The Camino and Me Counselling and Psychotherapy

The Camino and Me Counselling and Psychotherapy
  • Home
  • Camino Story
  • Posts
    • Cork – St Jean Pied de Port
      • Day 1; St Jean Pied de Port – Roncesvalles
      • Day 2; Roncesvalles – Zubiri
      • Day 3; Zubiri – Pamplona
      • Day 4; Pamplona to Obanos
      • Day 5; Obanos – Estella
      • Day 6; Estella – Los Arcos
      • Day 7; Los Arcos – Logroño
      • Day 8; Logroño – Ventosa
      • Day 9; Ventosa – Cirueña
      • Day 10; Cirueña – Santo Domingo de la Calzada
      • Day 11; Santo Domingo – Belorado
      • Day 12; Belorado – San Juan de Ortega
      • Day 13; San Juan de Ortega – Burgos
      • Day 14; Burgos – Hontanas
      • Day 15; Hontanas – Castrojeriz
      • Day 16; Castrojeriz – Frómista
      • Day 17; Frómista – Carrión de los Condes
      • Day 18; Carrión de los Condes – Ledigos
      • Day 19; Ledigos – Calzadilla de los Hermanillos
      • Day 20; Calzadilla de los Hermanillos – Mansilla de las Mulas
      • Day 21; Mansilla de las Mulas – León
      • Day 22; Leon – Hospital de Órbigo
      • Day 23; Hospital de Órbigo – Astorga – 15 km
      • Day 24; Astorga – Foncebadón – 27.2 km
      • Day 25; Foncebadón- Ponferrada – 25 km
      • Day 26; Ponferrada – Villafranca del Bierzo – 23.5 km
      • Day 27; Villafranca del Bierzo – La Faba – 25 km
      • Day 28; La Faba – Triacastela – 26 km
      • Day 29; Triacastella – Sarria – 25 km
      • Day 30; Sarria – Portomarín – 22.4 km
      • Day 31; Portomarín – Palas de Rei – 24.8 km
      • Day 32; Palas de Rei – Ribadiso – 25.8 km
      • Day 33; Ribadiso – Lavacolla – 32 km
      • Day 34: Lavacolla – Santiago and Goodbye
      • The Camino and Me
  • Themes
    • Stepping into the Ring
    • Enjoying the mystery
    • Fear and Courage
    • Risk and Vulnerability
    • Meeting and Letting go
    • Giving In
  • Tag: resistance

    • Day 19; Ledigos – Calzadilla de los Hermanillos

      Posted at 7:10 pm by Mary Murphy, on March 29, 2020

      After half an hour or so without seeing any Camino signs, I began to suspect that I may have missed a turn in the early morning darkness. In the distance I could see some lights and I thought I would reassess my options when I reached the village. However, before I got there a vehicle coming towards me stopped. Two men inside the lorry spoke to me in Spanish and I understood from their gestures that I needed to retrace my steps. They offered me a lift back and I climbed into the cab, fully aware that it was not something I would do at home. When we reached the road I should have taken, the driver stopped the lorry, got out and came around to my side of the vehicle. At first I thought he had done this just to open the door for me, but then I realised as soon as I tried to get out that the weight of my rucksack was pulling me backwards and I couldn’t get out without his help. He stretched out his arms and I threw myself forward into them; he caught me safely and placed me on the ground, just like he might have done with a child.

      By then I was about an hour behind schedule. The sun was up and while I walked, I asked God for support. I felt I really needed some holding. At a village further on I stopped, and as I was about to enter a café, I met Branu and Kirsten on their way out. We chatted for a few minutes before they moved on and I went inside. As I was the only person there, I sat at the bar and ordered a coffee and the last chocolate croissant. The barman went about his business, sweeping and tidying up, while I relaxed in the warm, homely atmosphere. A few minutes later, Jan, a Belgian man in his sixties, arrived. We hadn’t met before but actually it’s relatively easy for pilgrims to strike up conversation if they are so inclined. When his French companion Christian, also in his sixties, walked in, he immediately came over and touched my back. His touch was fatherly and not at all intrusive. In fact it was exactly what I needed, and I honestly felt he was an answer to my prayer. As I left the café, happy to set off again, I waved goodbye to Jan and Christian who were sitting outside in the sun, and when I caught up with Anna and Kelly, I told them about my morning and the kindness of strangers.

      After lunch in Sahagún we separated again. Anna was staying the night there, while Kelly took the train to León; I was going further on foot. Despite my blistered feet and my adjusted and somewhat uncomfortable gait, I felt uplifted by my morning’s encounters and decided that in the full heat of the afternoon, I would walk another fourteen kilometres. It was a risk, as the village I had set my sights on had only one small albergue and with greater distances between settlements along the Meseta, I thought I might regret my decision.

