Yesterday was picturesque. Today was a muddy slog. Yesterday was pastoral, bucolic, and tranquil. Today was busy, rainy, and frenetic. Yesterday I ached to think of the camino ending. Today I look forward to saying despedides to Santiago on my way to London on Monday.  I´m still enjoying the pilgrimage, even when the way bends around murky parts like today, but it´s funny how my experiences swing from highs to lows, just like the Spring weather.

Today in the albergue after walking a short 20k, I finished several days of looking back through my journal as a way to remind myself of all that has happened on the way, and as a way to prepare for the end -- so that I don´t forget all that has transpired on the journey as I rush headlong into celebrating the destination. Each signpost I pass in Galicia announces the number of kilometers to Santiago, and pilgrims keep scratching our heads at how small the numbers get, as if the rain is melting them away. Around the 20 kilometer mark, a Madrileno asked me (as part of an hour long conversation in Spanish I might add!) how long my pilgrimage was because he only started a few days back. 776 kilometers I said proudly.  776! And now it´s less than 20. How can the end be here already, and how can the gravity of arriving be encapsulated in a cathedral or a compostela?

After finishing the rereading of my journal, and after rehearsing all those epiphany and ennui moments, I was sad and excited.  I was sad with a kind of samsara sadness; samsara is sadness at the passing of beauty, appreciating and mourning the fleeting nature of all that is marvelous in life.  I was excited to think of all that has happened and will continue to happen to me, in me, that is beyond my awareness. In other words, I think the entirety of this pilgrimage will form me in ways that I can´t capture in a journal or even fully realize until time has passed and I sense a change within like the change without.  My feet and my body have been put to the camino and impressed by countless rocks, tracks, ascents, and downhill plunges, formed by the terrain in imperceptible ways until they take on a new shape.  The same is true with my mind and heart. At times I can´t even remember the name of the town I slept in the previous night, and much of the beautiful scenery fades from memory; yet something has shifted inside which is due to the many days of walking and praying.

In th end, I hope there are deep and lasting ways in which my soul has been impressed by rocks, ascents, and plunges both physical and otherwise. 

I ´m walking the main street of Sarria still smelling the pine and wildflowers recently scattered on the road for the Corpus Christi procession. Cloud cover guarantees shade, but it is not too cool. Pilgrims amble about the town as locals can scarecly be found, some sleeping away this hushed Sunday afternoon while others are crowded around TVs in bars and homes watching the auto race.

After walking around, finding little to look at, I duck into the bar with an Internet sign, telling myself I want to get online but knowing it´s because I want to see the cute Quebecois and to be around people. I don´t really feel like praying or reflecting today; I just feel like relaxing, laughing, and wiling away this sleepy sunny afternoon.

Today was a gorgeous walk out of Triacastela. The alternate path leads to Samos, site of a large and powerful medieval monastery, along the river which has cut a small gorge into the countryside over the past few million years. The sun is up because I didn´t leave until after 7:30, but a brilliant and clear half moon is also out, just above the top of the mountain which silently observes me padding out of town on foot. I am alone.

Bright yellow wildflowers cover the mountainside, as do trees which stagger upward to a tree line. Above the line brown scrub brush hugs the rock all the way to the top. The sun hits only the upper half of the mountain, so the valley is in tranquil shade, grown over by trees as thick as velvet. Below the growth, the unseen river hurries on its way, and its rush continually fills my ears since today it and the camino are inseparable friends.

Sometimes to the right of the road, huge slabs of rock jut up from the ground, pushed slowly upward over millions of years and, recently, quietly grown over by plants and moss. It has rained a lot in the past week, so water from an unknown source high up the mountain runs down the side of the cliff and off the rock onto the road, sometimes in charming tributary trickles, other times merging streams into waterfalls. A lone bird flutters across my gaze to the rock and perches delicately in a cleft, its own miniature waterfall providing a curtain of privacy as it drinks from a tiny pool in the chink.

I walk on, enamored with the silent riot of morning beauty, until I turn around to see what is behind me. The rising sun beams into my face and illuminates the entire scene from the back. Water leaps off the rock in a fine spray, lit from behind by the sun. Several yards further I turn around again to see a tiny pilgrim against the backdrop of the gigantic mountain, transfigured entirely into silouhette by the sun. All of it is too much. I can´t help but be charmed into happiness. Today I am walking to an ancient monastery hidden in a valley, and this is only the start of my journey.

At times like this I shut my eyes with joy because nothing can be more beautiful. I close my eyes not to shut out the world but to take it all in -- to savor it and not to lose it.

But, of course, I can´t keep it. Nothing stays the same. The sun rises and becomes too hot. Silouhettes lose their romance because they lose their shade. Rivers move on. Trees cast off their leaves. A picture, or even a painting, cannot contain it. It can only be seen and appreciated now. It is a gift which lasts for the present and whatever small feeling it impresses in my memory for the future.

Today the camino is magically kind. Clear skies, pastoral paths, friendly but not crowding company, lovely village for rest, and the feast of Corpus Christi. Jesus made flesh each and every day, just like he was 2,000 years ago -- in rivers and trees, sun and moon, monastery and hamlet, men and women on the way. All are eucharist today because all are gifts received, made into the great Amen because they are not owned or controlled, but loved, and accepted with hands thrown up in gratitude. Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.