Signs & Symbols

The walk from Saint-Lizier to Le Mas d’Azil was 30km of deep thought. My body pushed beyond exhaustion at yesterday’s 40km, the walking is now pure autopilot and my mind can really stretch. I’m getting that crystalline clarity of thought that comes when you move beyond physical endurance.

I awoke in the sad little church annex at Saint-Lizier and was happy to find that the Cathedral was open. It was all I really wanted for breakfast anyway.

As I left the Cathedral, I saw that the community had made a sort of interactive pilgrimage display in a nearby field. I suppose kids, and adults, can meet a mascot of Saint James, romp through a field, and proudly arrive at a mural of the Santiago’s Cathedral. I’ve seen things like this before, but never one so elaborate.

I want people to have an interest in and to connect with the experience of pilgrimage, but to be honest I never like this cutesy fetishization of it all. The pious sweat, the yearning look in the eyes, the peaceful sleepwalking, I don’t like this characterization of the pilgrim.

Pilgrimage is a symbolic journey. And pilgrims are symbols in & of themselves. I am aware that I’m a symbol, both as I pass through villages with my stick, and even as I write about it here. This was extremely salient in Japan, where people would drive their cars off the road and run over to bow and hand me gifts. Pilgrims are good luck charms.

I can hear groups of old people in the village squares here whispering happily as I walk by. I am aware, too, that a solitary woman on pilgrimage makes an especially powerful symbol. An old woman came out of her home across the street from the church today as I ate my lunch. Instead of saying hello, her first words were: You’re very brave. No, I told her, I’m not, I just walk.

Today’s walk had some powerful symbols.

I like to see snakes as I walk, I have always found them to be good omens for me. I hadn’t seen any in my first week and was almost a bit concerned about this. Then I started seeing one dead snake a day. Today I saw, separately, two live ones. Wisdom is coming my way.

And then I passed a shepherd. He carried a newborn lamb in one hand. The mother sheep trotted beside him, keeping a close eye on her baby. She still dripped blood. The shepherd put the lamb down, it was too new and too weak to walk. It started crying out immediately and its mother nudged it. The man lifted the lamb up again, holding the whole back half of its body in one hand. “Excuse me,” he said quietly. I was too stunned into silence. The trio kept walking past me. I wanted to look back but didn’t. A few paces more and I was now following a trail of a mother’s blood drops. More paces, and I found the sheep’s placenta.

I have no idea what this portends. It seems promising. It feels very powerful, the whole scene took my breath away on the trail.

I’m not sure if you may know what all this may symbolize for you. This is no place you ever knew me, alone here on these caminos. Do you imagine yourself on the camino? Do you need me to walk it for you? Is it thrilling? Is it frightening? Is it confusing, trying to figure out what to believe in?

As I prepared for this journey, prayer requests started coming in from my small little circle who knows about my pilgrim life. A few surprised me: I hadn’t known these people to pray, or even to have a life of faith. That’s the power of this symbol, I suppose.