      Before leaving Sahagún, I bought a new supply of plasters and as I emerged from the pharmacy I couldn’t believe my luck when I saw a shop selling flip-flops across the street. Christine had advised me that I needed to air my blisters, that they needed to dry out – otherwise I would have them for the entire Camino. So ruthless had I been in my packing that I had left my sandals at home, taking only light shoes for the evening. Newly stocked up with supplies I set out on my afternoon expedition.

      Less than an hour later, I entered a section of the Meseta that was even more barren than anything I had experienced over the previous few days. How I approached the challenge was my choice: I could resent the heat, the lack of shade and facilities, and worry about the possibility of not getting a bed in the albergue, or I could accept the conditions and enjoy the walk. The struggle to accept what I could not change was a central theme of my Camino experience. For a couple of weeks I had clung onto thoughts of how I wanted it to be and resisted accepting the conditions as they actually were. So I decided to take the view that all would be well and that if it came to it, sleeping under a bush wouldn’t be so bad. I had enough food to survive and I could wear everything I possessed to keep me warm overnight, if needed.

      In any event, sleeping outdoors was unnecessary; there was, indeed, room at the proverbial inn. The municipal albergue felt really homely; it had a well-stocked kitchen full of items other pilgrims had left behind, while the overall atmosphere was one of welcome. When I arrived, the hospitalero had music playing and candles lit, both of which were soothing to my soul after a long, tiring day. In other respects the accommodation was basic; the comfort was in the heart-centred approach the two hospitaleros brought to their work and interactions.

      After the usual arrival routine I went out in search of the local shop and found myself in someone’s front room. I walked into the hallway of his house and there on the left, where a sitting room would normally be, stood a grocery shop. Although odd, it was absolutely adorable. It was like stepping into Aladdin’s cave, where hardly an inch of floor or wall space remained unoccupied. The shopkeeper took on the character of a magician as he pulled out box after box of goodies while he enquired, ‘You want?’ When he opened the fridge to reveal what was in there, it was packed to the rafters. Then he pointed to the wine. ‘You want vino?’ It didn’t seem to matter how I replied, he still had more to show me. Moments like that are part of what makes the Camino so special. He was a tiny man with a large zest for life and the encounter with him made my fourteen-kilometre walk in the afternoon sun all the more worthwhile.

      Later over dinner in the albergue, I spoke to Clare from the UK and asked if she had been to the shop. In response, she took out her camera to show me the picture she had taken of a beaming, pint-sized shopkeeper joyfully surrounded by his wares. She also showed me pictures of the local men and women as they sat talking and knitting in the evening sun. In every town and village, people, elderly people in particular, congregated outside their homes or municipal parks. I loved the idea of it and thought about how much my own mother would have enjoyed that life. There seemed to be a public space to rest, to congregate or to just be in every hamlet and village along the way. That night it was the albergue in Calzadillla de los Hermanillos which provided that for me.

      Posted in Day by Day | 0 Comments | Tagged Calzadilla de los Hermanillos, Camino, choice, kindness, Ledigos, Leon, Meseta, Prayer, resistance, Sahagun, soul soothing, struggle to accept, the way
    • Day 14; Burgos – Hontanas

      Posted at 4:36 pm by Mary Murphy, on February 9, 2020

      In the morning I left the albergue while Burgos was still in darkness, and even though the streets were lit, the Camino signs were difficult to make out, so much so that I couldn’t see them at all! Ahead in the near distance, I noticed a female pilgrim making decisions without hesitation and I decided to follow her. It turned out that I was following Brandi, a young American in her twenties, and we began walking together from the outskirts of Burgos. At our first coffee stop we met some people we knew, including Eugene and Heather. In fact when I arrived Eugene enveloped me in an uncharacteristic hug, as though I was some long-lost relative. After we found a table, Manoel and Sue joined us and I felt my happiness was complete. When I was feeling good, as I was on that morning, I found those impromptu meetings among the loveliest of my Camino experiences.

      Brandi and I parted company some time later and before lunch I met Wilhelm who, much to my surprise, was walking alone, as he was one of the seven men from Friesland! Naturally I enquired about his comrades and found out that they had not originated as a group of seven, as I had imagined. Wilhelm had set out to walk the Camino alone, but got no further than the airport before he found a ready-made walking group. The six men carried the Friesland flag on their luggage and that was what had brought them to Wilhelm’s attention. What intrigued me about them was how they walked together – more of a march really, as though they were in the army; they looked like they were taking part in their daily drill. The Camino seemed to be mostly a physical challenge to them, while for Wilhelm it was more than that – he had a real gentleness of spirit. So the first day I talked to Wilhelm was his first day alone. The rest of his group had finished in Burgos, while he was walking on to Santiago, and indeed beyond, to Finisterre.

