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Published: August 22nd 2007
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Le Puy
And the lit belltower of Notre Dame The trail winds like the southern mistral. It twists and turns, left and right, and ascends and descends as if a direct route to the heavens. In some ways, it is. In some ways this pilgrimage is a test for all those travelers in Life. It is The Way, and I have become another pilgrim of an ancient tradition in the catholic faith. Welcome to Le Chemin de Saint Jacques de Compostelle. This is The Way.
Walking To A New Peace After three months of walking with
Footprints for Peace from Dublin, Ireland to London, England I thought my body would be prepared. My thighs were like rods of iron, my back loose from the morning stretches and the day’s upright position. And most importantly, my feet were conditioned, walked upon as a traversing nomad’s and worn like the ogre of the forest. But such is The Way. It throws you a curve ball.
In one day I made up for all the months’ walking with various modes of transportation. From Milton Keynes I caught a bus to Stansted Airport. And from there, a flight to Lyon and then another bus to the train station. What followed were two
trains until I reached the day’s destination: Le-Puy-en-Velay.
Le Puy is the epicenter of Le Chemin de Saint Jacques. It was here that Pelayo, the abbot of the village, took the first steps toward Santiago de Compostella back in 951. He had a vision to be the first catholic to pave this route; the first pilgrim adorned with a scallop shell to traverse central France into the Pyrenees, up and over and onto the Spanish plateau across to northwestern Spain. He was following The Way of Saint James where an old ancient shrine was once erected by the saint’s disciples.
And so here I was, in Le Puy, following my own dream after the inspiration from a book written by Paulo Coelho entitled
The Pilgrimage. The years passed as I heard of other pilgrims’ tales. I did my research, and now alas, I was
le pèlerin (the pilgrim). As I disembarked the train in
le petit gare of Le-Puy-en-Velay, I was about to begin a true journey of what it means to be a pilgrim.
Whose Pilgrim Are You? In my eyes, I saw the road of solitude as the soul’s pilgrimage; of day-to-day
isolation along the road, or months tucked up in a cave in meditation. This was The Way of the Pilgrim. With this perspective, I ventured out into the world alone and received experiences and lessons from here and from there. Whether with company or in privacy, no matter I was a pilgrim of solitude.
Through this habituation I came to understand that the soul of growth involves personal isolation, like a cell of solitary confinement within the penitentiary—a prisoner of society forced to see his Self as the one and only existing entity on the planet. He was it. He was all. And from this would he return to his true and loving source.
My travels have been alone and I have grown the most through these solitary adventures, thus have I come to believe that a pilgrim of the Self—one who seeks Self-knowledge, growth and wisdom—must be alone. Here, he will benefit himself the most. And from here will he learn how to give his true Self (that of Love and Peace) to the outlying world. This was my pilgrim, and I was about to embark upon a three-month solo quest up and over the countryside
of France and Spain, and then down to Lisbon, Portugal. But there was, and is, another Way.
Taking In The Way From this mindset I created my reality. The night I arrived in Le Puy was dark and cold. The winds were blowing and steady rain clouds drifted overhead. With my pack on my back, I set off to wander the streets in search of a place of rest.
The French love their social hours and they enjoy their respite. I came to a town during the hours of sleep and found almost everything locked and shut. Restaurants and
brasseries were silent and hotel receptionists fell to sleeping behind their desks. Nothing seemed to stir, only a few local lovers up at the town’s highest point, the Church of Notre Dame.
I found myself here round midnight, as the last two lovers took their leave.
“
C’est frois!” one whispered to the other as they climbed into their car.
Yes, it was cold. I was curled up on a bench in the church’s courtyard wearing every piece of clothing and a blanket, and still I was catching the shivers. My conscience
swelled in and out of sleep for a couple of hours until I too took my leave. I continued wandering, back to the train station where it was dark and damp, and then under a tree in a small central park. There, I stretched out my foam mat and curled back up into a fetus position. The rains fell more consistently. The soils beneath me turned to mud.
With the first sounds of the new day’s traffic I was up. I wiped the mud on my mat with a wet patch of grass and appeared to make myself as orderly as possible. With darkness still deep in the sky, I climbed back up to the church and sat beneath its’ stone portico. The time was 5:30.
I waited an hour and a half. The Church of Notre Dame is the starting point of Le Chemin de Saint Jacques de Compostelle. It is here that Pelayo first began as the village abbot, and it is here that the pilgrim receives the pilgrim’s passport (
la créanciale): a small booklet of collected stamps to prove your worthiness to the pilgrimage. Fortunately, I was in time for the daily mass. Beginning
at seven, the service lasted an hour. It was my first mass I’ve attended and to be in such an old sanctuary, to be honoring
the pilgrimage of the catholic faith, was deeply moving. The stones echoed the priest’s blessings. The nuns’ choir filled each niche and brought alive their frozen statues. In the misty morning outside, the stained glass remained calm, gentle in the hues of imagination. Welcome each and every pilgrim. Welcome to The Way of Saint James.
to be continued...
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Bernie Meyer
non-member comment
Life as Pilgrimage
Cameron, I have been wondering how your journey is going, now I have an idea. You sound strong and committed. Keep trusting the Self, Keep faith. My own journey has taken me places I would have never dreamed, and still is. I arrived home on Saturday from the Walk. Now, I am in culture shock of sorts, familiar from past shocks. I do not want to loose the meaning. Peace, Bernie