Five Weeks and Two Pictures

It feels sort of funny to write this—to say that I spent five weeks walking across 480 miles of Spain and spent nearly $5,000 just for two really good evocative, story-telling pictures. I have hundreds, if not thousands, of pictures from my “little walk across Spain” as my son likes to put it, and over time, I am sure the other pictures will elicit more memories, more reflections and more blog posts.

But there are two pictures that are stuck in my head and heart that seem to tell a deeper story about what this whole Camino/pilgrimage/new mission is all about. The first picture is of a pilgrim cresting a hill at sunrise. Some of my favorite experiences came out of the first hours of the day as I used my headlamp while walking under the stars and moon and welcomed the sunrise. Those mornings were pure magic!

The second picture is of a communal meal that a group of us shared in the ruins of an ancient monastery whose mission was to provide hospitality to pilgrims on the Camino. The monastery eventually closed, the structures cracked and crumbled over time, but the local community re-ignited the mission to pilgrims among the ruins. That evening forged some of the closest bonds with other pilgrims than any other night in alburgues (Spanish for hostels).

I share these two pictures with you because whatever this sacred thread is that I am following, it is captured somewhere within the frames of those pictures, somewhere behind the experiences those pictures represent.

This is as close as I can come to it for now:

There is a future over the horizon that is calling me and it seems rooted in a communal expression from an ancient past.

I can feel the deeper story being revealed in these two pictures. The picture of the pilgrim cresting the hill elicits a deep yearning to walk into the future to discover what it is that is calling us to a distant horizon. The picture of our communal meal in the ancient ruins leaves me musing, “This is how it’s supposed to be. This is how it’s supposed to feel.” And interesting that it is rooted in an ancient past rather than some new, re-imagined future.

If a book every comes out about this experience at some point, I wonder if these pictures will provide the artwork for the front and back cover, as was suggested by one of my readers. Yes, it was five weeks, 480 miles, and nearly $5,000. But these two pictures somehow tell the whole story.

Grateful. Deeply grateful.

Brian Heron

Cultural Innovator and Spiritual Pilgrim