      I had set myself a big task for the day: almost thirty-two kilometres, which was quite an increase under the circumstances. It was the first day of what would be a week of walking the great Meseta Alta, a barren wilderness that provided little or no shade from the relentlessness of the sun. So after lunch I set off on the remaining fourteen-kilometre walk to Hontanas, while others quite sensibly finished their day’s walk at lunch time. I knew it would be difficult; I just didn’t know how difficult until I encountered the reality of no cafés, no trees and no shelter of any kind – just endless walking in oppressive heat.

      When I arrived at my destination it was about twelve hours after my day had begun and I booked myself into the first albergue I saw: a bar. They had rooms upstairs, along with additional dormitories located in a series of random buildings at the back. My dorm accommodated ten people and four of them were present when I arrived. We exchanged the normal pleasantries but I didn’t know any of them and I was soon off to complete my chores. As I stood washing at an outdoor sink in what felt like a back alley, I could hear noise and laughter nearby, and I realised how disconnected I felt. The transition from walking alone to being surrounded by people and gaiety was challenging, particularly after the difficulty of the day. Down in the square, outside pubs and bars, the whole of the Camino seemed to have congregated – so many people and yet I felt so lost and alone.

      Later I went down to the square to face the world, but I felt that I stood out like a sore thumb. I could no more have engaged in conversation than I could have walked another fourteen kilometres. After walking around the village to get my bearings, I positioned myself at a table with a pot of tea and took out my journal to write. Writing helped me to process my feelings and explore what was going on. The holiday atmosphere really jarred with me and I felt out of sync with the rest of the world. I didn’t know what I wanted, while I had a list of all the things I didn’t want. At the centre of it was my ongoing resistance to the evening meal, the pilgrim menu. In addition, I was resisting drinking alcohol as a way of passing time, while others appeared to be doing it with gusto.

      The pilgrim menu, a standard three-course meal served everywhere along the Camino, varies hardly at all from place to place, either in variety or cost. A simple salad – by simple I mean lettuce and tomato – or soup to start, followed by hake or stew with potatoes, but rarely any other vegetables. Dessert might be a banana, Santiago tart (almond), a pot of yogurt or sometimes ice cream, all washed down with red wine for a total cost of about €10. So what was my objection? I should be so lucky, right?

      Well, for days I had been trying to figure out how to reduce the carbohydrate content of my diet and increase my vegetable intake. Vegetables were normally only available in the soup. So in order to have vegetables I needed the starter as well as a main course, and then while I was there, how could I refuse a dessert? While my body had some difficulty with the amount of carbohydrate and lack of fibre I was consuming, my mind was even more troubled.

      Journaling helped me to realise the bind I had got myself into, and I began to see that my resistance to the pilgrim menu symbolised my rejection of how things were, a refusal to accept what is, which meant that I vetoed everything around me. In an ideal world, one of my own making, I would have had more control over my diet, but if I was to have any peace, I had to accept what was available. I was doing the Camino, after all, and pilgrim dinners were part of the deal!

      Posted in Day by Day | 0 Comments | Tagged albergue, Alone, Burgos, Camino, Camino Frances, control, Hontanas, journal, journalling, lost, Meseta Alta, peace, pilgrim, pilgrim menu, resistance, Santiago tart
    • Day 12; Belorado – San Juan de Ortega

      Posted at 4:30 pm by Mary Murphy, on February 9, 2020

      A peaceful and quiet morning was made even more perfect by the appearance of two captivating vistas within the first couple of hours. The first gem was a field of sunflowers still in bloom. Having seen many dead or dying sunflowers already, I paused to move amongst them and examine them more closely. We were almost of equal height! Then soon afterwards, I was gazing into the distance at the simple beauty of a small hermitage built into a rock. The humble structure touched my soul more powerfully than the grandest of churches, including the Compostela in Santiago, its impact being in its pure simplicity.

