Sons of Thunder

By James Timberlake

Book One: Sons of Thunder is the first of two books based on one summers 2000 mile trek across southern Europe. It celebrates the adventure of walking medieval pilgrim trails from Andalusian Seville to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in the northwestern Spanish province of Galicia, and brings the reader along the journey in a first-hand way by weaving emails, journal extracts and walking poems.

The broad agricultural expanses of the Spanish countryside form the backdrop for reflections on what its like to pare life down to food, water, will and ambulation while exploring the little villages dotting rural Spain. And from such sparsity, to walk into monumental cities... Mrida, Cceres, Salamanca; cities thriving modernly around Roman ruins, Moorish palaces, Gothic and Renaissance cathedrals; cities offering music, regional cuisine, stunning architecture and art in the heady awe of human history... Then, to walk out again through tranquil forests and plains.

But more than a travelogue, these physical experiences are part of a spiritual journey, a journey which on one level culminates en masse with hundreds of other pilgrims celebrating in an incensor swung and organ boomed baroque Cathedral, the shrine of St. James, and that on another deeply individual level ends with an introspective three-day walk to face the finality of the sea, the true end of the road, and cast an intention-rich scallop shell into the cliff-crashing tide as a symbol of all that continues beyond physical boundaries.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Aug 18, 2011
• ISBN: 9781456767983

James Timberlake

‘Infected’ early on with a want to acquire foreign languages from hearing the musical French Canadian dialect spoken in the homes and streets of Lewiston, Maine, where he was born... ‘Infected’ with a desire to travel ever since his parents bought their VW Westfalia Campmobile back in the late 70’s and spent summers traveling throughout New England, to the Canadian Rockies, the Grand Canyon, Nova Scotia, Florida, and by being deeply stirred by the epic journeys undertaken across Tolkien’s Middle Earth... ‘Infected’ with a love for poetry by Professor Richard Hughes, under whose influence the author left his senior year at Boston College behind and went to study abroad in Nijmegen, Holland... ‘Infected’ with a worldly appreciation for food by Josefina Yanguas Perez - the proprietor of the Café Pamplona in Harvard Square who used to share the extras from her famous Saturday night dinner parties with Timberlake’s then yet inexperienced tongue, while he was a waiter there... ‘Infected’ with the seeds of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh after realizing he was tool-less to deal with life’s sucker punches... These happy ‘infections’ have shaped James’ perceptions and expression, and he continues to seek to bring these pleasures along with him on his next journey.

Book preview

© 2011 James Timberlake. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 8/15/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4567-6796-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4567-6797-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4567-6798-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011907951

Printed in the United States of America

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

author’s portrait by Ruth Scotch

portrait photograph and author’s photograph by Deb Hickey

Contents

INTRODUCTION

APPENDIX A:

APPENDIX B:

To my parents, Paul and Gertrude Roy Timberlake; to their parents, Wilbur and Casmire Jacmic Timberlake and Léo and Lucienne Poulin Roy; and to all my ancestors, in deep appreciation for this moment in tendriling time.

I would like to extend particular gratitude to my friend and landlady Maria Luísa Osorio. For the past ten years this bright little studio has been a refuge for me and for it I am profoundly grateful.

Additional Thanks and Acknowledgments to Jeff Timberlake; Melissa Oothout; Joe Torra; John Geannaris; Orlando Buzana; Deb Hickey; Ruth Scotch; Manuela Igel Calderón; Bob and Mary-Jo Sargent and the Staff at Flora Restaurant; Michael and Narayan Liebenson Grady and the Teachers at the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center; and for fueling my days - all the guys at Café Rustica in Somerville!

author’s portrait painted by Ruth Scotch

www.ruthscotch.com

portrait photograph and author’s photograph by Deb Hickey

www.debhickey.com

see photographs from the journey at

www.jimtimberlake.com

Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,

And bathed every veyne in swich licour,

Of which vertu engendred is the flour;

Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth

The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne

Hath in the Ram his halve cours yronne,

And smale foweles maken melodye,

That slepen al the nyght with open ye

(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages);

Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimágès

And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,

To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;

And specially from every shires ende

Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,

The hooly blisful martir for to seke

That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seeke.

            Chaucer’s General Prologue

               to The Canterbury Tales

A note to the Reader: You will find an informal glossary cobbled together at the end of this book, and for the sake of familiarity with people, places, products and terms, it would be worth a ‘pre-departure’ perusal. If the Reader is in need of more facts pertaining to the Camino before getting underway, ‘The Way of Saint James’ article in the Wikipedia is helpful in establishing the historical background to this pilgrimage.

INTRODUCTION

Thank you for picking up this book and, in a sense, for walking with me for a while on the Vía de la Plata - the village, city, wide rolling plains and mountain threading pathways which lead from Andalusian Seville, to Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain.

