Estrellas: Moments of Illumination along El Camino de Santiago

By Suzanne Maggio

I was taught to downplay my successes. To steer clear of vanity. I was raised to be humble. So, as I sit down to write this, I hope you’ll forgive me for saying something completely out of character here, but I feel the need to tell you that 779 kilometers is a long way to walk - and I walked every single step...

...As you travel along with me on my journey, I invite you to take the opportunity to explore the spaces around you. Notice the way the sunshine peaks peek through the leaves of the dogwood tree. Listen to the gentle whirr of the wings of the hummingbird. Smell the salt in the sea air. Use your senses. Pay attention to the things that we are often too busy to see. To hear. To smell. Let them take you inward. See where the path leads you.

Buen Camino.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Adelaide Books Publishers
• Release date: Dec 17, 2021
• ISBN: 9781956635676

Book preview

Suzanne_Maggio_-_ESTRELLAS_Moments_of_Illumination_Along_El_Camino_de_Santiago.jpg

ESTRELLAS:

Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago

ESTRELLAS:

Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago

A memoir

by

Suzanne Maggio

ESTRELLAS:

Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago

A memoir

By Suzanne Maggio

Copyright © by Suzanne Maggio

Cover design © 2021 Adelaide Books

Published by Adelaide Books, New York / Lisbon

adelaidebooks.org

Editor-in-Chief

Stevan V. Nikolic

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

For any information, please address Adelaide Books

at [e-mail]

or write to:

Adelaide Books

244 Fifth Ave. Suite D27

New York, NY, 10001

ISBN-13: 978-1-956635-67-6

~

To my Camino family -

Thank you for sharing your light with me.

And to Bob, Tucker and Dylan -

the brightest stars in my sky.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Lean In

Chapter 2

Things

Chapter 3

Acts of Kindness

Chapter 4

Mothers and Sons

Chapter 5

First Impressions

Chapter 6

Reflections

Chapter 7

Irish Blessings

Chapter 8

Bearing Witness

Chapter 9

Simple Gifts

Chapter 10

Socks

Chapter 11

Prayers

Chapter 12

Ave Maria

Chapter 13

Thin Places

Chapter 14

Windows

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

About the Author

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All men have stars, but they are not the same things for different people. For some, who are travelers, the stars are guides. For others they are no more than little lights in the sky. For others, who are scholars, they are problems… But all these stars are silent. You-You alone will have stars as no one else has them… In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars will be laughing when you look at the sky at night. You, only you, will have stars that can laugh! And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will be content that you have known me… You will always be my friend. You will want to laugh with me. And you will sometimes open your window, so, for that pleasure… It will be as if, in place of the stars, I had given you a great number of little bells that knew how to laugh.

—The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

A note…

The word estrellas (pronounced ehs-treh-yahs) means stars in Spanish. Because this story takes place in Spain, I use Spanish words common on the Camino throughout the book and provide translation whenever possible.

I kept a journal as I walked. It was a place for me to jot down impressions and observations, first thoughts and questions. I have included excerpts like this one interspersed in the pages that follow, particularly when the action of the story covers several days. While they are brief, I hope they give you a sense of what I was seeing and thinking as I walked along.

My entry on that first day began like this:

Day 0 - St-Jean-Pied-de-Port

I took the early morning walk to the Sants train station, through the familiar scenes of my old neighborhood. It felt great to be back in Barcelona, to revisit the sites I have missed since I was last here. Last night I had a wonderful visit with Elena. We ate tapas in the Barri Gòtic and caught up on the years since we’d last seen each other.

In Pamplona I stopped at a bank and grabbed a quick lunch before I took the bus to St-Jean. A lovely little town along a river. Beautiful cobblestone streets and stone buildings decked with window boxes. Tourist shops have Camino things - shells, walking sticks. The streets are filled with pilgrims.

I went to the information office to check in and got my first stamp. The second one from the gite. Wandered a bit, breathing in the sights and smells. Can’t believe I’m really here. Feeling nervous and excited. Ready to go.

Prologue

Wherever you go, there you are.

—Buddhist saying

Despite evidence to the contrary, I do not think of myself as a particularly courageous soul. I am not content to bask in my accomplishments nor do I spend much time tooting my own horn. I wasn’t raised that way. I was taught to downplay my successes. To steer clear of vanity. I was raised to be humble. So, as I sit down to write this, I hope you’ll forgive me for saying something completely out of character, but I feel the need to tell you that 779 kilometers is a long way to walk - and I took every single step.

The bus pulled up to the curb in St-Jean-Pied-de-Port and I stepped off. The hiss of the opening door still rang in my ears. As I stood on the sidewalk, the sun warmed my skin. I watched the bus pull away and then took a look around, surveying my surroundings. The old walled town, with white-washed buildings and red tile rooves, brought to mind a Cezanne painting. Tourists clambered across an old stone bridge. The waters of the Nive River glistened in the afternoon light and the streets were abuzz with people.

On any given day, hundreds of pilgrims carrying backpacks come to this place in the French Pyrenees. Strangers who have traveled from all around the world, from Hong Kong and Germany, Sweden and Australia, India and South Korea. They flood the streets, purchasing scallop shells and sampling their first pilgrim meal before bunking down for the night. In the morning, before the sun sits high in the sky, they will begin their journey. They have come to walk the Camino de Santiago.

I don’t remember the first time I heard about the Camino, this 779-kilometer (500 mile) pilgrimage across the north of Spain. Perhaps like me you’ve watched Emilio Estevez’ poignant film The Way, the story of a man who travels to this small town on the French border to retrieve the ashes of his son who died while crossing the Pyrenees mountains. The father, played by Martin Sheen, decides to complete the journey his son began, to the sacred cathedral in Santiago where the bones of St. James the Apostle are believed to be buried. As he completes the journey his son could not, he sprinkles his ashes along The Way.

Many people have heard of pilgrimages to Jerusalem or Rome, but over the years the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, or The Camino for short, has become one of the most popular in its own right. The Camino has been traveled for more than a thousand years and some believe it even pre-dates Christian times. While the Camino Frances, the route that Martin Sheen takes in the movie, is considered the traditional Camino, there are actually several routes to Santiago, through Spain and Portugal. In fact, it may have been the two northern routes, the Camino del Norte and the Camino Primitivo, that King Alfonso ll himself took in the 9th century. The route I walked, the modern version of the Camino Frances, was fashioned in the 1980s by a priest, Father Elias Valiña from the Galician village of O Cebreiro, who marked the ancient route with directional indicators of blue and yellow shells.

As I wandered along, it was difficult not to imagine the hundreds of thousands who had walked these same roads. They were are all around me. In the air I breathed and the dust that stuck to my shoes. In the warm embrace of the sun or the cool kiss of an afternoon shower. I would feel their presence rustling in the fields of wheat and hear their voices in the quiet stillness of a morning on the meseta. I would try to imagine, as I passed a flock of long haired sheep, a weary shepherd stumbling upon the bones of James, son of Zebedee and brother of John the Evangelist. The bones, buried deep in his field, had been there for more than 800 years. What must he have thought when he found them? Did he recognize the importance of his discovery? And then, when King Alfonso ll ordered the bones buried in a small chapel while he waited for a large cathedral to be built in Santiago, could he have ever imagined the numbers of visitors who would make the journey to this holy place?

A Christian pilgrimage, The Camino is often walked as a spiritual quest; less of a hike and more a transformative journey. For many who walk, their intention is clear, their purpose sure. But not everyone who walks does so with religious intent. I’d been raised Catholic and certainly was no stranger to the notion of a religious journey, but like many of the people I met, I was not conscious of any such motivation for walking. Spiritual transformation was far from my mind on the morning of May 31, 2019, when I set off on my journey.

I’d come for an adventure, one that I imagined would tax my physical capabilities and push me to explore my resolve. In the days and months leading up to my departure, I’d set about preparing as one does for a trip. I bought supplies, made the necessary arrangements and packed my bag. I visualized that first climb through the Pyrenees, the most difficult of the whole Camino. I imagined the sense of accomplishment, the triumph of those final steps into Santiago.

What I knew about the Camino I’d learned by reading books and scouring websites. I soaked up information like a dry sponge. Filled with answers to the questions I had, they would provide me with details and advice that would assist me on my way.

I learned that, walked in stages, the entire journey took a month or more to complete. Travelers, known as pilgrims, followed a series of shell markers and yellow arrows, crossing through cities and towns, over rocky mountain paths and through lush green vineyards, across sun baked fields and rain-soaked hills. While many walked the full route, others completed only a part of it. The most common section was the final 100 kilometers, from Saria to Santiago de Compostela, and while most people made the journey on foot, it was possible to cycle as well.

Pilgrims carry a small passport called a credencial and collect ink stamps from various places to mark their progress. You must have two stamps for each day of walking, so I collected stamps wherever I could; at cafes and albergues, churches, monasteries and museums. At the end of the journey, upon arrival in the town of Santiago, one presents their credencial to the pilgrim office as evidence of completion. It is then that you receive your compostela, the Certificate of Achievement.

The days are long. You rise early in the morning, sometimes before the sun, and walk until mid to late afternoon, stopping for breakfast and lunch along the way. Food along the Camino is plentiful. There are cafes and restaurants, small grocery stores and outdoor markets. The meals are simple. Tortilla, a Spanish omelet of sorts made with egg, potato and onion, and bocadillos, ham and cheese sandwiches on crusty bread, are daily indulgences, as is café con leche (coffee with steamed milk), cerveza (beer) and vino (wine). In the evenings many albergues (simple shared lodgings) offer pilgrim meals served communal style for a few euro.