      When I arrived at my destination, I saw that San Juan de Ortega was pretty much a one-horse town: an albergue, a church and a bar – that was it. While a couple of the Irish/Canadians headed for the bar to wait for other members of their group, I waited with the seven men from Friesland for the albergue, a former monastery, to open at 1 p.m. Once inside I saw that it wasn’t worth waiting for – the accommodation was really grim. The only positive I found was that males and females had separate showering facilities. At least I could shower in peace, I thought. I wouldn’t need to queue behind or among the seven men from Friesland. With that in mind, I went into the ladies bathroom where I was met by one of the seven men from Friesland stepping out of the shower. He obviously didn’t want to queue either! His unexpected appearance ruined the one and only thing about the albergue that gave me any feeling of comfort. I was annoyed with him, and to make sure he knew that, I pointed to the female symbol on the door. What could he do? Nothing! He just muttered something in Dutch and left. After my shower I sank into a deep sleep and when I awoke, I saw Jeanie and Elaine (the Canadians) in bunks next to me while the others (Heather, Eugene and Bob) had decided to walk on further.

      In the afternoon I sat on a bench across the road from the albergue having my lunch and pretending to write in my journal while I observed Jeanie and Elaine in the bar. Although I could have walked over to join them, I resisted. My internal dialogue was preoccupied with thoughts of all the things I didn’t want to do at that hour of the day. I didn’t want to sit in a bar and drink alcohol at four in the afternoon, neither did I want any other kind of drink. This was a regular dilemma – what to do when there seemed to be nothing to do except sit in a bar. What I really wanted was some kind of relief from the monotony, but I didn’t want to sit in a bar to get it.

      Later, at about six o’clock, I relented, and with a glass of red wine in my hand, I joined Jeanie and Elaine. They had booked a table for dinner and asked if I would like to join them. Initially I declined and later I relented about that too. Over dinner I got to know Elaine a little and discovered that she was not as aloof as I had thought. I knew Jeanie better; I had spent more time with her and knew she was a talker. They were work colleagues who had become friends, and along the way they had met Bob, also Canadian, as well as Heather and Eugene, who were both Irish and had begun the Camino travelling solo.

      We were joined at our table by a lady from Australia who was staying nearby at a Casa Rural. She was doing the Camino in more comfort than us, which for her was important, but she realised it meant that the camaraderie that resulted from albergue living was something she missed out on. I completely understand why people choose to stay in hotels, but having had the albergue experience, I know something huge would have been missing without it.

      Posted in Day by Day | 0 Comments | Tagged albergue, Belorado, hermitage, humble, journal, monastery, peace, resistance, San Juan de Ortega, Santiago de Compostela, Simplicity, Soul, sunflowers
    • Day 3; Zubiri – Pamplona

      Posted at 6:13 pm by Mary Murphy, on November 24, 2019

      I was awake at about 6 a.m., and while it was still dark I crossed the yard to the dining room, where breakfast for me consisted of a humble banana and coffee. Deborah, (Walking for love of God) was up early too and already tucking into a big bowl of fresh fruit, while a man I didn’t know kept a watchful eye on a small stove as he heated milk for his cereal. Observing the importance they had given their breakfast, I wished I too had planned ahead for the nourishment my journey required. Not just in terms of something more substantial to eat, though that was part of it, it was more about the sacredness of their morning ritual. It symbolised to me, patience, self care and apparent ease with themselves. In contrast, I couldn’t wait to be off.

      Packed and ready to go, I waited impatiently outside for daylight to appear so I could be reunited with the yellow arrows that would lead me out of town – and to greater ease, I hoped. However, I soon realised that I could not get away from what I was feeling inside and I knew it was going to be a repeat of the day before. The Camino I was experiencing was not the one I had imagined. I had misjudged it completely. Before leaving home, I thought I would love walking in expectation that I would get lost in the peace and beauty of it all. How wrong I was!

      During the morning I crossed paths with Sue and Manoel for the first time, while they had met a couple of days earlier in St Jean. Sue, a South African in her early fifties, had begun the Camino with her father, but they had separated soon afterwards to walk at a pace that suited them individually. Manoel, a sixty-something Brazilian, fell into step behind, while Sue and I talked, Sue every so often relaying to him the substance of our conversation and throwing in the few words of Portuguese he had been teaching her.

      After a while I walked on ahead of them as I found it challenging to be around people for any real length of time. The pain I was carrying inside felt like a dead weight and made it difficult for me to speak and connect with others. It was as though we were orbiting different planets and what I really wanted was to scream and lash out at the world I felt locked within, but instead of screaming I remained silent.

      My utter disbelief at how awful my experience felt didn’t get any easier to accept as the hours rolled by. In fact, it was further compounded by the struggle between my need for rest and my desire to run for the hills as I faced the challenge presented by the first opportunity to stop for coffee. Facing people I knew was difficult. I couldn’t say how I was feeling, so I knew I would have to pretend I was fine and I found that incredibly hard.

