 'home', one long Pilgrimage. Perhaps that takes a few Caminos?

Quite a few........I hope.

---

I'm sure that many people constantly 'long' to be on camino, and yet others live between Caminos, just to be saving and planning the next one.

Can the Camino 'Ruin Us' in that sense? Like tasting a fine wine, or better still, having experienced a deep and passionate 'holiday romance' we deeply miss it.

But unlike the holiday romance, which we might realise with sadness, was just a fleeting thing and impossible to return to or recreate; the Camino is still there.......and the longing is still there......and we know.....we can return and recreate that romance at any time.
And so we yearn for it..........
Forever ruined......

Just a thought.

 

[alexwalker]

There are some great threads running about what makes us keep going when we hurt ( thank you @David ) and another old one re-emerged ( by @Elle Bieling ) around that common topic of why we walk the camino.

I saw an old response of mine to that question by Elle, and it got me thinking:

---

Why do I go on Pilgrimage?
Because while I'm walking a Camino route I have a sense of being 'home'. In a place that feels 'right', a place that makes sense, a place where I feel alive. It seems that this is how our lives should be lived. In simplicity, amongst nature, in the company of good people, away from the crazy distractions of our World and closer to our God or Spiritual heart.

Above all...........to just be.

Being 'home' and 'working' is perhaps something that fills the void between Pilgrimages....

The 'trick' of course, IMHO, is how to make ones life at 'home', one long Pilgrimage. Perhaps that takes a few Caminos?

Quite a few........I hope.

---

I'm sure that many people constantly 'long' to be on camino, and yet others live between Caminos, just to be saving and planning the next one.

Can the Camino 'Ruin Us' in that sense? Like tasting a fine wine, or better still, having experienced a deep and passionate 'holiday romance' we deeply miss it.

But unlike the holiday romance, which we might realise with sadness, was just a fleeting thing and impossible to return to or recreate; the Camino is still there.......and the longing is still there......and we know.....we can return and recreate that romance at any time. And so we yearn for it.......... Forever ruined......

Just a thought.

Can we just say: "We belong on it" (the Camino), for reasons we do not fully understand, but make us feel better/good. Would that explain it? Is "the calling to the Camino" real? I believe so... for the right people...

 

[VNwalking]

The language I would use is more positive.
It opens our eyes and wakes us up.

You can never unsee what you have seen or unknow what you have deeply known.
So yes, we don't go backwards — and if we find ourselves back in situations that are out of sync with what we now know...
Of course, then we want to go back to a place that is more in harmony with who we've become.

I'm quite sure it's possible to have the Camino mentality all the time no matter where one is. But that takes time and practice. So we go back, or long to.

This year, being cooped up, I've been walking 5 to 10 km a day — mostly back and forth on a long covered porch. After months of this, if I get busy, I've begun to notice the same feeling of 'camino longing,' but to simply go out and walk on my porch. That feeling of yearning has been transferred to landscape much closer at hand. I'm encouraged by this, and glad of it — because I have no idea when I will be able to walk a real Camino again. It may be 2022, if then.

 

[trecile]

This year, being cooped up, I've been walking 5 to 10 km a day — mostly back and forth on a long covered porch.

Wow! I'm so impressed that you are able to walk that much on your porch!

 

[C clearly]

Can the Camino 'Ruin Us' in that sense? Like tasting a fine wine, or better still, having experienced a deep and passionate 'holiday romance' we deeply miss it.

The language I would use is more positive.

I think the positive language is, well, more positive. Let's hope that the glass of great wine, or the holiday romance, are not one-time occurences that diminish the rest of your life. Same for the Camino.

 

[Robo]

The language I would use is more positive.
It opens our eyes and wakes us up.

I didn't really mean it to sound too negative, sorry.

Ruined in a nice way or a slightly sad romanticised way

 

[VNwalking]

Ruined in a nice way

Absolutely.
Count me in.

Wow! I'm so impressed that you are able to walk that much on your porch

It's not so impressive, really. It's like swimming laps in a pool, but just walking, in my case, 19 laps to the km. I've grown to really liking it.

 

[C clearly]

19 laps to the km.

How do you keep track? I wouldn't get to 10 before messing it up and losing interest.

 

[VNwalking]

I wouldn't get to 10 before messing it up and losing interest.

Ditto.
Fortunately I have one of those little hand-held counters so I don't have to be able to count.

 

[malingerer]

There are some great threads running about what makes us keep going when we hurt ( thank you @David ) and another old one re-emerged ( by @Elle Bieling ) around that common topic of why we walk the camino.

I saw an old response of mine to that question by Elle, and it got me thinking:

---

Why do I go on Pilgrimage?
Because while I'm walking a Camino route I have a sense of being 'home'. In a place that feels 'right', a place that makes sense, a place where I feel alive. It seems that this is how our lives should be lived. In simplicity, amongst nature, in the company of good people, away from the crazy distractions of our World and closer to our God or Spiritual heart.

Above all...........to just be.

Being 'home' and 'working' is perhaps something that fills the void between Pilgrimages....

The 'trick' of course, IMHO, is how to make ones life at 'home', one long Pilgrimage. Perhaps that takes a few Caminos?

Quite a few........I hope.

---

I'm sure that many people constantly 'long' to be on camino, and yet others live between Caminos, just to be saving and planning the next one.

Can the Camino 'Ruin Us' in that sense? Like tasting a fine wine, or better still, having experienced a deep and passionate 'holiday romance' we deeply miss it.

