BUEN CAMINO!

(09/19/15)

One important lesson I have learned is that there is more than one way to make this journey.  The Camino is unique to each of us.

This morning I received a message that my cousin's husband, Frank Artino has died.  My cousin, Jessie, and I were born just months apart.  We shared more contact as children but as families came our interests grew apart. Now we see each other at funerals.  Isn't it interesting that moments of great loss bring us together?  Here on the Camino I face the beauty of life along with its fragility.  I have offered to carry prayer intentions during this pilgrimage and have added my cousin's loss and moments of fragility at the loss of her life partner.

Yesterday during our 20km walk a bright blue butterfly led the entire way.  I wondered what beloved spirit was accompanying me on this portion of the Camino.  I felt my mother's presence and also my husband and father.

I walked into the church and heard one of the pilgrims singing so beautifully.  I was in the nave and he was on the ancient balcony.  When he paused I began to sing the Ave Maria. He smiled and joined in harmony.  We sang a bit of spontaneous polyphony.  On the Camino, strangers heart to heart in one song.   Nameless to each other.  Language separating our minds but powerfully one in that moment..... So I thought. This morning a woman, Bobbi from Canada asked me if I was the woman singing in the church....an eternal moment perhaps.

Buen Camino!  Is our greeting to one another.  We hear it many, many times a day.  So now knowing that our lives and our deaths are all part of our personal Camino, a wish you, Buen Camino!

Pilgrim Carol