We had a lovely hike today through forests of ferns with purple heather lining the path. Mostly level and downhill after starting off with a couple of hills. We continue to meet old friends from earlier days on the way. What a pleasure!
Saturday, August 31, 2013
Friday, August 30, 2013
August 30
Stayed in a very small albergue last night in Viloria de Rioja. Only 5 pilgrims. We had great accommodations and an excellent meal. The owner is a childhood friend of Paulo Cuelo, a famous author. He wrote The Alchemist.
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Servicio muy bueno!!!
The pharmacist in Granon drove us to the dentist in Santo Domingo. The dentist fixed my tooth in less than 20 minutes with permanent filling for only 55 Euros. Everyone was so accommodating!! The pharmacist will return us to Granon where we can continue our Camino. Praise God!!!
Aug. 28
Spent the night at a very authentic albergue. Slept on the floor on thin pads, shared a community meal in an old monastery and had a beautiful pilgrims mass and meditation at the Iglesia San Bautista. Very primitive. We feel like real pilgrims now!
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Navarrete (8/26/13)
Short hike today. 7.5 mi. Did not get to see a dentist -- all on vacation for the month of Aug. Chipped a tooth on Sat.
Sunday, August 25, 2013
Sunday Aug 25
Not much to report-- a rest day! Went to Pilgrim's mass last night in the cathedral. Hung about the city today. Chipped a tooth yesterday so hope to find a dentist in the morning before we start hiking again. Logrono is a beautiful city. Thanks for your messages.
Saturday, August 24, 2013
Lagrono
Reached Logrono today. Will stay at a real hotel for two days. I think we're getting the hang of this.
Friday, August 23, 2013
Picture of the day
Our 7th day, but who's counting! The highlight of the day was drawing and drinking wine from the wine fountain in Irache. Thanks Ted and Julie for the text messages. It's so good to hear from home.
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Aug 21
Today was supposed to be easy but it was very hot so not so easy. We are in Lorca and in a private room for a change.
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Monday, August 19, 2013
Made it to Pamplona
21 km today. We started at 6:30 and arrived at 1:30. Long day and we are tired and sore, but we got a bed at the albergue that we were hoping for. God is good and we feel blessed. Finally WIFI available
Saturday August 17
The highlight of today was the pilgrim mass at Roncesvalle. A full choir sang the most beautiful mass. Parts of it were from the Missa Requiem. Very appropriate as it was the anniversary of my sister Antoinette's death at the age of 21. Although the homily was in Spanish many beautiful word were said to the pilgrims and we received a special blessing at the end if the mass. Today we will hike about 12 miles to Zubiri.
Saturday, August 17, 2013
What a day!
So the day started off with the incredible mass at the cathedral; ended with much music and merriment. It seems there is a festival going on in honor of Mary. We enjoyed the umpah band and watched many dance to polka and tango. While visiting another church, some young people trespassed into the choir loft. Next thing you know one of them was playing Toccata and Fugue on the organ. He was fantastic and all by memory. Tomorrow is the big day!
Thursday, August 15, 2013
Assumption
Incredible! This morning we attended Mass at the cathedral in Pamplona -- a high mass in Latin!!! complete with singing, organ, and incense. Took me back to my childhood and beautiful memories.
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Final Preparations
With just a few days to go before we leave, and with our daughter Becky and her friend Kyle coming in tomorrow, we won’t have much time for final prep in the last couple of days before departure. So we spent most of yesterday going through our final checklists and getting things packed. Also, it looks like our walk on Tuesday was probably our last long training hike – although I hope we’ll still get in a couple shorter ones over this weekend.
We emptied our packs – we’ve been carrying them with either the actual stuff we’ll be carrying plus some extra clothes to approximate our final weight and volume – and laid everything out on the bedroom floor as a double check. We discovered a few things that we hadn’t packed or kept close to the backpacks for final final packing, and removed a few items that we decided we don’t need. I’m sure we’ll do at least one more unpack/repack before leaving.
In addition to the gear and clothing packing, in the past few days I’ve...
• stopped or placed on hold our newspaper, mail delivery, and Netflix account;
• copied vital documents that we’ll be carrying;
• organized our various medications for traveling;
• notified the bank and credit card companies of our travel plans;
• exchanged a few US dollars for Euros to have on hand when we arrive in Spain;
• verified our automatic bill-paying status;
• drained the hot tub;
• notified family and friends to request holding of unnecessary emails;
• set up telephone SIM card for Spain and pay-as-you-go service on my cell phone;
• informed our family, nearby neighbors, and a few close friends of our contact information while in Spain;
• and all the other things that must be done before leaving on a long trip like this.
• Plus, Jeanette has set up schedule with some of our neighbors to keep the indoor plants watered and generally keep an eye on things around the house while we’re gone.
Despite all this, I know we’ll miss something – either something we’ve failed to pack or something to do with the house while we’re gone. C'est la vie, or since we’re going to Spain, I guess I should say que sera sera – we can’t think of everything.
With just a few days to go before we leave, and with our daughter Becky and her friend Kyle coming in tomorrow, we won’t have much time for final prep in the last couple of days before departure. So we spent most of yesterday going through our final checklists and getting things packed. Also, it looks like our walk on Tuesday was probably our last long training hike – although I hope we’ll still get in a couple shorter ones over this weekend.
We emptied our packs – we’ve been carrying them with either the actual stuff we’ll be carrying plus some extra clothes to approximate our final weight and volume – and laid everything out on the bedroom floor as a double check. We discovered a few things that we hadn’t packed or kept close to the backpacks for final final packing, and removed a few items that we decided we don’t need. I’m sure we’ll do at least one more unpack/repack before leaving.
In addition to the gear and clothing packing, in the past few days I’ve...
• stopped or placed on hold our newspaper, mail delivery, and Netflix account;
• copied vital documents that we’ll be carrying;
• organized our various medications for traveling;
• notified the bank and credit card companies of our travel plans;
• exchanged a few US dollars for Euros to have on hand when we arrive in Spain;
• verified our automatic bill-paying status;
• drained the hot tub;
• notified family and friends to request holding of unnecessary emails;
• set up telephone SIM card for Spain and pay-as-you-go service on my cell phone;
• informed our family, nearby neighbors, and a few close friends of our contact information while in Spain;
• and all the other things that must be done before leaving on a long trip like this.
• Plus, Jeanette has set up schedule with some of our neighbors to keep the indoor plants watered and generally keep an eye on things around the house while we’re gone.
Despite all this, I know we’ll miss something – either something we’ve failed to pack or something to do with the house while we’re gone. C'est la vie, or since we’re going to Spain, I guess I should say que sera sera – we can’t think of everything.
Prayers for Ourselves and Others
In my previous post, I talked about creating a daily pilgrims’ prayer for ourselves, but what I haven’t mentioned is the gratitude we have to all who have promised to pray for us as we’re walking the Camino de Santiago. And in addition, I haven’t talked about the prayers we’ll be saying for others along the way. While this prayer practice will continue throughout the nearly 500 miles and six weeks of walking, it reaches a climax of sorts at the Cruz de Ferro, the cross of iron, when we leave behind the stones that symbolize the burdens we carry and our sins.
The Cruz de Ferro is located at the highest point along the Camino Frances route, elevation 1500 meters (4900+ ft), a mile or so past the small mountain village of Foncebadón, which is approximately 340 miles from our starting point in St Jean Pied de Port, or roughly two-thirds of the way to Santiago. While there are many crosses and shrines along the pathway, the Cruz de Ferro is one of the most significant landmarks, not only for where it is but for its significance to the pilgrims. Legend says that there was Celtic monument at this point in pre-Roman times – this might have been nothing more than a large stone cairn marking the way along an ancient road. Later, it supposedly became a shrine to the Roman god Mercury, and finally in the 11th century, it became a Christain monument or shrine. The current monument consists of a long wooden pole, perhaps 5 meters (15 feet) tall, which is anchored in a large mound of stones and topped with a large cross made of iron. Much, if not all, of the mound surrounding and supporting the pole consists of the hundreds of thousands – perhaps millions – of stones left by pilgrims over the course of a thousand years. In 1982, a small chapel dedicated to St James was built adjacent to the Cruz de Ferro.
It is custom or tradition for each pilgrim to bring a stone from their home place to leave at the foot of the Cruz de Ferro, symbolizing their purification, the sins they leave behind, or the burdens they have carried in life. I am bringing a small, smooth, rounded stone that I picked up on one of our training hikes on Green Mountain and which will be my “burden” stone. I am also carrying a small chunk of quartz I picked up on one of our hikes right on the Continental Divide, elevation 12,500 ft, directly over the Eisenhower Tunnel on I-70 near Silverthorne, Colorado. That stone will represent the thanks I give to God for allowing me to live in such a wonderful place. But perhaps most important is the small bag of pebbles that I will have been carrying with me, each marked with the name of someone for whom I’ve been praying as I walked. This bag contains 40 or 50 (the final number will vary as I receive more prayer requests) small, fingernail-sized pebbles, and each day as I begin my walk or as I resume walking after a break or lunch, I will remove one pebble from the original bag and place it in a second bag. As I walk, I will be offering my prayers for that person. While some of my friends and family know I have a pebble with their name on it, many do not, and those are names that God has asked me to pray for on my pilgrimage.
In my previous post, I talked about creating a daily pilgrims’ prayer for ourselves, but what I haven’t mentioned is the gratitude we have to all who have promised to pray for us as we’re walking the Camino de Santiago. And in addition, I haven’t talked about the prayers we’ll be saying for others along the way. While this prayer practice will continue throughout the nearly 500 miles and six weeks of walking, it reaches a climax of sorts at the Cruz de Ferro, the cross of iron, when we leave behind the stones that symbolize the burdens we carry and our sins.
The Cruz de Ferro is located at the highest point along the Camino Frances route, elevation 1500 meters (4900+ ft), a mile or so past the small mountain village of Foncebadón, which is approximately 340 miles from our starting point in St Jean Pied de Port, or roughly two-thirds of the way to Santiago. While there are many crosses and shrines along the pathway, the Cruz de Ferro is one of the most significant landmarks, not only for where it is but for its significance to the pilgrims. Legend says that there was Celtic monument at this point in pre-Roman times – this might have been nothing more than a large stone cairn marking the way along an ancient road. Later, it supposedly became a shrine to the Roman god Mercury, and finally in the 11th century, it became a Christain monument or shrine. The current monument consists of a long wooden pole, perhaps 5 meters (15 feet) tall, which is anchored in a large mound of stones and topped with a large cross made of iron. Much, if not all, of the mound surrounding and supporting the pole consists of the hundreds of thousands – perhaps millions – of stones left by pilgrims over the course of a thousand years. In 1982, a small chapel dedicated to St James was built adjacent to the Cruz de Ferro.
It is custom or tradition for each pilgrim to bring a stone from their home place to leave at the foot of the Cruz de Ferro, symbolizing their purification, the sins they leave behind, or the burdens they have carried in life. I am bringing a small, smooth, rounded stone that I picked up on one of our training hikes on Green Mountain and which will be my “burden” stone. I am also carrying a small chunk of quartz I picked up on one of our hikes right on the Continental Divide, elevation 12,500 ft, directly over the Eisenhower Tunnel on I-70 near Silverthorne, Colorado. That stone will represent the thanks I give to God for allowing me to live in such a wonderful place. But perhaps most important is the small bag of pebbles that I will have been carrying with me, each marked with the name of someone for whom I’ve been praying as I walked. This bag contains 40 or 50 (the final number will vary as I receive more prayer requests) small, fingernail-sized pebbles, and each day as I begin my walk or as I resume walking after a break or lunch, I will remove one pebble from the original bag and place it in a second bag. As I walk, I will be offering my prayers for that person. While some of my friends and family know I have a pebble with their name on it, many do not, and those are names that God has asked me to pray for on my pilgrimage.
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Pilgrim Prayers and Blessings
While the Camino de Santiago is an adventure, it is and always has been, at its roots, a religious pilgrimage. It is only recently that it has become a secular journey, a recreational challenge for the fit and healthy – another notch to carve in the “Been There, Done That” totem. But as I explained back in my July 8 post which started this thread, it is for us a true pilgrimage in the religious sense. That is probably why we were so inspired by Joyce Rupp’s account of her 2003 Camino pilgrimage in her book, “Walk in a Relaxed Manner.” She spoke of the importance of prayer in her daily life and especially on her journey. She and her traveling companion resolved early on in their planning to create their own pilgrims’ prayer for their journey, and this inspired us to do the same. But where does one begin to write a prayer such as this? What should we say? How long, or conversely, how short should it be? Joyce and Tom’s prayer is a good starting point, since as religious persons (i.e. priest and nun) we figured they would set a good example. Their prayer is included below; but first, let’s look at one of the earliest recorded pilgrims’ prayers written specifically for this pilgrimage to the resting place of St James the Apostle.