But unlike the holiday romance, which we might realise with sadness, was just a fleeting thing and impossible to return to or recreate; the Camino is still there.......and the longing is still there......and we know.....we can return and recreate that romance at any time.
And so we yearn for it..........
Forever ruined......

Just a thought.

Like this ENORMOUSLY!!

samarkand.

 

[William Garza]

There are some great threads running about what makes us keep going when we hurt ( thank you @David ) and another old one re-emerged ( by @Elle Bieling ) around that common topic of why we walk the camino.

I saw an old response of mine to that question by Elle, and it got me thinking:

---

Why do I go on Pilgrimage?
Because while I'm walking a Camino route I have a sense of being 'home'. In a place that feels 'right', a place that makes sense, a place where I feel alive. It seems that this is how our lives should be lived. In simplicity, amongst nature, in the company of good people, away from the crazy distractions of our World and closer to our God or Spiritual heart.

Above all...........to just be.

Being 'home' and 'working' is perhaps something that fills the void between Pilgrimages....

The 'trick' of course, IMHO, is how to make ones life at 'home', one long Pilgrimage. Perhaps that takes a few Caminos?

Quite a few........I hope.

---

I'm sure that many people constantly 'long' to be on camino, and yet others live between Caminos, just to be saving and planning the next one.

Can the Camino 'Ruin Us' in that sense? Like tasting a fine wine, or better still, having experienced a deep and passionate 'holiday romance' we deeply miss it.

But unlike the holiday romance, which we might realise with sadness, was just a fleeting thing and impossible to return to or recreate; the Camino is still there.......and the longing is still there......and we know.....we can return and recreate that romance at any time.
And so we yearn for it..........
Forever ruined......

Just a thought.

There is only one first time, first kiss, first blush,first time down the road...I've been thinking along of what your saying lately.
And came to my personal conclusion..that is if I build the experience up so big, so wide,so...all encompassing that there is the chance of an equally big letdown. Reading of all your adventures, romanticism embodied that I picture myself striking off from SJPDP full of vinegar and bravery and ending up like Frodo in mordor..with the weight of every little expectation on my be-furrowed brow..before there is time and distance from the experience to process what happened,did it meet my expectations...etc..
I traveled the 50 states my entire early adult life
It was a grand swept adventure full of natural wonders and force. I was 21 and started out the door a Virgin voyager, with an let see attitude.

I fell down,learned that getting up is easier as
you go,frostbitten,frostbite, literally and figuratively...
Learned to accept
Learned change is the only constant
Learned to love it.."out there" because I was who I could be.

The road changed me forever..I was hard wired and am permanently...different.
Subjectively and Objectively. I no longer fit in
Un-understandable to those who have not been-out there.
I wonder sometimes if I looked into the void..then jumped in because I couldn't see the bottom.
I can explain what happened all those years..but I begin speaking--- seeking a different language to explain what happened.
And they draw a blank..either that they can't, won't or worse don't want to understand what a dangerous thing freedom is...that deep nourishing first intoxication that comes from embracing fully.
I miss the road
It beats the cage of 70 hr weeks
Putting up with what has become constructive society..
I don't fit in
Can't fit in because the sun has been at my face
Heard the wind telling me secrets through barbed wire,bluestem grass waving in the breeze
Heard the poetry in the silence of the big empty
Felt my heart and soul grabbed so hard that tears fell
And
Still fall for the missing of that.
My muse let me see her out there
Among the clouds and rain and wind
Touched my soul and sang to me
Still
Sings to me
Calls to me with such insistence that tears come for what I miss.

Someone said

What is Jerusalem?
The other answered.
Nothing...
Everything.

Someday I'll drag this broken battered shell over some path in Spain
It will be a Return to nothing
It will be Everything
The void is silence and peace because we..I empty myself to be filled again.

I am a Terribly Complicated man I think...

 

[Stroller]

Does this help?

................I am part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all to little, and of one to me.................

Extract from Ulysses, Alfred Lord Tennyson

 

[Colette Z]

There are some great threads running about what makes us keep going when we hurt ( thank you @David ) and another old one re-emerged ( by @Elle Bieling ) around that common topic of why we walk the camino.

I saw an old response of mine to that question by Elle, and it got me thinking:

---

Why do I go on Pilgrimage?
Because while I'm walking a Camino route I have a sense of being 'home'. In a place that feels 'right', a place that makes sense, a place where I feel alive. It seems that this is how our lives should be lived. In simplicity, amongst nature, in the company of good people, away from the crazy distractions of our World and closer to our God or Spiritual heart.

Above all...........to just be.

Being 'home' and 'working' is perhaps something that fills the void between Pilgrimages....

The 'trick' of course, IMHO, is how to make ones life at 'home', one long Pilgrimage. Perhaps that takes a few Caminos?

Quite a few........I hope.

---

I'm sure that many people constantly 'long' to be on camino, and yet others live between Caminos, just to be saving and planning the next one.

Can the Camino 'Ruin Us' in that sense? Like tasting a fine wine, or better still, having experienced a deep and passionate 'holiday romance' we deeply miss it.

But unlike the holiday romance, which we might realise with sadness, was just a fleeting thing and impossible to return to or recreate; the Camino is still there.......and the longing is still there......and we know.....we can return and recreate that romance at any time.
And so we yearn for it..........
Forever ruined......

Just a thought.

Ever since my first Camino, I’ve not returned to what others consider “real” life. I live a “Camino sobriety” until returning to walk again. I then experience a mega mix of awe + overwhelming joy + excitement + comfort AND the realization that my soul has returned “home”. Yes I’ve changed forever!

 

[Elle Bieling]

Ditto.
Fortunately I have one of those little hand-held counters so I don't have to be able to count.

@VNwalking, I am also impressed with you walking so far on your porch! I would say that you have clearly mastered the art of meditative walking, to be able to walk as far as you do in this manner!

Many years ago, with the assistance of all female friends, I built my own Chakravyuha labyrinth on our acreage. (I wrote this piece, long before I had any idea what the Camino was all about). I walk it a lot, many times in and out, 0.125 miles with each winding and unwinding cycle! I stop after 16 cycles and two miles. I place a pine cone on a bench to keep track of the cycles, up to eight, then remove one each time for the final eight. It is so calming and meditative an activity.

You have encouraged me to just walk, set the meter and go until I finish, whenever that is! Perhaps the placing and removing of the pine cones is disruptive??

 

[VNwalking]

You have encouraged me to just walk, set the meter and go until I finish, whenever that is! Perhaps the placing and removing of the pine cones is disruptive??

Maybe. For the first month or so I was doing something similar to what you do with a pine cone, and I found and I had to stop the end of each lap, not for more than a moment, but just enough to disrupt the movement of the walking.

I love walking labyrinths, as a slower kind of walking than what I'm doing. Enjoy!
.

 

[Camino Chrissy]

I built my own Chakravyuha labyrinth on our acreage. (I wrote this piece, long before I had any idea what the Camino was all about).

I'm impressed, Elle!

 

[Elle Bieling]

What is Jerusalem?
The other answered.
Nothing...
Everything.

Someday I'll drag this broken battered shell over some path in Spain
It will be a Return to nothing
It will be Everything
The void is silence and peace because we..I empty myself to be filled again.

@William Garza, if it is true that you have never walked a Camino, which is what I believe you are saying, then you have captured the essence of it, IMHO! For you to have discover "The Road" at such a young age is super-fantastic. I love your musings! I wish I had had such an experience long before the Camino bug bit. I also wonder, as I plan outdoor activities in the USA, why is there an element that is missing?

My husband and I went on a road trip to Arizona in November this year, in a truck camper, isolated and safe, avoiding populated areas, but without a plan at all. We had an initial goal from southern Colorado to get through NM the first day (this state requires a 14 day quarantine, so outside of stopping for gas/breaks we went through as fast as possible) and stayed at the first reasonable place in AZ the first night. (This turned out to be Petrified Forest NM, a fabulous place for backcountry hiking). From there, we stayed where we chose to stay, as long as we felt was necessary and/or safe, and would decide where to go next only when we wanted to move on. It was a liberating experience! (Suffice it to say, I am usually an incessant planner).

We hiked and hiked, the parks, canyons and mountains of AZ. It was wonderful. When we returned home after three weeks, I was super melancholy. It was the first true freedom we had had, that wasn't on Camino, since the virus hit. It felt very similar to the post-Camino blues, however, not exactly the same.

The difference?? For me, the community experience. Doing the "nothing and everything" together, solidifying the experience even more fully, perhaps. I am not sure. But I am open and willing to understand as I continue to process. If we had been able to socialize more on our Arizona trip, perhaps it would have been closer to the Camino experience, since we avoided people whenever we could? But then, there was no common goal like on the Camino! Hmmm.

I suppose the Camino will indeed, always be a unique experience. Traveling with a community goal, perhaps is at the heart of the difference. But yet, the "open road" has an invitation all of its own...

 

[Meggins]

There is only one first time, first kiss, first blush,first time down the road...I've been thinking along of what your saying lately.
And came to my personal conclusion..that is if I build the experience up so big, so wide,so...all encompassing that there is the chance of an equally big letdown. Reading of all your adventures, romanticism embodied that I picture myself striking off from SJPDP full of vinegar and bravery and ending up like Frodo in mordor..with the weight of every little expectation on my be-furrowed brow..before there is time and distance from the experience to process what happened,did it meet my expectations...etc..
I traveled the 50 states my entire early adult life
It was a grand swept adventure full of natural wonders and force. I was 21 and started out the door a Virgin voyager, with an let see attitude.

I fell down,learned that getting up is easier as
you go,frostbitten,frostbite, literally and figuratively...
Learned to accept
Learned change is the only constant
Learned to love it.."out there" because I was who I could be.

The road changed me forever..I was hard wired and am permanently...different.
Subjectively and Objectively. I no longer fit in
Un-understandable to those who have not been-out there.
I wonder sometimes if I looked into the void..then jumped in because I couldn't see the bottom.
I can explain what happened all those years..but I begin speaking--- seeking a different language to explain what happened.
And they draw a blank..either that they can't, won't or worse don't want to understand what a dangerous thing freedom is...that deep nourishing first intoxication that comes from embracing fully.
I miss the road
It beats the cage of 70 hr weeks
Putting up with what has become constructive society..
I don't fit in
Can't fit in because the sun has been at my face
Heard the wind telling me secrets through barbed wire,bluestem grass waving in the breeze
Heard the poetry in the silence of the big empty
Felt my heart and soul grabbed so hard that tears fell
And
Still fall for the missing of that.
My muse let me see her out there
Among the clouds and rain and wind
Touched my soul and sang to me
Still
Sings to me
Calls to me with such insistence that tears come for what I miss.

Someone said

What is Jerusalem?
The other answered.
Nothing...
Everything.

Someday I'll drag this broken battered shell over some path in Spain
It will be a Return to nothing
It will be Everything
The void is silence and peace because we..I empty myself to be filled again.

