Share Your Camino Story: A Journey of Personal Growth and Challenge

[Former member 49149]

Reaction to the title? I am just sitting, after a nice breakfast at home. It is dark, and the heating has just kicked in. 44 years ago on this day I was in The Philippines. What a day! Unforgettable.
Anyway. Nothing to do with this post.
Reactions?
I have no axe to grind. The Camino. Not a film, not a book, but yes, a story. A story as varied as the pilgrims still alive to tell the tale. Can you tell yours in a short piece of writing? No opinion pieces. No corrections, no suggestions. Just: this is what my camino meant to me.
Go on!
Mine? My first camino was a challenge - the CF. Some people who knew me laughed at the idea. I do not blame them. However, I climbed the stairs to the office in July 2006, a couple of days before 25th of July, and was rewarded with the first Compostela. Of course I did not need that certificate. It is rolled up, safe in its tube. Some day, someone is going to say: Wow! Imagine!
I have little of this world's goods to bequeath, but I do have this: you can do all that you give yourself permission to do. Buen Camino, peregrinos!
And today, where I live, it is the day known as Little Christmas - a woman's Christmas. When others are meant to take over the kitchen! Dream on! This albergue is not gender sensitive. Whoever wants to eat, cooks, or washes up. Amen punto.

 

[koknesis]

Thank you for your words! I know the feeling... Epiphany over here is regarded as a turning point between the Christmas joy and the brand new year standing in front of us for one more time ...

 

[LesBrass]

Thank you Kirkie... enjoy your day I'm not sure if you were inviting others to write... I hope so because otherwise I'm hijacking your thread

I grew up within the family of a church but wasn't particularly religious... but nonetheless I certainly felt that I was called to walk the camino. We were on a family holiday in Northern Spain when I spotted pilgrims walking beside the road. I was hooked. I had to walk too. I was 2 years free of cancer but still on medication, 30 kgs overweight, very very fussy about where I laid my head and had never walked more than a few kilometres in my life... and yet a year later I astounded everyone I know by walking 800kms across Spain. It changed my life. I found the girl I had been (or meant to be) before the ravages of life changed me. There is now my life before the camino and my life after. I am forever grateful for that call...a whisper on the wind that says "come walk".

 

[Former member 49149]

Thank you Kirkie... enjoy your day I'm not sure if you were inviting others to write... I hope so because otherwise I'm hijacking your thread

I grew up within the family of a church but wasn't particularly religious... but nonetheless I certainly felt that I was called to walk the camino. We were on a family holiday in Northern Spain when I spotted pilgrims walking beside the road. I was hooked. I had to walk too. I was 2 years free of cancer but still on medication, 30 kgs overweight, very very fussy about where I laid my head and had never walked more than a few kilometres in my life... and yet a year later I astounded everyone I know by walking 800kms across Spain. It changed my life. I found the girl I had been (or meant to be) before the ravages of life changed me. There is now my life before the camino and my life after. I am forever grateful for that call...a whisper on the wind that says "come walk".

Absolutely, you picked up the invitation! Thank you! Buen Camino...

 

[Robo]

The Camino?

Never heard of it till I saw that Movie and I was hooked.
I had to do this.

Why?

I was lost and needed to find.........something.
I wasn't even sure what I was looking for.
Just needed to get off the treadmill.

So I set out in search of....
Me,
my Purpose,
Meaning,
Answers to Questions I couldn't even contemplate,
Santiago,
God (if there was one).

I found them all.

They were all there, all along the Camino.
So I long to return, time and time again.

...

 

[Former member 49149]

You took me straight back to 1969. I copied this, from someone, somewhere:
And look! All the time you were inside of me at the middle
and I was outside of myself, at the margin.
You were with me, and I was not with you (and hence not with myself) and I was going all to pieces in the beautiful things you yourself had made.
Someone, somewhere might remember the author!
It could have come from Mister God, this is Anna.
It sounds a bit too high for Anna though. She was only four, in the story!

 

[mspath]

As for myself
"Le cœur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît pas/ the heart has its reasons, of which reason knows nothing."
Pascal, Les Pensées

Perhaps the first post of my last camino explained best why I walked the Camino Frances ten times; thus although my situation has changed while I was able to walk it served as my apologia.
Unfortunately now I am only able to walk long distances in my memory.

 

[Lexicos]

Ten times??!!! Good heavens, how do you do that? I’m planning my 4th this year and I’ll be grateful for that, let alone any that might follow. I take my hat off to you mspath, as we say.
I won’t ask why……. but I have a feeling that the reasons for most of us are mostly roughly approximately the same.

 

[efdoucette]

I retired in 2010 and walked my CF in 2011. I didn't know about the Camino but research told me about the infrastructure, I didn't need to carry a tent ... right on, I'll try that hike. So I left my comfortable home and family in Nova Scotia and went for a challenging multi-day walk in the countryside of northern Spain. Yep, green and naive. I've returned every year (except for the Covid years) to experience different sections of different Camino trails. I am a pilgrim, spiritual in nature, still not religious, the Camino enhanced my life forever and I can't wait to get back.

 

[Camino Chrissy]

My son had walked a thousand miles on the Appalachian Trail in 2014 and I thought that was so exciting, challenging and adventurous, but knew I would never attempt the hardship of carrying a tent, and a weeks worth of food at a time; not to mention packing up a wet tent after rainy nights. When I saw "The Way", I became excited as I was retiring the following year, and thus began my "journey" of research before ever setting a foot in Spain.
My five Caminos invigorate me. They make me feel like I am still young, although I am not.