The earliest known guidebook for pilgrims on this journey is the Codex Calixtinus, a 12th century illustrated manuscript which contains a collection of instructions and advice for pilgrims making this arduous journey in the late middle ages. Within the Codex Calixtinus is the following pilgrims’ prayer:
God, you called your servant Abraham from Ur in Chaldea, watching over him in all his wanderings, and guided the Hebrew people as they crossed the desert. Guard these your children who, for the love of your Name, make a pilgrimage to Compestela. Be their companion on their way, their guide at the crossroads, their strength in weariness, their defense in dangers, their shelter on the path, their shade in the heat, their light in darkness, their comfort in discouragement, and the firmness of their intentions; that through your guidance, they may arrive safely at the end of their journey and, enriched with grace and virtue, may return to their homes filled with salutary and lasting joy.
That’s a wonderful prayer for pilgrims in any age, and it certainly covers all bases which even a modern pilgrim might expect to experience and encounter on the Way of St James. We certainly couldn’t go wrong praying that prayer each morning as we set out on or way. In contrast, however, Joyce Rupp’s and Tom Pfeffer’s prayer is much more brief and to the point:
Guardian of my soul,
Guide me on my way this day.
Keep me safe from harm.
Deepen my relationship with you,
your earth, and all your family.
Strengthen your love within me
that I may be a presence of
your peace in our world.
Amen
That’s more like what we had in mind, but we still wanted our own personal prayer for our own personal pilgrimage. We both prayed about this, and this is what we came up with:
We thank you Lord for this day and for all our blessings.
We thank you for calling us on this journey, and we call upon St James to intercede for us as we ask that you guide and protect us as you have guided all the pilgrims who have preceded us.
We offer all our hopes, joys, sufferings and pains along the way as an act of faith in you, Father. And we ask that you help us to walk in a relaxed manner in your presence each day.
Amen.
While the Camino de Santiago is an adventure, it is and always has been, at its roots, a religious pilgrimage. It is only recently that it has become a secular journey, a recreational challenge for the fit and healthy – another notch to carve in the “Been There, Done That” totem. But as I explained back in my July 8 post which started this thread, it is for us a true pilgrimage in the religious sense. That is probably why we were so inspired by Joyce Rupp’s account of her 2003 Camino pilgrimage in her book, “Walk in a Relaxed Manner.” She spoke of the importance of prayer in her daily life and especially on her journey. She and her traveling companion resolved early on in their planning to create their own pilgrims’ prayer for their journey, and this inspired us to do the same. But where does one begin to write a prayer such as this? What should we say? How long, or conversely, how short should it be? Joyce and Tom’s prayer is a good starting point, since as religious persons (i.e. priest and nun) we figured they would set a good example. Their prayer is included below; but first, let’s look at one of the earliest recorded pilgrims’ prayers written specifically for this pilgrimage to the resting place of St James the Apostle.
The earliest known guidebook for pilgrims on this journey is the Codex Calixtinus, a 12th century illustrated manuscript which contains a collection of instructions and advice for pilgrims making this arduous journey in the late middle ages. Within the Codex Calixtinus is the following pilgrims’ prayer:
God, you called your servant Abraham from Ur in Chaldea, watching over him in all his wanderings, and guided the Hebrew people as they crossed the desert. Guard these your children who, for the love of your Name, make a pilgrimage to Compestela. Be their companion on their way, their guide at the crossroads, their strength in weariness, their defense in dangers, their shelter on the path, their shade in the heat, their light in darkness, their comfort in discouragement, and the firmness of their intentions; that through your guidance, they may arrive safely at the end of their journey and, enriched with grace and virtue, may return to their homes filled with salutary and lasting joy.
That’s a wonderful prayer for pilgrims in any age, and it certainly covers all bases which even a modern pilgrim might expect to experience and encounter on the Way of St James. We certainly couldn’t go wrong praying that prayer each morning as we set out on or way. In contrast, however, Joyce Rupp’s and Tom Pfeffer’s prayer is much more brief and to the point:
Guardian of my soul,
Guide me on my way this day.
Keep me safe from harm.
Deepen my relationship with you,
your earth, and all your family.
Strengthen your love within me
that I may be a presence of
your peace in our world.
Amen
That’s more like what we had in mind, but we still wanted our own personal prayer for our own personal pilgrimage. We both prayed about this, and this is what we came up with:
We thank you Lord for this day and for all our blessings.
We thank you for calling us on this journey, and we call upon St James to intercede for us as we ask that you guide and protect us as you have guided all the pilgrims who have preceded us.
We offer all our hopes, joys, sufferings and pains along the way as an act of faith in you, Father. And we ask that you help us to walk in a relaxed manner in your presence each day.
Amen.
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