Ciruena! A short day to Santo Domingo tomorrow.

The days are all blending together. I remember specific walks, but not how long ago they happened. After my time of recuperation last week, and the resulting restlessness, all the towns and cities feel too close behind me. The only moments when I realize how far I’ve come is when I see my healing feet and remember how torn and swollen they used to look.

I’ve come to realize that I’m quite afraid of physical pain. Looking back on my wounds, there is an extra satisfaction in knowing that I am still here, that my spirit is somehow insistent that I carry prayers and an instrument across Spain. Every morning there is a period of time where I nearly come to tears in response to my physical pain, which realistically is just as bearable as anyone else’s who is passing me. However, it seems that each morning I am detoxing mentally, because for one reason or another my physical pain allows for a release of stored emotional toxicity. Although this process reinstills my faith in healing magic and movement as medicine, I am ready to not go through this every day, to wake up refreshed as so many people I’ve met seem to do.

My Camino has repeatedly tested my self-assurance and confidence in this way; the road always seems to deliver situations that trigger habitually harsh judgements of myself, and it asks me to change my ways in the face of these circumstances outside of my daily life. This road is something like a sacred training ground for emotional health in a secular world that is commonly overwhelming.

I am ready to give up resistance to these lessons, and to allow the road to shape me into a navigator, something nomadic yet full of grace.

Beautiful 10.5 kilometers to Viana on my healing feet. Had breakfast in Torres del Rio, and up the hill with the light of the sun behind them comes many of my classmates, all cinematic and beaming. I was surprised to hear that some of them had read my recent posts, and their sympathies and loving kindness gave me extra power to walk today. My Camino is partially about learning how to let people’s kindness, support, and friendship into my heart without fear, and after some time alone I am glad to look back on my day as reflection of my progress towards that goal. Blessings to my friends who moved forward to Logroño today and onward.

In Sansol with a slightly swollen ankle, took a very short walking day and my blisters are close to being healed. Icing, ibuprofen, good food and rest. Whew!

First Sunday out on the road; almost one week since the beginning of my Camino. Los Arcos, changing weather, two of the longest days of walking ahead of me. Tomorrow I will try to walk, hopefully all the way to Logroño, though my feet may not hold up and I will stay in Viana.

Ten blisters and counting and I have taken my first bus. Tomorrow is one more bus, then one of the last nights with my current people.

My readiness to fly from the nest of my fellow Camino baby birds has snuck up on me. I need time away from the comfort and the giggles and the consistency of it all; ready to be with unfamiliar friends and to go to bed with less certainty of who and what and where. I hope this will give my Spirit more room to take the wheel, because as of late, I have been navigating in slightly shallower, more emotional waters that I am now eager to move past.

First my body was prepared to move forward in a different light. Today it is my Spirit. I am hoping that tomorrow or the next day, my feet will catch up and support me in this shift. Impatience is settling in.

“You can’t eat the food in France without getting it all over your lap.” -Jess

“What was that pun? Oh yeah, ‘I’m the only stick with eyeballs!!” – Casey

“I slapped my knee so hard when I was laughing, now it’s stinging!” -Jess

And of course, then we walk to the candy store in Pamplona full of unfamiliar and exciting gelatin, and walk straight to the Farmacia for foot care. Three young folks munching candies in a pharmacy, after three days of walking, was easily the silliest thing I have participated in.

Full of love, sweets, sweat, and antiseptic . And somehow I know I will sleep well tonight.

The first day, to Roncevaux, was the most challenging thing I’ve done. Two and a half hours before the end, my anxiety kicked in, wondering why I had not seen any houses or official fonts for many kilometers. Had I asked for some help or mental reassurance sooner from my companions, I would not have broken down emotionally on the final stretch, and that is my lesson. In the face of challenging circumstances, there are many mental obstacles to asking for help,

“I just want to get there.”

“I do not want to be the burden of the group.”

“I will see the end soon, so I should put this feeling away.”

And those toxic thoughts are exactly what makes all of those things happen sooner than you expect. Casey looked into my eyes and reassured me with words that are hard for me to remember now, and gave me the last sip of her water when I was having a hard time breathing slowly.

I am still coping with embarrassment, though today, when walking to Larrasoaña, I reflected on the constant lesson of reassuring myself through allowin time to be alone. From the very beginning I kept a slow pace, unlike the first day, and felt strong the entire day. So far on the Camino it only takes one day of emotional strength, and physical detoxing, to remind myself once more that I am more than capable, I am beautiful, and worth the time of the many wonderful people who have rejuvenated over the past two long days.