Walking Home: A Pilgrimage from Humbled to Healed

by Choquette, Sonia

  It felt so good to let the part of me that had been so frightened so long ago have a voice and roar.

  I appreciated the genius of the Camino. Yesterday I helped the Greek. Today, because of his story, it helped me. Before I knew it, I had walked another seven kilometers, my anger now quiet, replaced by a calm energy deep in my bones. I had unearthed and then let go of the self-indictments of shame and guilt I had buried inside of me over that episode.

  I let go of blaming myself for someone else’s behavior.

  I let go of feeling as though I asked for the assault and therefore had it coming.

  I let go of feeling I had to hide and pretend it didn’t happen.

  I let go of the need to beat myself up about it.

  The combination of walking and letting my anger fly into the wind and rain freed me of this ancient experience. And with that, suddenly and surprisingly I was able to forgive the man who caused me this pain. What a troubled soul he must have been to go to that extreme in his own life. How sad and shameful for him.

  I was left with only neutrality and compassion for him and deep self-love and appreciation for the vulnerable and naïve young girl in me. I could also see how that experience had set up a pattern of subsequent traumas and threats, all following the same basic story. And as soon as I recognized it, like a house of cards, all of the other similar old traumas came tumbling down as well.

  For the first time in my life I was genuinely over them. That was true forgiveness, and it felt exhilarating.

  I breathed in deeply as I found myself approaching the edges of Burgos. The rain had stopped as I ambled through a long stretch of industrial buildings on the outskirts of the city and ultimately found my way to the heart of town, and the towering cathedral standing right there in the center.

  Before looking for my hostel, I walked into the cathedral to light a candle of gratitude for the healing I had experienced on my walk today. A dark place in my soul had just been returned to the light and I was feeling so much more peaceful for it. I was amazed by how the Camino was working its magic on me. I could never have planned this, or even known it was something I needed to heal.

  The cathedral was an astounding masterpiece of Gothic architecture. It had an incredible vaulted ceiling and stained-glass dome, which were breathtaking. I was awestruck by their perfect proportions and grandeur, especially given they were created so long ago, sometime between the 12th century and 15th century when the cathedral was built.

  I wandered some more and found a statue of Madonna and child, which touched my heart. Unlike much of the Gothic era, this statue evoked a warm, loving feeling and comforted me to look at it. There I sat and prayed for a very long time. Then I lit candles for my daughters and family, and one for the Greek. He helped me so much—more than I could have ever realized last night.

  After touring the church, I left to find my hostel. I was relieved to discover it was only five minutes away. Cheater was there to greet me along with an elegant male receptionist who checked me in. Again finding a simple but adequate accommodation, with a single bed, thin pillow, and slightly larger bathroom, the heat not yet turned on for the day, I left my bags and set off to find better than a “pilgrim’s” lunch, and then buy new poles. I succeeded in accomplishing both in a little more than an hour, which delighted me to no end. I then returned to the hostel. I was spent and needed to read, relax, and rest, which I did.

  Day 13

  (20 km; 12 mi)

  Burgos to Hornillos del Camino

  I woke up once again to gray skies and rain, so I layered up for warmth. I had washed my clothes in the bathtub and placed them on the heater (yes, there was one), so I felt refreshed and ready to go. Since the strange burning sensation across the entire side of each foot was getting worse, walking was getting more difficult. I rubbed arnica cream on each foot and wrapped my arches in some medical tape. That helped a little. Since my toes were starting to recover, I put my original boots back on. Thank God they felt okay, as I had a 20-kilometer walk ahead of me today. I wished I had another day to rest before carrying on, but my schedule didn’t permit it, so I put that thought out of my mind.

  Gumby was watching me from the nightstand, smiling away as usual. “Okay, Gumby, you get to ride in front again today,” I said, putting him in Pilgrim instead of in Cheater.

  As a precaution, I also decided to bring along my detested orange clown shoes in case my boots started to hurt my feet. I tied them to Pilgrim and threw in extra arnica pills so I could keep taking them along the way. My feet were on fire, so I added ibuprofen to Pilgrim as well. I was going to attack this pain head-on.