I am a Terribly Complicated man I think...

Absolutely love your post and your eloquent words!

 

[Kristinka]

don't fit in
Can't fit in because the sun has been at my face
Heard the wind telling me secrets through barbed wire,bluestem grass waving in the breeze

I had tears in my eyes reading your post. Oh how I can relate!

 

[Former member 49149]

There are some great threads running about what makes us keep going when we hurt ( thank you @David ) and another old one re-emerged ( by @Elle Bieling ) around that common topic of why we walk the camino.

I saw an old response of mine to that question by Elle, and it got me thinking:

---

Why do I go on Pilgrimage?
Because while I'm walking a Camino route I have a sense of being 'home'. In a place that feels 'right', a place that makes sense, a place where I feel alive. It seems that this is how our lives should be lived. In simplicity, amongst nature, in the company of good people, away from the crazy distractions of our World and closer to our God or Spiritual heart.

Above all...........to just be.

Being 'home' and 'working' is perhaps something that fills the void between Pilgrimages....

The 'trick' of course, IMHO, is how to make ones life at 'home', one long Pilgrimage. Perhaps that takes a few Caminos?

Quite a few........I hope.

---

I'm sure that many people constantly 'long' to be on camino, and yet others live between Caminos, just to be saving and planning the next one.

Can the Camino 'Ruin Us' in that sense? Like tasting a fine wine, or better still, having experienced a deep and passionate 'holiday romance' we deeply miss it.

But unlike the holiday romance, which we might realise with sadness, was just a fleeting thing and impossible to return to or recreate; the Camino is still there.......and the longing is still there......and we know.....we can return and recreate that romance at any time.
And so we yearn for it..........
Forever ruined......

Just a thought.

Thanks, Robo for your post. I count on others to kick start me with contributions, and you are so good at that.
In my case, Camino is a part of my life. ‘The trick is to make one’s life at home one long pilgrimage.’ I changed my description when I moved from whatever it was to veteran, because veteran means nothing to me. In fact, it is negative. So I thought and I thought, and I came up with pilgrim. That is who I aspire to be and I fall down every day! Each time I swear under my mask at the people who seem not to have heard of social distancing... the examples are many! However, I do aspire to be a pilgrim. There is no other status that would please me more than to have that description on my tombstone. The Camino did not ruin me, it gave me a glimpse of what is real, and I am very grateful that it has been a part of my journey, and I trust it will be again.
For anyone who would like to know more about being real, have a look for a beautiful book by Marjorie Williams - The Velveteen Rabbit. It is available perhaps via Gutenberg, free and downloadable. I am prejudiced, it has always been a favourite ‘tool’ when teaching primary school children, but it is for children of all ages!

 

[doc quixote]

There is only one first time, first kiss, first blush,first time down the road...I've been thinking along of what your saying lately.
And came to my personal conclusion..that is if I build the experience up so big, so wide,so...all encompassing that there is the chance of an equally big letdown. Reading of all your adventures, romanticism embodied that I picture myself striking off from SJPDP full of vinegar and bravery and ending up like Frodo in mordor..with the weight of every little expectation on my be-furrowed brow..before there is time and distance from the experience to process what happened,did it meet my expectations...etc..
I traveled the 50 states my entire early adult life
It was a grand swept adventure full of natural wonders and force. I was 21 and started out the door a Virgin voyager, with an let see attitude.

I fell down,learned that getting up is easier as
you go,frostbitten,frostbite, literally and figuratively...
Learned to accept
Learned change is the only constant
Learned to love it.."out there" because I was who I could be.

The road changed me forever..I was hard wired and am permanently...different.
Subjectively and Objectively. I no longer fit in
Un-understandable to those who have not been-out there.
I wonder sometimes if I looked into the void..then jumped in because I couldn't see the bottom.
I can explain what happened all those years..but I begin speaking--- seeking a different language to explain what happened.
And they draw a blank..either that they can't, won't or worse don't want to understand what a dangerous thing freedom is...that deep nourishing first intoxication that comes from embracing fully.
I miss the road
It beats the cage of 70 hr weeks
Putting up with what has become constructive society..
I don't fit in
Can't fit in because the sun has been at my face
Heard the wind telling me secrets through barbed wire,bluestem grass waving in the breeze
Heard the poetry in the silence of the big empty
Felt my heart and soul grabbed so hard that tears fell
And
Still fall for the missing of that.
My muse let me see her out there
Among the clouds and rain and wind
Touched my soul and sang to me
Still
Sings to me
Calls to me with such insistence that tears come for what I miss.

Someone said

What is Jerusalem?
The other answered.
Nothing...
Everything.

Someday I'll drag this broken battered shell over some path in Spain
It will be a Return to nothing
It will be Everything
The void is silence and peace because we..I empty myself to be filled again.

I am a Terribly Complicated man I think...

Outstanding words from a terribly complicated “rambling man.”
Signed, Kindred Spirit

 

[David]

Great post. When just a child really I ran away to sea and after a few years left the sea but could never feel settled anywhere, was always going off or moving homes .. camper vans .. narrow boats ... do up a house, get restless, sell it and move on - and I have always told people that once you have been to sea, sailed the world, you can never ever settle again.

But last night, fifty years later, I suddenly realised that it was completely the other way round - I went to sea because I was already a restless person who needed to 'go' (I did run away from home the first time when I was only three and a half, after all ) ...