Prior to my first pilgrimage to Santiago in 2004 I decided not to read the relevant histories or books biographing every Madonna, every altar retablo, every master mason who set the final ogive keystone in every random chapel, church and Cathedral along the Starry Way. I wanted simply to bring my body and my mind to the Experience of tracking across countries to the sea, and welcome what visions arise.

While away I made abundant use of Spain’s inexpensive internet cafés to write to folks back home. In weaving those more formal e-mails with walking poems and journal fragments, this book emerged out of trying to express what it’s like to labor and glide a couple thousand miles across Europe; what it’s like to pare life down to food, water, will, and ambulation; what it’s like to walk the pulse through secluded villages dotting rural Spain and then come upon compelling cities of Culture and Light; what it’s like - these days in the fields, in the forests, in the daily repetitions set against shifting landscapes, embracing the amazements, the boredom, the pain, the horizoned-sky-sweeping and small wheat grain beauties all while the body rots and heals, combusting each mouthed morsel into kinetic energy…

Everyone has their own Camino. Someone hiking either two days behind or ahead will have an entirely different experience in the exact same place one was or will be; however, the human mind is the ultimate common ground in that how we experience the phenomenal world does not change. The sound of hot wind through dry wheat has not changed from Australopithecine Lucy’s hearing to the hearing of ears being born today; the refreshing feel of mountain stream water on overheated wrists and heels may be novel to oneself, but how we experience the experience through the sense-doors has not changed. In this spirit of experiential connection I’m putting these pages out there to churn a particular butter for a fellow pilgrim’s bread; to give a flavor, a sound, a scent, an image to invoke reflection, a tactile moment within fleeting time to rest the mind upon - hoping to open a window onto your own Trails, Caminos, and Pilgrimágès… be they far and hard journeyed or neighborhood near.

Enjoy the trip.

Sunday, May 28th, 2006.

Subject: testing one, two, three

My friends,

Swiftering off thick layers of dust from many of these e-mail addresses brings to mind what a poor keeper-in-toucher I am. Apologia. I know I have to work on that so I’m writing now to invite. For those who haven’t heard me rambling on about going away since February, the background is this: In the Summer of 2004 I trekked 1000 miles across southern France, over the Pyrénées, and across the north of Spain to the pilgrim-destined Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. I rested, feasted, feted there, and then set off for the final three-day march to the sea. ‘Amazing experience’ hardly cuts it as description.

It’s hours I’m counting now, not months and days until departure. The trails call; I’m heading back to hike more of this 1000-year-old network of paths and my intent is to take my People with me on the Way.

This is to be brief. I’m checking that all the e-dresses I’ve been given are in working order. Peace, and I’ll write from Seville. I have a few days there before beginning the journey north.

      Jim

journal - 5/29/06

peculiar beginnings… somewhat lackingly devoid of departure day thrill and excitement. was i too prepared too early? is five months too long a time to wrap my mind around? or maybe it’s the numbing effects of nerves, despite my pre-trip ritual at Casa Portugal which normally opens me up to the celebration of travel, even when i’m not going anywhere but home. a bottle of spicy Alentejo red wine; homemade prosciutto and fresh white cheese alongside sliced tomatoes doused in a paprika vinaigrette; littleneck clams steamed open in the classic trinity of garlic, parsley and wine; grilled bone-in bacalao with brightly yolked hard-boiled eggs, potatoes, barely cooked green pepper and onion strips bathed in hot garlicky olive oil… and a warm humid pollen-perfumed stroll home. delicious and beautiful, but no thrill.

irrelevant flight. passive-aggressive jockinations for leg space with the fat man beside me reading Ludlum. a scant handful of words exchanged. when i bought my ticket i preordered the vegetarian option so’s to get served first and, (to please my pestering nature), annoy the herd-minded folks craning necks to near occiput-popping lengths trying to see how soon their fodder would arrive. Why is he first!? ‘pester pester pinch and vex’ would be my hex were i one of Shakespeare’s witches.

London-Heathrow is thriving at this early hour. hit the Duty Free Shop looking for a hard candy called Uncle Joe’s Mint Balls - can only buy them in England but apparently not here. asking at the counter the teller looks at me with complete quizzicality, totally perplexed. get used to that face and mien, kiddo. with my slapped together Spanish i’m sure many a visage will buckle into that squint-concentrate look when i speak, as if trying to see something far and indistinct.

a long day of travel. six hours in the air, three in a layover, two more in the air, one in line in the bright and thronging Madridian transport station waiting to buy a high-speed train ticket, and three more blurry hours on the turbo-thrusted AVE to Seville.

5/29/2006

sour subcutaneous fatigue,

vague what’ve-I-forgottens roam

pre-sleep

keeping rest at fringe firelight bay.

hardly halfway to my Seville hotel,

in this first homelessness it’s hard

to find the thrum and thrive.

5/30/2006

waking. mind and calm fissured with

crackt camera what-to-do’s,

the bank account frozen,

and a leviathanically gaping five-month-wide maw

breaching the horizon ahead ~

by morning mist-veiled Cathedral stairs,

one black draped peasant beldame

grasps tight talons to my tender inner-elbow flesh,

withers well-practiced eyes and

por favoring lips for me to buy a sprig of green.