  Once downstairs, I handed Cheater to the receptionist in the lobby; got my passport stamped; had an unremarkable pilgrim’s breakfast of toast, yogurt, and lousy café con leche; and was on my way.

  Before I set out on the path, I decided to visit the cathedral once again. There was a magnificent stained-glass window inside the church, which was mesmerizing. I’m not an expert in sacred geometry, but I knew enough to tell that this stained-glass window had a sacred geometric energy that I could feel. I basked in its mystical rose-colored hue as I said a rosary, asking for a miracle in my marriage. I wasn’t sure what that miracle looked like, as I didn’t want to go back to the awful relationship Patrick and I had been in. I couldn’t. But I couldn’t see the future either. Or feel it. All I could feel was my pain and the pain my daughters were in, as well. I had no idea if Patrick was in pain. If he was, he hid it well.

  Once I finished my rosary, I decided to get another stamp for my passport at the cathedral, so I went to the back of the church to look for someone to do that. I was met by a kind man who asked me to follow him, which I did. He led me to the sacristy of the church, put on priest’s garments, and then said a special blessing over me and kissed my forehead, saying, “Buen Camino, good pilgrim. You are a beautiful sister in Christ.” Then he placed his hand on my back, near my heart, and said, “Have faith, peregrina. All is well.”

  This unexpected blessing let me know my prayers had been heard today. I felt encouraged as I left the church. Following the scallop shells marking the way around the back, I saw a young man sound asleep, or passed out, on the ground in a small doorway just behind the church. He had a scallop shell on his Pilgrim, which was lying on the ground next to him, and his feet were bare, his torn canvas shoes lying next to him. I stopped and looked at him for a moment. Then spontaneously I quietly bent down, picked up one of his shoes, and compared it to one of my clown shoes for size. Since I have fairly big feet, I was not at all surprised to see they were about the same size. I then untied my shoes from Pilgrim and placed them next to him, hoping they might give him more support than the tattered shoes sitting there. I don’t know. He might have loved his shoes, but just in case he didn’t, he might like these better. He didn’t move a muscle the entire time I was near him. He was out.

  Once I did that, I was ready to get under way.

  Holy Mother God,

  Help me enjoy every step of the way today, and not complain.

  Thank you, and amen.

  I was happy to be leaving the intensity of the big city. It was surprising because I am a big-city person. I love cities, especially my own. And yet, having been away from all the craziness of a city for the past few weeks, leaving Burgos behind was a relief. I yearned for the calm and quiet of nature and looked forward to returning to it as quickly as possible. That took a little while, as I had to wind my way out of Burgos before I returned to more pastoral surroundings.

  The rain had stopped and the sun was beginning to peek out, which I welcomed. Still, it was cold. My new poles were proving to be annoying. I had to twist them open to adjust them to my height, and yet, with each step I took they collapsed into themselves just a little. Every half hour or so, I found myself hunched over like Quasimodo, so I had to stop and re-extend them back to the original height in order to stand up straight. I lost patience with this constant interruption after a few hours,
so I collapsed them altogether and hooked them onto my Pilgrim. It was going to be another pole-less day after all. At least the path was relatively flat.

  I had now entered a part of the Camino known as the Mesata, which was a high plateau of mostly rolling hills, and large expanses of farmland and open fields. A friend of mine who had walked the Camino three years earlier told me that you really don’t begin to enter the deeper contemplative spirit of the Camino until you start to walk across the Mesata. I wondered what he meant and if that would prove to be true for me as well.

  The first thing I noticed was that there were few trees; there were wide-open spaces all around. It definitely affected my thoughts. I found myself less focused on my physical aches and pains and far more tuned in to my emotional ones today.