So could this be a similar thing? That we haven't been 'changed' by Camino at all but that we have always been, without knowing it, 'pilgrims of the heart' .... but have put up with the daily travail because we didn't know there was an alternative way of living, breathing, being, on this planet ... until we finally go off to Camino and - there we are, at last - unexpectedly HOME - and once having been home in that way - can we ever settle again? Can we ever stop thinking of Camino? Can we ever not long to return and, indeed, return?
... just a thought.

 

[Laurie Sanantone]

I think the Camino will “ruin” me only if I allow my longing for it to make the rest of my life less valuable, less cherished. If I constantly long to be somewhere else, doing something else, I will miss the joy and pain of what’s right here, right now. It’s something I struggle with daily!

 

[lt56ny]

There are some great threads running about what makes us keep going when we hurt ( thank you @David ) and another old one re-emerged ( by @Elle Bieling ) around that common topic of why we walk the camino.

I saw an old response of mine to that question by Elle, and it got me thinking:

---

Why do I go on Pilgrimage?
Because while I'm walking a Camino route I have a sense of being 'home'. In a place that feels 'right', a place that makes sense, a place where I feel alive. It seems that this is how our lives should be lived. In simplicity, amongst nature, in the company of good people, away from the crazy distractions of our World and closer to our God or Spiritual heart.

Above all...........to just be.

Being 'home' and 'working' is perhaps something that fills the void between Pilgrimages....

The 'trick' of course, IMHO, is how to make ones life at 'home', one long Pilgrimage. Perhaps that takes a few Caminos?

Quite a few........I hope.

---

I'm sure that many people constantly 'long' to be on camino, and yet others live between Caminos, just to be saving and planning the next one.

Can the Camino 'Ruin Us' in that sense? Like tasting a fine wine, or better still, having experienced a deep and passionate 'holiday romance' we deeply miss it.

But unlike the holiday romance, which we might realise with sadness, was just a fleeting thing and impossible to return to or recreate; the Camino is still there.......and the longing is still there......and we know.....we can return and recreate that romance at any time.
And so we yearn for it..........
Forever ruined......

Just a thought.

Why do I go on Pilgrimage?
Because while I'm walking a Camino route I have a sense of being 'home'. In a place that feels 'right', a place that makes sense, a place where I feel alive. It seems that this is how our lives should be lived. In simplicity, amongst nature, in the company of good people, away from the crazy distractions of our World and closer to our God or Spiritual heart.

Above all...........to just be.

I have learned that home is the defining word for me of why I walk the camino. But this complete state of Why di I go on Pilgrimage? is the defination of the word home and all that the camino congers in me. Elle is a very wise woman indeed.

 

[lt56ny]

Can we just say: "We belong on it" (the Camino), for reasons we do not fully understand, but make us feel better/good. Would that explain it? Is "the calling to the Camino" real? I believe so... for the right people...

Alex, if that is how you want to define it and how it makes you feel than that definition is 1000% on the mark. I have not read what everyone writes but I am sure that like what you wrote I have found real meaning. It may not encapsulate my heart and camino life completely but it sure is a big part of it.

 

[Elle Bieling]

I have learned that home is the defining word for me of why I walk the camino. But this complete state of Why di I go on Pilgrimage? is the defination of the word home and all that the camino congers in me. Elle is a very wise woman indeed.

@It56ny I believe these wise words are from @Robo. He was responding to my question.

 

[lt56ny]

I didn't really mean it to sound too negative, sorry.

Ruined in a nice way or a slightly sad romanticised way

Just so you know when I read what you have written it was 100% positive. It is all a matter of perception. I have had some positively positive sounding insults in my life that I wanted to (since this is a family forum) and sometimes did tell the person to stick it where the sun don't shine.HOW TO SW

@It56ny I believe these wise words are from @Robo. He was responding to my question.

Thanks so much and thanks to Robo. I am sure you share these feelings also!

 

[4 Eyes]

"striking off from SJPDP full of vinegar"? I must be missing something here.

There is only one first time, first kiss, first blush,first time down the road...I've been thinking along of what your saying lately.
And came to my personal conclusion..that is if I build the experience up so big, so wide,so...all encompassing that there is the chance of an equally big letdown. Reading of all your adventures, romanticism embodied that I picture myself striking off from SJPDP full of vinegar and bravery and ending up like Frodo in mordor..with the weight of every little expectation on my be-furrowed brow..before there is time and distance from the experience to process what happened,did it meet my expectations...etc..
I traveled the 50 states my entire early adult life
It was a grand swept adventure full of natural wonders and force. I was 21 and started out the door a Virgin voyager, with an let see attitude.

I fell down,learned that getting up is easier as
you go,frostbitten,frostbite, literally and figuratively...
Learned to accept
Learned change is the only constant
Learned to love it.."out there" because I was who I could be.

The road changed me forever..I was hard wired and am permanently...different.
Subjectively and Objectively. I no longer fit in
Un-understandable to those who have not been-out there.
I wonder sometimes if I looked into the void..then jumped in because I couldn't see the bottom.
I can explain what happened all those years..but I begin speaking--- seeking a different language to explain what happened.
And they draw a blank..either that they can't, won't or worse don't want to understand what a dangerous thing freedom is...that deep nourishing first intoxication that comes from embracing fully.
I miss the road
It beats the cage of 70 hr weeks
Putting up with what has become constructive society..
I don't fit in
Can't fit in because the sun has been at my face
Heard the wind telling me secrets through barbed wire,bluestem grass waving in the breeze
Heard the poetry in the silence of the big empty
Felt my heart and soul grabbed so hard that tears fell
And
Still fall for the missing of that.
My muse let me see her out there
Among the clouds and rain and wind
Touched my soul and sang to me
Still
Sings to me
Calls to me with such insistence that tears come for what I miss.