The Camino is an exercise in simplicity. Most pilgrims carry their belongings in a pack on their back, mindful to take only what they will need. Some send their bags from town to town, opting to walk without the extra weight. Despite the myriad of advice and recommendations, there is no correct way to walk the Camino. Those who walk are fond of reciting the familiar refrain, "You walk your own Camino." What that is, is left for you to determine. Discovery is part of the journey.

At night you fall into bed, equal parts exhausted and exhilarated, your feet throbbing from the long day of walking. Sleeping accommodations are varied. Most traditional are the albergues; simple, dormitory style rooms with bunk beds and shared bathrooms. But there are also hotels and hostals (simple, family-run accommodations which tend to be slightly cheaper than hotels) for those nights when the creature comforts of a private room, a comfortable bed and a relaxed, hot shower will do. Most nights I was in bed before the sun went down.

I walked between 20 and 30 kilometers a day (12 – 18 miles). Some days were shorter, others longer. One kilometer is about .6 miles, something you have to get used to when you travel outside the United States. I followed the recommended stages in my guidebook but there are a number of options as guidebooks vary. Still others find their own pace. Either way it’s a lot of walking. Like many people who walk, I spent months in training, hiking with friends. But weekend jaunts are no substitution for life on the Camino. Although I thought I was prepared to walk the long distances, I found it entirely different walking day after day. The pace is yours to decide however. You don’t have to put in the long miles I did.

But, as prepared as I thought I was when I stepped off that bus and made my way into town, I could never have predicted the journey I was about to embark on as I took those first few steps. Now, as I look back, I realize that the questions I had were the easy ones, the ones whose answers could be found within the pages of a guidebook or traveler’s blog. What I did not know, was that harder questions awaited me. Questions I could not predict. Questions that could not be answered by others. Questions that had yet to reveal themselves to me.

The journey does not end in Santiago. One must return home after their pilgrimage and it is often in the days, weeks and months after that the questions emerge, when you try to make sense of what you’ve just experienced. When the feet heal and the pack has been emptied. When the pictures are sorted and the stories shared. It is in those moments that the journey comes back to you. When the sound of church bells or the smell of Scotch Broom leaves you with a sense of longing. And it is then that you begin to understand, because it is a kind of understanding that cannot be had in the present moment. An understanding that requires a looking back, as you begin to connect the dots and realize where you have been.

And then there are the people.

What does the word family mean to you? If you had asked me that question many years ago, my answer would have been simple. Family is the people I am related to by blood. That’s the way things were in the tight knit, Italian American family that I grew up in. My family shared my name, my looks and my history and served as a mirror that reflected a familiarity, a sense of myself I could count on. Family was home. And home, as Robert Frost once wrote, Is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in.

But the Camino would challenge that understanding. In the days and weeks that followed I would begin to build a different kind of family filled with people whose experiences, expectations and beliefs were different than mine. A family of choice rather than blood, and, like my own family, I would come to depend on them.

In all families there are exits and entrances. Individuals come and go. Sons and daughters move away. They get married and have children. People we love die. The same would be true on the Camino. Not everyone walks the full route. Some who intend to, cannot continue. While you may share the entire journey with several, you may see others only once. Over the course of my walk I would say goodbye many times. I was not prepared for that. Goodbyes have always been hard for me.

But there were also hellos. Like my own family, ours would shrink and expand. As I spread my wings and stretched out, I would meet new people and the table would grow. New friends filled the spaces others left behind.

You will meet some of them in the pages that follow. In the days ahead we would laugh and cry, sing and dance and share an experience that would change us in ways we could not yet imagine. Although we came from all the corners of the world with histories we did not share, we would find connection on a journey that, like a family, would bind us together long after we returned home.

In its simplest form, the Camino is a walk, a journey from one point to another. But as is true with all journeys, it has the potential to be so much more. Buried inside the wrapping of the Camino is an invitation to pay attention to the things we so often take for granted. To walk is to slow down. In the deliberate pace, in the kilometers of quiet, there is an opportunity to settle deep into the experience. To be curious. To stand in wonder.

This opportunity to reflect is perhaps the greatest gift of the Camino. It is a journey that can lead you to a place that will stay with you long after you finish walking. But one does not need to travel far away from home to be able to journey inward. It can be done wherever we are.

As you travel along with me on my journey, I invite you to take the opportunity to explore the spaces around you. Notice the way the sunshine peeks through the leaves of the dogwood tree. Listen to the gentle whirr of the wings of the hummingbird. Smell the salt in the sea air. Use your senses. Pay attention to the things that we are often too busy to see. To hear. To smell. Let them take you inward. See where the path leads you.

Buen Camino.

Chapter 1

Lean In

I am here.

The alarm went off before the sun rose in Barcelona that morning. I dressed quickly, brushed my teeth and stuffed my nightshirt into an outside pocket of my backpack before lumbering down the hotel stairs and out onto the sleepy street