  I began to wonder how I had contributed to my own unhappiness. How much was due to present-life mistakes, and how much was the result of past-life karma? I truly felt the answer was it was a bit of both. I knew I had karma of some sort stemming from past lives here on the Camino, and that perhaps part of my pilgrimage now was to seek forgiveness for those mistakes and sins committed a time long ago. I even felt that I had karma with Patrick and that perhaps he, too, had been involved in some way with the Camino of long ago. I wondered if I were a knight who had killed him. He certainly was metaphorically killing me this time around. Maybe he was someone royal and I was Knight Templar who was sponsored by him. Maybe I was corrupted. Maybe he was corrupted. Maybe we were both bad guys, and this now had to be worked out. It was entertaining to energetically try on various scenarios in my mind to see if any of them fit.

  Not surprisingly, I once again closed in on the Knight Templar scenario. I no longer questioned that it was part of my past. But I did wonder about Patrick. Who was he in this past-life drama? Maybe he had been a poor pilgrim, and as a Knight Templar, I had failed to save him from attack on the Camino, which is why I felt so driven to try in this lifetime. Maybe I carried some ancient guilt over this that was asking to be released.

  Maybe it was more sinister. Maybe he borrowed money and couldn’t repay it, and I showed no mercy. Or maybe as a Knight Templar, I showed little mercy in asking for the poor (Patrick) to build our castle and made him work to death. Now I was getting carried away with my imaginings and guilt-tripping myself.

  The Catholic Church was clearly a highly wealthy entity in medieval times, as evidenced by the incredible churches that dotted the entire length of the Camino. Building them took vast amounts of wealth, and while much of it came from kings and queens, some came from the people themselves, who were often poor beyond belief. I wondered where Patrick and I fit in with all that.

  Maybe Patrick was a poor peasant and I was a wealthy Knight Templar, and that is why we needed to come back together again, to work out our past karmic differences of power. Maybe I abused my power and used it against him once upon a time and now owed him some form of karmic retribution to wipe the slate clean. I felt it was something like that, but it wasn’t fully clear. But then again, maybe he was the bad guy and I was the “poor one.” Maybe I was to forgive him so we could both be free.

  That was why I was here. Upon finishing the Camino I hoped to have cleared any negative karma I had with Patrick so I could move on in peace.

  Maybe going our separate ways was the miracle I had been praying for.

  Still, no matter how I reasoned it out, it felt lousy. I didn’t want to be divorced. I didn’t want to go through that process. I didn’t want to have a broken family. I didn’t know what I did want, except for maybe, peace. Everything else, at this point in my life, seemed unimportant. I just wanted to be peaceful and accept what had happened between us and move on.

  I came out of my thoughts because it started raining again and was getting windy. I tightened my rain poncho and huddled underneath it, hoping to block both the harsh wind and the harsh thoughts toward myself that I began to unearth as I walked.

  I vacillated between extreme guilt and remorse, and intense anger. This lasted for quite a while. I tried to pray, and even sing, but my mind would not relax. I had worked myself into a fit of anxiety and tension, the walking doing nothing to release it.

  I tried everything to calm down and come back to my spirit. I talked to my Higher Self. I talked to Patrick’s Higher Self. I gave myself pep talks. I swore and told everyone I could think of in my head just exactly what I thought of him or her.

  I yelled at God for a while, and even told Mother Mary and all the other heavenly helpers that they had failed me and I was very angry about it. Then I was done. I saw a café just ahead and was thrilled at the prospect of a rest, a Coke, and a snack.

  When I arrived, I ran into my friend Camino Patrick from days earlier. I was certain that I had lost him to the Camino abyss, so I was happy to see him once again. He had the happiest Irish smiling eyes, which made me laugh and smile as well.

  “Patrick!” I yelled, swooping in to hug him. “I thought I’d lost you forever!”

  He seemed happy to see me, too. We sat and swapped stories of what we had each experienced since we had seen each other last. He was starting to develop a deep cough and wasn’t feeling very well, and said everyone in the pilgrims’ albergues was coughing and complaining of chest colds, bronchitis, headaches, and more and it seemed to be spreading fast.