Someone said

What is Jerusalem?
The other answered.
Nothing...
Everything.

Someday I'll drag this broken battered shell over some path in Spain
It will be a Return to nothing
It will be Everything
The void is silence and peace because we..I empty myself to be filled again.

I am a Terribly Complicated man I think...

"striking off from SJPDP full of vinegar"? I'm not getting what you mean.

 

[William Garza]

"striking off from SJPDP full of vinegar"? I must be missing something here.



"striking off from SJPDP full of vinegar"? I'm not getting what you mean.

A person takes off on an adventure full of p!$$and vinegar..I didn't want to irritate any sensibilities.

 

[4 Eyes]

Camino walking has ruined me only in the sense that dark chocolate has ruined me for milk chocolate, yet I still enjoy milk chocolate a lot. Given the choice I would go for dark, but I would love to have milk chocolate if I can't get dark. Actually the first of anything is no biggie for me. The second time I ate chocolate ice-cream was better than the first, the third better than the second, and so on. I'm sure tomorrow's chocolate ice-cream will be better than today's, if I'm able to get any.

A person takes off on an adventure full of p!$$and vinegar..I didn't want to irritate any sensibilities.

Thank you. I'm thick in the head.

 

[OTH86]

Does the Camino Ruin Us for Evermore? ​

I can't speak for others, but NO. It simply makes me more aware of everything good, and grateful for that awareness.

 

[simply B]

"Does the Camino Ruin Us for Evermore?"​

@Robo's question...which I have chewed to the bone since it was posted and read everyone's responses to date to help me process my thoughts on the matter.

Succinctly, I find myself deeply attached to the sentiments of our Forum's Poet Laureate. (@William Garza )

That said, there are two conflicting particulars for me:

1) Had I known the changes to my life that I would be called to make after experiencing the Camino, I probably would never have set a foot out of St. Jean.

2) Upon reflection on the hardships, joy, and griefs directly related to walking out of SJPP? Well, I guess that I am content that the rewards exceed the cost.

If that leaves my dear reader confused, do not worry!

I am in the same club.

B

 

[OTH86]

I think the Camino will “ruin” me only if I allow my longing for it to make the rest of my life less valuable, less cherished. If I constantly long to be somewhere else, doing something else, I will miss the joy and pain of what’s right here, right now. It’s something I struggle with daily!

@Laurie Sanantone, I think these are wise words, indeed, for life during a pandemic! I'm becoming more agreeable with staying at home --- and re-living my past Caminos, and other experiences... and walking all over Seattle! Not the Camino, but not a bad alternative at all!

 

[LesBrass]

There is only one first time, first kiss, first blush,first time down the road...I've been thinking along of what your saying lately.
And came to my personal conclusion..that is if I build the experience up so big, so wide,so...all encompassing that there is the chance of an equally big letdown. Reading of all your adventures, romanticism embodied that I picture myself striking off from SJPDP full of vinegar and bravery and ending up like Frodo in mordor..with the weight of every little expectation on my be-furrowed brow..before there is time and distance from the experience to process what happened,did it meet my expectations...etc..
I traveled the 50 states my entire early adult life
It was a grand swept adventure full of natural wonders and force. I was 21 and started out the door a Virgin voyager, with an let see attitude.

I fell down,learned that getting up is easier as
you go,frostbitten,frostbite, literally and figuratively...
Learned to accept
Learned change is the only constant
Learned to love it.."out there" because I was who I could be.

The road changed me forever..I was hard wired and am permanently...different.
Subjectively and Objectively. I no longer fit in
Un-understandable to those who have not been-out there.
I wonder sometimes if I looked into the void..then jumped in because I couldn't see the bottom.
I can explain what happened all those years..but I begin speaking--- seeking a different language to explain what happened.
And they draw a blank..either that they can't, won't or worse don't want to understand what a dangerous thing freedom is...that deep nourishing first intoxication that comes from embracing fully.
I miss the road
It beats the cage of 70 hr weeks
Putting up with what has become constructive society..
I don't fit in
Can't fit in because the sun has been at my face
Heard the wind telling me secrets through barbed wire,bluestem grass waving in the breeze
Heard the poetry in the silence of the big empty
Felt my heart and soul grabbed so hard that tears fell
And
Still fall for the missing of that.
My muse let me see her out there
Among the clouds and rain and wind
Touched my soul and sang to me
Still
Sings to me
Calls to me with such insistence that tears come for what I miss.

Someone said

What is Jerusalem?
The other answered.
Nothing...
Everything.

Someday I'll drag this broken battered shell over some path in Spain
It will be a Return to nothing
It will be Everything
The void is silence and peace because we..I empty myself to be filled again.

I am a Terribly Complicated man I think...

isn’t it strange how words... when strung together in the right order become such a thing of beauty. Your words made me cry... I long to return to that freedom

 

[William Garza]

Camino walking has ruined me only in the sense that dark chocolate has ruined me for milk chocolate, yet I still enjoy milk chocolate a lot. Given the choice I would go for dark, but I would love to have milk chocolate if I can't get dark. Actually the first of anything is no biggie for me. The second time I ate chocolate ice-cream was better than the first, the third better than the second, and so on. I'm sure tomorrow's chocolate ice-cream will be better than today's, if I'm able to get any.

Thank you. I'm thick in the head.

