Epilogue, final thoughts on My Camino — Granada Hills, CA
It has now been one month since I completed my walk when elated and triumphantly I entered into the Praza do Obradoiro and Cathedral of Santiago De Compostela, I felt as if I had conquered the world, accomplished something great that I had thought impossible, notwithstanding the fact that hundreds of thousand people do it every year, and from distances much longer than I had; nevertheless, I still feel as elated, emotional, and triumphant now as I did that fabulous day September 16th 2012. The joy of the Camino is within me, and I hope will stay with me until the end of my days.
The emotion of that day is not easily explainable, probably I won't be able to fully explain it even to myself; it was happiness, joy, fulfillment, accomplishment,inner peace, reconciliation with myself and the world, and other things that I can't describe. Why I felt I had reconciled with the world and myself? I don't know, maybe its is because prior to the walk I had not felt that I needed reconciliation. This may give you an idea of the unexplainable feelings and emotions at the end of my journey.
El Camino becomes something that fills the soul and mind with peace and joy, absorbs all time giving the opportunity to meditate, to see the world with different eyes and perspectives. During the walk one realizes that the real necessities of life are but a few, and one realizes how it is and why pilgrims have been doing this for over a thousand years. People who are not even Christians, much less devout of Saint James, will walk up his shrine and embrace him, many because of devotion, but many perhaps mostly as a symbol of accomplishment. It is hard to explain why a person from Korea or Japan would walk 900 kilometers or 300 or 100 to a Shrine of a different religion, but they do it by the thousands. The Camino lifts the spirit on feeling nature, the sky, the sun,in a way that I had not experienced before; at times one is far away from the noise of civilization and one only hears the noise of other pilgrims walking in silence or the "Hola, buen Camino" and nothing more for a while. Being so close to the woods, rivers, prairies, rocky paths and ancient churches makes one think of how important one's believes have been through out history, whether it is faith, religious belief, or to accomplish a goal, perhaps even profit, who knows, but the Camino is uplifting. Many of the churches, convents, castles, albergues, refuges, have been there for centuries, did the Templars and Dominicans built those castles and churches for the sake of their faith or was it for the sake of controlling trade routes or for profit in any way? I could only think about it without reaching conclusions, but even now there are some albergues staffed by volunteers from different countries who have done the Camino and are now there to help the new waves of pilgrims on their way to Santiago. Most of this is beyond my limited understanding, but it did impact me as I continue to think about things that I had rejected such as belief in religions, now I think that one must always respect and listen the importance of faith. This feeling is not new, many years ago I visited my home town Jinotepe, Nicaragua, during the feast of St. James, the patron saint, which is celebrated every year, there is a religious procession where St James goes to another town to meet another saint and together they go back to the parish accompanied by thousands of the faithful, mostly peasants. The devotion that these pilgrims show is admirable for it is true faith, since then I have been reevaluating the role of faith in every day life, and questioning myself about my lost faith.
Would I do this again? a definite yes, if the opportunity were to present itself again, something I think is a remote possibility, considering age , health, resources, support from my family and other factors that fell into place this time, but if all came into place again it'd be a delight to walk the walk once more.
The support I felt from my family, especially Virginia, and from my friends was enormous, the messages and comments to my blog were very reassuring, filled me with joy and gratitude. Even people who I seldom see, and hardly know gave me encouragement and cheered me on, this also was very rewarding.