  He looked weary and said today’s walk was difficult because last night he coughed so much he couldn’t sleep at all. Fortunately, the walk was shorter today than some and we only had five more kilometers to go. He asked if I minded if we walked together, and I said, “Not at all.”

  I know what it’s like to walk when you are feeling crappy. Distraction helps. Besides, I was sick of my own thoughts today. As I stood up, one of my poles completely collapsed and I nearly threw it in the garbage.

  “These stupid things,” I said, telling Patrick how I left my poles and how useless these new and expensive ones were.

  “Here,” he said. “You can have mine.”

  “Really, you don’t mind?” I said, grabbing for them before he changed his mind.

  “No, I don’t mind at all. I haven’t used them once on the Camino. I prefer not to use poles. I don’t like them.”

  Looking them over and seeing that they were exactly the same as the ones I left in San Juan, I was thrilled.

  “Oh my gosh, Patrick, thank you so much! Now I can go on.”

  He laughed.

  We started walking and I checked in on how he was feeling physically. He didn’t want to focus on it for too long. He asked me how I was feeling instead. I shared with him that I had had an emotionally turbulent day and was swimming in conflicted thoughts about my Patrick, and my marriage.

  The more we walked, the more he encouraged me to express my real feelings about Patrick, saying he could tell I was holding back. By the third or fourth time he pushed me to open up, I exploded. I ranted about Patrick for over 30 minutes, swearing like a drunken sailor the entire time.

  While I had been aware of my frustrations for years, I don’t think I had ever once allowed myself to cuss and curse about Patrick to anyone as freely as I just had. By the time I was finished, Camino Patrick seemed shell-shocked. All I could do was laugh. And laugh some more. I felt liberated from all that had possessed me all day long. Camino Patrick laughed with me. He seemed to feel just as good about it as I did. The next thing I knew, we were in Hornillos.

  Day 14

  (18 km; 11 mi)

  Hornillos del Camino to Castrojeriz

  After I had my “exorcist” moment of cursing like a mad person when I walked into Hornillos, l began slowly lightening up and letting go of some of the dark feelings that had had a hold on me for such a long time.

  It started to rain hard as we ambled into the center of this tiny village and searched for our respective places to stay. Camino Patrick soon learned from other pilgrims that the only pilgrims’ albergue in town was full and that the next one was at least ten kilometers away. At the same time, I found o
ut that my hostel was not located in this town at all, and that I had to walk another five kilometers in the opposite direction to get there. Either that or I could wait and get picked up in an hour, said the Spanish pilgrim who called the hostel for me on his cell phone after I had walked from one end of town to the other three times and still hadn’t found it.

  Since Camino Patrick’s chest cold and cough were worse than ever, we inquired if there were another room at the hostel where I was staying so he could stop and rest, but were told, “Sorry, but no.” So, before he wasted too much time and fell behind the other pilgrims in racing to the next pilgrims’ albergue, he decided to keep going. Sad to separate since we had just reconnected, we wished each other a “Buen Camino” with the hope we would meet up again along the way.

  Since I had an hour to kill, I entered the local (and only) café and decided to order lunch. The place was jam-packed with pilgrims, so I had to wait a little while before a table opened up. Once it did, I immediately jumped on it, as I was cold, wet, and starving. Mine was a table for four, and since I had three extra seats, I motioned to three other pilgrims who were also waiting for a table to share mine, which they gladly did.

  After we ordered our meal of pork, potatoes, and salad (the only dishes they served), we started talking to one another. All three spoke very little English. Two were Austrian and one was German. They had met on the Camino several days earlier and were now traveling together. The three of them then fell into an animated conversation in German, leaving me out, but I didn’t mind, as I was too tired to make small talk in any language. I just wanted to eat and go to my hostel and take a nap.

  Before I had a chance to finish even half of my meal, eat my dessert, or drink my full bottle of red wine (yes, there was always plenty of wine), my ride showed up to take me to the hostel. I turned to the guys and asked if they wanted to finish what I had left over, and before I even stood up, the wine was pouring and my food was on their plates.