Tag Archives: Way of St. James

Camino: Porto to Santiago, Uncategorized

Walking the Camino with Whitman, seeking the poet’s path between reality and the soul

img_6927-1The land and sea, the animals, fishes, and birds, the sky of heaven and the orbs, the forests, mountains, and rivers, are not small themes … but folks expect of the poet to indicate more than the beauty and dignity which always attach to dumb real objects … they expect him to indicate the path between reality and their souls.

— From Walt Whitman’s original introduction to “Leaves of Grass” 

Today is the day I found the path between reality and the soul.

To say that the path we walked was simply the most beautiful in all of the Portuguese Camino is difficult. There have been many remarkable sights. None, however, affected me quite like this one. Continue reading →

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Camino: Porto to Santiago, Uncategorized

The Camino is never over, until it is over in your head

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It was a chilly morning in Porto when we stepped out of our flat on Rue das Flores and headed for the Rio Douro. Thirteen days later, in pouring rain, we would walk tentatively but proudly into the expansive Obradorio Square, the end-goal of thousands of Camino pilgrims each year, in Santiago de Compostela, Spain.

The batteries in my Kindle and iPhone are dead. The list of in-flight movies sucks. And this is a very long flight, from Madrid to Cancun. Dinner, such as it was, is over. Blessedly. The duty-free trolley has passed by. I gave away my only two New Yorkers to friends in Porto.

The only thing left to do is write.

And the only thing to write about is the Camino walk we just finished between Porto and Santiago de Compostela in Spain. We finished several days ago but in my dreams, I am still walking: The landscapes are more surreal and with an unlikely set of companions. Most ridiculous of all, I am involved in adventures more fit for blockbuster action movies than a pilgrimage.

I can not explain my dreams.  Continue reading →

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