 

[Peter Fransiscus]

What the Camino was/is was known to us. Marianne was the first of the two of us to walk the Camino (CF) in 2013 after finishing her REIKI Therapist studies and the death of her sister. In 2014 we walked a part together and to Finisterre. In April 2015 alone, that was an emotional rollercoaster from time to time with the missing of Denise on the news every day. What the Camino brought me , if I want to cry just do it wherever I am . It feels so good.❤
Wish you all the best and be safe where ever you are.

 

[David Tallan]

So far, I've been on three Caminos and each meant something different to me.

My first Camino in 1989 was not undertaken so much with spiritual intent but out of a deep interest in medieval European history and culture. And the moment that captured that best was in O Cebreiro. This was before the albergue was built and the only accommodation in O Cebreiro was an inn (Hospederia de San Giraldo de Aurillac). The village was even more medieval looking then than now, without the souvenir shops. The weather was cold (it was not far off from Easter) and damp. The inn was full, but as a pilgrim they let me sleep by the fireplace in the common room and staying there, I heard stories of the medieval origins of San Giraldo as a pilgrim's hospice and of the miracle of the chalice in the church nearby. Sleeping on the floor by the fireplace, with the wind and rain outside, in such surroundings, I never felt more like a medieval pilgrim.

My second Camino was in 2016, with my son (who turned 16 on St. James Day in Carrion de los Condes). It is hard to pick a single vignette to capture what it meant. Two come to mind. One was of a chance meeting on the streets of Santiago with a fellow pilgrim I had met only once, a few days before. He had come hobbling in to the albergue late in the day, feet covered in blisters, ankles and knees shot. We were really wondering if he would make it to Santiago. When I saw him in Santiago, I was just so happy for him, happier than I had been for myself on my own arrival. That moment really stood out for me and encapsulated how much we come to care about and root for our fellow pilgrims, even the ones we barely know. The other was sitting by the lighthouse at Finisterre, looking across the ocean towards home and enjoying the sunset, feeling the sense of accomplishment radiating from my son who was sitting in front of me.

My third Camino was in 2018 on the Camino Portugues. I celebrated my 55th birthday in Casa da Fernanda with fellow pilgrims. The conviviality of the experience will always stay with me. "Happy Birthday" (or its equivalent) was sung in many languages. Local wines and spirits were passed around for those who wished to partake. It really captured the multi-cultural and welcoming community of pilgrims.

[Edited to add: A point of historical accuracy I had meant to include was that I later discovered that, back in 1989, the pallozas on the north side of O Cebreiro, past the church, were being used as pilgrim refuges. The phone number to call to arrange for that was the same phone number as San Giraldo de Aurillac. I expect that I was directed to sleep by the fireplace instead of in a palloza was because it was warmer.]

 

[André Walker]

My wife and had spent a couple of years walking together from our hometown in Holland to St. Jean. With the intention for each of to walk from St. Jean to SdC solo.

So we started saving holidays to be able to complete the Frances in one go. Then I got cancer. It was an aggressive form, but thankfully in a very early stage. After I had had surgery and chemotherapy I had to recover for some time.

Then, when I started walking the Frances, I carried a rock inside my backpack to leave behind at Cruz de Ferro, representing all that I had been going through and at the same time being very grateful for being cured. So being thankful was somehow the main 'topic' for me while walking this Camino.

To my surprise, early in my Camino, between Larrasoina and Pamplona, someone had written 'Merci' in a sandy path. A couple of days later the same: 'Merci' now written on the path using small branches. And it happened a couple of times after that, using stones and, after the rain, written in the mud.

Because being thankful was very important to me, coming accross the word 'Merci' over and over again felt very special. And I talked about it to an Irish pilgrim that I had met. He asked if I had met this French woman who was supposedly walking just a bit ahead or behind us. I hadn't. Then he said he'd introduce me to her the next time they would meet. And he did. Turned out she was the one that kept leaving 'Merci' behind because she had so much to be thankful for as well.

Now, 11 years later, we are still in touch. I've visited her a couple of times in Paris, went to her wedding, she and her husband visited us in Holland.

So, if I had to describe what this Camino meant to me in one word, I'd say:

Merci.

 

[Phoenix]

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”

― Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad / Roughing It

Having gathered points of view from conversations with pilgrims from more than two dozen countries while on Camino in France, Spain, and Portugal, I am quite sure Twain's thoughts on this are accurate. Most everyone I met on Camino enriched me.

 

[Sue127]

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”

― Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad / Roughing It

Having gathered points of view from conversations with pilgrims from more than two dozen countries while on Camino in France, Spain, and Portugal, I am quite sure Twain's thoughts on this are accurate. Most everyone I met on Camino enriched me.

What a coincidence ; I just finished listening to The Innocents Abroad this morning. An interesting insight into travel and prejudices 150 years ago

 

[Silencio Por Favor]

30 years ago in my early/mid 20s backpacking through 15 different counties on 4 different continents was what I lived for, the Camino feels like a natural evolution from those days.
Although I have only walked a brief 5 days back in 2018 the connection is strong hence being on the forum and the intention is to definitely walk again someday.