No worries..I love the sentiment of better each time after!

 

[William Garza]

isn’t it strange how words... when strung together in the right order become such a thing of beauty. Your words made me cry... I long to return to that freedom

My Muse..
She snuggles me close to her breasts,softly..palm to cheek comforts the fevered thoughts and puts the order of things..into things that matter to me.
Sunday psalms under desert palms and calms the qualms of shortsighted language. Language isn't near enough to give life to sentiments.

To just..be.
Dang it Robo..
To just ...be

Simple
Are we destined to fate to be Ulysses?
To be drawn inexorably toward the living crash hour by hour that is the life between out there's where I can just be.

To have the lovely songs whispered and additive hour by hour..yet tied to the mast I must be.
Elst I would crash on the beautiful shore to die...
To be reborn....
While others look on who have not heard the songs and can't comprehend
Why...
For they to understand would be to hear the music without the blinders of their dull lives.
Between roads and tied to lives that are not the roads
Of the roads and straining gainst binds and ties that frustrate and hold and chafe and burn as we strain with all might and strength to break...and others wonder why our secret Visage breaks through. Grotesque as any cathedrals..little realizing we are part of A Cathedral and that we are among many who do so
Pity they who have not the ears to hear that beautiful song
Pity more those who do but do not understand
Pity us who dash forward toward the music with every Fibre straining until the blood is afire..we are awash with longing that cannot be met
That is the longing..unrequited longing for a tangible-intangeble
The reasoned insanity
Maybe thats why life tests the request
How bad do you want this
How much will you endure..to be tested so cruelly
The binds strain over Ulysses hands
Creaking and popping
What cruel fate
The sirens call from what would break
Cast upon shore
To wake and be borne away
To be remade.

I cry, cast me loose my friends!
Bear your burdens away from here!

I have heard the unheard songs
I have been bound tightly..long enough that I can bear no more
Give me my freedom my friends
Or give me my death upon those shores that I look to ever so fondly..

For it is not my death that waits
It is my rebirth.

 

[FrankW]

There are some great threads running about what makes us keep going when we hurt ( thank you @David ) and another old one re-emerged ( by @Elle Bieling ) around that common topic of why we walk the camino.

I saw an old response of mine to that question by Elle, and it got me thinking:

---

Why do I go on Pilgrimage?
Because while I'm walking a Camino route I have a sense of being 'home'. In a place that feels 'right', a place that makes sense, a place where I feel alive. It seems that this is how our lives should be lived. In simplicity, amongst nature, in the company of good people, away from the crazy distractions of our World and closer to our God or Spiritual heart.

Above all...........to just be.

Being 'home' and 'working' is perhaps something that fills the void between Pilgrimages....

The 'trick' of course, IMHO, is how to make ones life at 'home', one long Pilgrimage. Perhaps that takes a few Caminos?

Quite a few........I hope.

---

I'm sure that many people constantly 'long' to be on camino, and yet others live between Caminos, just to be saving and planning the next one.

Can the Camino 'Ruin Us' in that sense? Like tasting a fine wine, or better still, having experienced a deep and passionate 'holiday romance' we deeply miss it.

But unlike the holiday romance, which we might realise with sadness, was just a fleeting thing and impossible to return to or recreate; the Camino is still there.......and the longing is still there......and we know.....we can return and recreate that romance at any time.
And so we yearn for it..........
Forever ruined......

Just a thought.

Hi! I have walked 3 Caminos and each has enriched my life and has at one level or another become integrated into my life. I guess I anticipated this would be so while still being surprised that it was. Before my first I read that "When we finish walking our Camino it continues to walk us." For me this has been true. I am also a Camino tragic and look forward to when I can walk it again - hopefully with my daughter.

Peace to you

Frank

 

[Roland49]

And so we yearn for it..........
Forever ruined......

Just a thought.

I don't think that I'm ruined for all other stuff beeing once on the Camino francès and had the time of my life.

I enjoy the little things like a walk on the hilltops near my hometown as much as the vacations in Tuscany or the french Riviera.

As the "bug" or the vaccination allows I will walk the CP from Porto to SdC this year.

If not, I will try at least to go on solo-vacation to Ibiza (never been to the Baleares).
Sad to say that after more than 20 years I will have no company at my side.
My wife and I separated last September and we will be divorced end of this year. I don't think that she will reflect her behaviour and remember what we both will loose.

But still, that is one of the outcomes of my Camino, beeing able to see the good in the decisions we make and not grieving to that what once was and what we loose.

BC
Roland

 

[Lexicos]

Short answer Robo.... NO.

You gotta find joy in other things.

Life's too big for getting fixed on any one thing, I reckon. Too many days in the year for that.

 

[woody66]

William Garza wrote​

Can't fit in because the sun has been at my face
Heard the wind telling me secrets through barbed wire,bluestem grass waving in the breeze
Heard the poetry in the silence of the big empty
Felt my heart and soul grabbed so hard that tears fell
And Still fall for the missing of that.

