The Emotional Camino

Past the blood and the sweat and moving into the tears. Today has started out with difficulty. I’m moving slowly like a snail, except snails are pseudopods so they don’t hobble like bipeds.
In spite of my warmup stretches and a slow start, my legs are in full mutiny. I’ve only made a few kms and it’s getting near high noon and I have a long way to go up the hill.

So I hobbled into a perfectly placed chapel known as “ Ecce Homo”—a very simple and holy pilgrim chapel with no crucifix at the altar, but simply a painting of two curtains parting with an emptiness between them. A mysterious void. Striking contrast to the usual ornate gold altar piece surrounding the Corpus Christi. Votive candles burned and incense had been recently offered. The font at the entrance was well maintained with cool, clean water.

I remember this place from my first camino. I loved it then too. A gentle little man attends tenderly to this place and to the pilgrims who rest here a moment. I walked up to the altar to pray and the tears came. I was feeling like I could not go on, and a huge influx of mixed emotions flooded in suddenly. So I stayed there a long time, pulled myself together, found a magnesium capsule to take to ease my muscles, and now I feel able to proceed...at a modified pace.
Then I saw this graffiti which said “Take Your Time” and I pondered on that . Time to work through the emotions and time to work through the body kinks as well.
I will go ever onward and ever deeper, but onward I must go.Read more