June 30 Carrion de los Condes (407 kilometers to go) to Terradillos de los Templarios

Today´s walk of 27 kilometers was dreaded by many pilgrims as the first 18 or so were without villages or services. It is a mental and physical challenge to do this walking. The way was straight, little variation in the trail condition, almost no climbing... but I find that once I am moving in my own rhythm, my mind does so as well. I´m not sure that all my thoughts are trackable but I know they ebb and flow from the appreciation of every last iota of breeze to figuring out how I will deal with the soon-to-be move of my friends, the Marshalls, to appreciating the red, purple, yellow, blue, magenta wildflowers that snag my attention when I´m weary, to the wondering how I can best use the patience, endurance, and strength evidenced by this pilgrimmage.

There is pain. After about two weeks of walking, even people that were certain they would not have foot issues have succumbed. The body just doesn´t know how it will react to carrying 20 pounds for 13 to 15 or 18 miles a day every day until it tries it out. Our one friend, Tony, from the Canary Islands was in our same refugio the other night, and he treated his blisters as they had described in my pre-trip reading. I could hardly stand it. First he took a needle and thread, and then he pulled the thread through the blister and let it hang out the end.
Yesterday I looked up on my path and saw a shepherd coming with a large herd of sheep.
Everyone always asks why do you pilgrims walk the Camino? We´ve heard many reasons. A common one is resolving grief of some kind, looking for what matters, some are concentrating on the churches or art---it really is a progressive art museum...here is something I found in the current book I am reading.

We demand pauses and breathers along the arc of our lives. Without them, life would be a blur, a shapeless, endless stream of time and energy. (this pilgrimmage) proveds the lulls, the repose, the time out, if you will, to consider where we´re going and why; and where we´ve come from and why,; and what the rhythm of life is and why. As the hurdy-gurdy of life accelerates in our ever more modern age, it´s a relief to be thrown back--at least momentarily on the steadier rock where time slows down to a sweet, lovely crawl, and we are most palpably certain that we are not alone, that countless generations before us have said the same prayers and been blessed in the same way, as will countless generations after us. The brilliance of this is how well it connects us to an almost infinite DNA of time and space. The Camino is our antennae, outward, inward, and God-ward.

The above quote is adapted from Opening the Doors of Wonder: Reflections on Religious Rites of Passage by Arthur Magida

Becoming one with the wheat,
Carla