Wow listening to your beautiful post moved me to tears;those tears brought back memories of what it was to be young and free and for me another life i lived.
I was 23 had a tote bag a motorcycle and a waterproof cocoon sleeping bag; crossed the channel and just rode. I had some cash but slept next to the bike in all weathers the cocoon kept me dry (usually). I did odd jobs here and there picking fruit ,harvesting potatoes worked on commune near Avignon for a while but got itchy feet and moved on.
When i came back home i just always wondered whats out there and wanted more.
Met my wife and settled down, but every chance i got we were away on the bike but it wasn't the same there was an end date.
Then life changed again!
I was in the dark for decades until i was given a second chance; and a little light came into my World.
Enough i hope for a chance at the freedom; that hope i will find on the Camino!
I am a man who is moved by the joys and sorrows of life tears are a powerful release and a strength not a weakness.
So if i you find me on top of a hill with a beautiful vista and i am crying the tears will be of joy!! (either that or I've got bl**dy blisters)
I think of myself as a lucky man who has had a good and varied life;but i have forever
felt my heart and soul grabbed so hard that tears fell
and still fall for the missing of that.
FREEDOM!!!!
Will the Camino ruin me, if i do it and finish probably!! It will be a doorway to experience life anew.
Woody.

 

[Deleted member 56069]

The Camino has certainly 'ruined' my interest in other types of travel. Before we walked out first Camino our vacation type travel was the typical resort, beach, sun and drinking before noon. We even did a few cruises that proved that gluttony was alive and well in the modern age. Since everyone traveled more or less the same, we accepted this was the 'norm.'

Our first Camino in 2014 opened our eyes to a new type of travel and adventure. We have been on five other Camino's since, but this April will mark a full two years since our last one now.

Time is marching on and despite my attempts to stay fit, many joints are creaking out in protest far more now than two years ago.

But, hopefully once the Covid madness is under some type of control, the Camino still beckons and hopefully I will still be able to walk one.

 

[Jamie Y. Mo]

Before Camino, my idea of travel was to pick a country or a place that I heard someone saying about it in a way that appealed to me or read somewhere or saw something that made me want to go and see/experience myself to kind of prove that I have seen and done that too and I am one of the many. It's sad (now I acknowledge that) but with less life experiences, this is pretty much what 20's and early 30's do mostly. At least for me.

But after Camino happened to me, I no longer desire to travel the same way I did.
I never indulged into luxurious travel nor could I afford it however I have always liked backpacking type of travel. Camino is even more great for me as it combines what I like with things I never expected it to exist or myself to feel in real life.

Camino gives me a feeling of nostalgia now. Like home though I don't think Spanish would consider me as one of them. I wish to be walking there more than anything else especially now.

I, though, often wonder why it is that I and many people feel that way toward Camino. Why can't I find that kind of feelings elsewhere. I don't think it is the excitement of being active and experiencing new towns every night. Still in the slow process of figuring out what. I may not know ever though.

 

[Meggins]

Don't know if this is a new thread or not?
I am wondering when you first became aware that you were going to go back to the Camino again?

For me it was when I had bored my pals silly with 'Well, when I was on the Camino......' stories, to realizing one day that I had suddenly started to say "Next time on the Camino, I won't bring....". Also every time I bought a new T-shirt I found myself considering if it would work on the Camino...... etc! I started to haunt Sports stores...... ---)

 

[Arn]

How do you keep track? I wouldn't get to 10 before messing it up and losing interest.

I have a thin cord around my right thumb. It has four knots on it. Each 100 double left steps (four steps total) I move to the next knot. It's roughly 400 to a KM.
I also mentally sing Enya's "Only Time." That is also a good gauge...three times through and I've gone a KM.

 

[Phoenix]

In a few ways...
- I can find no beer here in the U.S. that tastes as good as a cold pint of Spanish or Portuguese draft downed while walking or sipped in the evening hours spent in conversations with others.
- I can find good coffee at home, but believe café con leche is better.
- I know where my larger tribe is, and it is "over there." There is always a longing.
- But mostly, interactions with new acquaintances at home are often cold or rude, and I wonder why people can't be as kind and warm as most are on Camino.

 

[Arn]

In a few ways...
- I can find no beer here in the U.S. that tastes as good as a cold pint of Spanish or Portuguese draft downed while walking or sipped in the evening hours spent in conversations with others.
- I can find good coffee at home, but believe café con leche is better.
- I know where my larger tribe is, and it is "over there." There is always a longing.
- But mostly, interactions with new acquaintances at home are often cold or rude, and I wonder why people can't be as kind and warm as most are on Camino.

At home, folks move in their own sphere of “oneness.” they are comfortable with their positions, lack, nor desire to change or take another’s position. Thus they seldom share a common thread with others. They self-righteously dismiss your opinions and beliefs to the point of being rude or cold.
On the Camino we choose to reach outside our norm, open to new experiences, expecting to cross our normal barriers on food, language, daily physical activity all in the hope that tomorrow the Camino will dish up a different happening than expected.
At home there are folks that indicated that I didn't measure up to their expectations. I countered with “if you have no expectations of me, then you will never be disappointed.”
On Camino we are not at home in the sense of a particular place. The Camino IS that particular place we feel most at home.

 

[mspath]

The camino often causes us to become more aware of our common humanity.

It is always a pleasure to greet others either saying buen camino to fellow walkers or waving to distant farmers readying their fields. These may be simple gestures but shared they help make us human. What fun it is to meet and greet all pilgrims including those who were prior digital acquaintances! A smile returned by a new friend is one of the camino's many joys.

Many of us remember and hope to give back a part of what has been gleaned. Some may serve as hospitaleros offering physical assistance to fellow pilgrims. Others share their journeys anew offering tips/advice by writing to unknown readers as for example in blogs, books or on this Forum....

Every morning I wake and wonder how it might be walking that day in such heat or rain or snow. Every evening when offering silent thanks for the gift of the present day I give special thanks for many years of personal camino memories and hope that I may "wear", a pilgrim shell until the end.