I pull away with ire as deep as her plea,

take six quick don’t-grab-me steps away,

then a recollection…

last night’s e-mail from Mirjam

wishing me blisters for poor correspondence,

wishing me blessings and well for having writ.

Mirjam née, non, rather devenue, Rosemary White Foot

for our having met by that herb-shrub gone to thicket,

gone wild in flower…

So delicious with potatoes, she said in precise German syllables.

friends on the road to Santiago,

parting with hugs by the sea…

the green rosemary sprig in a gnarled bruja’s hand

to whom I return with

soft steps, a smile, and a Euro coin,

plucking her little branch away to

garnish the day’s breast pocket.

rolling twig between palms like a tinderstick,

the sharp herbal scent wells sinus and soul.

I have arrived,

I am home,

and all burdens become light.

journal - 5/30/06

since 10 p.m. skies still bear bright dusk light, the morning world is a tranquil place. Seville’s 7 a.m. streets don’t exactly bustle. a few guys with hand-trucks making deliveries to still locked doors, a few shop ladies mopping the dog-shit-sole-smeared storefront sidewalks, a few still-aglow halogen lanterns reach wrought iron arms out from high walls holding cool dawn shadows in and the heat of the day away… the fading squeals of a few swirling sparrows.

long siesta sandwiched between elliptical strolling. ferias! a holiday today and all is shut down so there’s not much else to do except fret about the busted camera, frame with squared forefingers and thumbs the shots i ‘could’ be taking, and worry about my bank account which seems to be frozen while no one at Customer Service in the States, (or India), is picking up the phone!

found calm on Plaza Alianza… a compact plaza north of the Cathedral got to through warrening streets lined with the pastels, deep golds, and rust stucco walls of Andalucía. two cafés. a fountain. dopplering flocks of bird madness careen above the shade-sheltering plane trees. patrons to either side of me got guano-spackled - one on the skirt, one on the brow. i sat at a table with an umbrella. it’s sparrow hour now when they fly by the thousands in fluid flocks, thickly whirling the space between clouds and Brillo-mesh rooftop aerial antennas.

a distinctive Spanish smell is stirring olfactory memories… a phero-roma that’s a farrago of flash-fried sardines, onions, bacalao, coffee, Ducados, dry-ageing hams hung by the hoof and strung by the dozens, and a waft of what flows beneath these ancient streets. the scent is not particular to concentrated café-bar-restaurant areas. it emanates erotically from the sun-licked skin of the city.

fingers flying like Edward Scissorhands at the privet hedge, i ended up jerry-rigging the Lomo camera’s shutter button with an aspirin boxtop flap, medical tape, and a plastic pen cap tip i sawed off with my Leatherman.

i think the mounting mental torque and woe’s-me stress is over. The Book of the Tao’s Chapter 41 helped, but i’m sure some tension got lodged within. will have to focus some ‘pre-sleep in the sheets’ time on decompression chi gung to flush out the muscles, marrow, cells and soul. with the mind scanning from above the crown of the head, through the body, to below the plantars of the feet for the awareness of strength, tension, contraction, or anything that doesn’t feel right; dissolving strength, tension, contraction, or anything that doesn’t feel right as ice dissolves to water, water to vapor, and vapor drifts away… ice to water, water to vapor, and vapor drifts away. honestly, i found myself regretting the whole five months ahead in a handful of pissy hours. pat on the back to me it was a stroke of genius to call the Spanish Customer Service number on the back of my bank card and ask to speak English. brilliant!

the problem, come to find out, was my entering a five-digit pin-code when the Spanish ATMs accept only four numbers. the fifth number i punched supplanted the fourth, made my pin-code ‘wrong,’ and made me out to be a thief trying over and over again to access my cash. understandably the system kept freezing my account for 24 hours… but! you’d think the representatives for an international corporation like Bank of America could have mentioned that keypad-fact when i called to inform them which countries i’d be in and for how long i’d be away. you’d think an electronic flag would have come up on their computer screens when they punched that information into my file. (i survived.)

Thursday, June 1, 2006.

Subject: ouch

My friends,

This was a lovely day - after spending the last three days with a barbed wire pried open mouth, hogtied and bobbing in the fetid swamp where every profuse sewer in Hell empties… figuratively speaking, of course. I had the sense something was askew. While heading to the grocery store on the morning of my evening flight, a melanic squirrel screeched at me from a low bony-crone-finger limb. There’s just no favorable omen to be read there. I don’t ever remember experiencing such unsettled edginess before a trip.

After 15 hours of international travel percolating an unshakeable fatigue within, I arrived in Seville with my camera’s shutter button broken, a frozen bank account, and a Bank of America phone number whose recording insisted the call center was closed - thereby preventing me from speaking with a human