      At a busy outdoor tavern an array of brightly coloured rucksacks stood lined up against the wall while their owners sat at the many outdoor tables, chatting and having fun. I noticed the chatty young South African woman with her Dutch companion from the previous day, and while I stood at the bar waiting for my coffee, I scanned the environment for other seating possibilities. Seeing no alternative, I steeled myself to go and join the faces I recognised and although I tried to participate in conversation it was a huge effort for me. Then as soon as I finished my coffee, I fled. I had to get away to recommence my walk; I had to be alone. When I was with others, it amplified the painful depth of my disconnection from the world, and although I felt compelled to be alone, I also felt the pain and isolation of aloneness. I felt as though I was a small island adrift from the mainland, without the means to return home but I also know that even if I had been sent a life raft, I would not have taken it.

      Another, less crowded, opportunity to stop presented itself about an hour from Pamplona. There I was joined by Christian, a young German man I had met at the outdoor tavern earlier. As we talked he became the first person to ask why I was doing the Camino. On hearing his question, initially I felt stumped. While it sounds like a small, simple question, it’s actually quite big and I didn’t know whether I wanted to answer it sincerely or say something general that would deflect him. I was aware that a sincere response would feel exposing for me but I decided to take the risk. In hindsight I see that answering sincerely was more for my benefit than for his. As I began to find the words, tears came. ‘I’ve come to meet, and be alone with, myself,’ I said. In response, Christian wondered if that was not something I could do at home and I said ‘not in the way I want to experience it’. Actually I had come in the hope of experiencing a deep encounter with my soul. I wanted to be close to God, although I didn’t say so. I noticed my reluctance to name God and soul. Even on the Camino, where I might have assumed pilgrims were accepting and open about their spirituality, I felt vulnerable and reluctant to reveal mine.

      When I arrived in Pamplona in the blazing heat of the early afternoon, I found myself standing outside a homely and inviting two-storey stone house that advertised itself as an albergue and I decided to check it out. Inside it looked and felt just like a family home, and once the preliminaries were completed, I was shown to my bunk in one of the upstairs rooms. It was a complete contrast to the night before – more like staying in a bed and breakfast, where breakfast was offered for an extra €2.50. I found a little more of myself there, as the hospitaleros, two German men in their fifties, offered a more caring experience, in contrast with the no care experience of the previous night.

      In the evening, I was partly filling time and partly hoping to have a spiritual encounter that would connect me with God and myself so I joined a small local community for rosary in the Cathedral. Just when I though the rosary had reached an uneventful conclusion, I noticed the congregation joining the priest to walk in procession around the large, almost empty, church, while they were accompanied by what sounded like a choir of angels. Immediately, I felt moved to join them but I hesitated, telling myself I didn’t know where they were going! However, I felt drawn as if by magnet to the procession, and I put aside any reticence I felt about my spirit being so visible. While I walked slowly around the church, something within me melted as I sank deeper into connection. Then when I came into line with the choir I stopped to digest the experience fully, taking in the ordinariness of the group of men in front of me. As they sang, they channelled pure love and I felt transported to another world. The one I had inhabited earlier in the day had dissolved into a puddle.

      To witness the coming together of the local community to honour their connection with God, with themselves and each other touched me deeply. It was the apparent ease with which they took their place in honour of their God that affected me most, and I realised my struggle lay in the tension between my longing to satisfy the needs of my soul and my resistance to its fulfilment.

      Despite the uplifting experience in the Cathedral, once I returned to the albergue, I noticed myself withdraw. I didn’t have it in me to go and join the group in the garden for a drink, even though I had regained more of myself that day. As I lay down on my bunk I could hear laughter downstairs, and I wished I had a buddy to make my experience easier. I seemed to need someone to open the door for me, so most of the time I felt as if I was on the outside looking in, wanting what others had while I stayed in the shadows.

      Posted in Day by Day | 0 Comments | Tagged aloneness, beauty, Camino, Connection, disconnection, ease, emotional pain, God, Home, hospitaleros, isolation, longing, morning ritual, Pamplona, patience, peace, resistance, sacredness, self care, separation, Soul, spirituality, Zubiri
    • Mary Margaret Murphy

    • Recent Posts

      • Taking the plunge! 30/01/2021
      • Guided by Intention 30/01/2021
      • Day 34: Lavacolla – Santiago and Goodbye 13/04/2020
      • Day 33; Ribadiso – Lavacolla – 32 km 12/04/2020
      • Day 32; Palas de Rei – Ribadiso – 25.8 km 11/04/2020
    • Hours & Info

      21-23 Oliver Plunkett Street, Cork
      0833518131
      mary@thecaminoandmecounsellor.com
    • Follow The Camino and Me Counselling and Psychotherapy on WordPress.com

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
    To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy