Fuentes Espirituales

Camino Photos here

Astorga is still home today as Stuart is not strong enough to continue on just yet.  We don´t know if he got infected with bad water, food or other pilgrims, but gastroenteritis is a common ailment among pilgrims.  We will probably be very cautious about our water sources going forward because the feuentes in the villages and towns, refreshing as they seem to be, may be suspect.

But what about the spiritual founts that spring up on the Way?

A visit to Astorga Cathedral yesterday evening gave us a taste of local life as Mass was underway, with incense and a booming cantor, and dozens of seminarians in white albs seated at the front of the nave.  We could not enter but we took in the ambience of reverence, sitting in a sweet chapel dedicated to Mary, and finding a compelling statue of St. James, who stood fast with a world-weary, yet compasssionate gaze in his pilgrim garb of cape, shells, staff, gourd and bare feet.  In the Camino Pilgrim museum next door in the Gaudi Palacio, there were several such images of St. James, each one a contemplative masterpiece, and each one speaking to an aspect of the pilgrim soul.  At this point in our journey, we are more and more thirsty for such reassurances from Santiago that calm perserverance on the Way will bear fruit within our beings.

The outer landscape may be challenging for each of us, but it is more a reflection of the inner landscape, which is even more challenging and magnified as we steel ourselves for the hardships of the Path.
I found a poignant piece of French graffiti in a small hermit´s beehive hut--my rough translation:

The important thing is not to arrive;
The important thing is who arrives.

And there is also this anonymous poem from Navarre:

Walk
Alone with others 

Thou thyself thy rivals
Thou thyself finding thy companions
Thou thyself seeing thy enemies
Thou thyself making thy brothers

Walk
Thy head knows not where thy feet take thy heart

Walk
Pilgrim of the world

Walk

Thou art born for the Way


Walk
Thou hast an appointment
Where? With whom?

Walk
Thy steps thy words
The road, thy son

The fatigue, thy prayer
And thy silence, finally thy speech.

Walk
Thou art born for the way
That of pilgrimage
That other way leading to thyself
and thy quest

Walk
So that thou may find
at the shrine at the end of the world
Thy peace
Thy joy

Walk
Already, God walks with thee.