Walking the Camino

Kerry Arquette

CEOLC Secretary & Co-Founder | End of Life Midwife | Certified by The Conscious Dying Institute, Denver Hospice

It was a matter of taking just one step at a time but, over the course of more than four weeks, there were hundreds of thousands of them. I was walking the Camino de Santiago from the eastern border of Spain across the country to Santiago de Compostella. The Camino, also known as The Way, has been walked by pilgrims for hundreds of years.

There are many routes that are part of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage. This was my third Camino, but certainly the longest and most difficult. There were lots of hills to climb and the descents were often made walking in dried riverbeds filled with large rocks. Some days were in the high 90s and the sun felt like it was trying to bore a hole through my back. And, much as I’d like to paint the journey as exciting and adventurous, more often it was tedious and even boring.

I began the Camino by entertaining myself with audible books downloaded to my iPhone, but soon discovered that the narrative grated on my nerves. I unplugged from my phone and plugged into my own thoughts. What did I think about? Books that I’d never get around to writing, the bullies I’d encountered in grade school, times that I wished I’d spoken up when I was pissed-off at some offense, jobs I wished I’d quit sooner. I sang every Broadway musical song I could remember and then moved on to a little exercise in which I tried to come up with a fruit or vegetable for every letter of the alphabet.

And then I reached a point where I simply could not think of anything else to think about. My mind was totally blank. This is a disconcerting feeling for a person whose mind is always spinning.

I walked in what was the ultimate state of mindfulness, focused on nothing but the next step and what it revealed. As I did so, I was gifted with insights linked to the Camino, but equally appliable to life and death beyond the trail. There were many, but here are a few of my favorites:

• Pain is part of the human experience from birth through demise. You can’t avoid it, but you can develop strategies for dealing with it.
• No matter how much you long for a flat path, there is going to be another hill to climb.
• Walking at another person’s pace for long is exhausting.
• You can stumble dramatically and not fall on your face.
• The world is filled with so much noise it is hard to hear your own heartbeat.
• Twisted ankle? Aching back? Most things really can be “walked off.”
• Camino friends will return to their own countries, but your life will be changed forever because you met.
• The way we do things isn’t necessarily the way things need to be done.
• A good night’s sleep can, and often does, right a titled perspective.
• An empty church is a wonderful place to pause, cool off, breath, and listen.
• A person’s right to sing loudly or speak loudly ends where my ears begin.
• The less “stuff” we have, the less weight on our shoulders, and it’s amazing what you don’t actually need.
• You can’t dictate what the next day holds. You must simply move forward with the faith that you can handle it.

People wonder “why?” Why subject yourself to something as psychologically, emotionally, and physically difficult as walking the Camino? My answer is, “because everything we do in life better prepares us for inevitable events that will test our mettle.” Life’s path isn’t always straight and smooth but experiences like walking the Camino show us that we truly can cover the distance and climb that hill one step at a time.