“I am not a body
I am free”
Yesterday our bodies arrived to the Cathedral in Santiago — the final destination for most pilgrims.
As I gazed up at the ornate stone designs of the St James Cathedral, I had a moment of awe. More than anything though, the moment of arrival felt surreal. And, this is not our end point, our final destination. The Cathedral didn’t pull at my heart strings the way the ocean will when we arrive to the sea at the “end of the earth – Finisterre” in four days. Sammy and I were never meant to finish in Santiago. We are meant to walk to the end of the earth with one another.
And yet – my body is exhausted. We were allowed to sleep in at our white-clean-sheet albergue until 10am! After walking 310 kilometers over the last two weeks, and a late dinner with our Camino family until midnight, we were excited to sleep like the dead. Now as I write this, it’s nearly 11:30 AM and we are enjoying a brunch of tapas at the bar counter.
What I thought about as I sat on the bench of the Cathedral of yesterday evening’s mass (misa) was that there is no greater church than the earth itself for me. The rainy, emerald green hills we walked through with achy bones. The fields of sunny oats and sunflowers. The eucalyptus groves that were cathedrals of tall white bark and medicinal fragrance that healed our lungs. Nothing to me is more sacred than the land itself. The sky, the Milky Way Galaxy we walked beneath at 5 AM, far before dawn. Even the cows, especially the cows – the goats, the horses, the little birds, the wild raspberries.
People, too. All the smiling humans that greeted us, that offered us comfort and food and shelter and advice. That warmly invited us to be part of their family. Marga, Martha. All the wonderful folks who manage the albergues. A wonderful father and son (Antonio and Tristan). A fast Danish veteran (Sanne), who walks for those who cannot, the dear ones she has lost. The ones who share stories of heartbreak, grief, separation, hope. The ones who carry backpacks for us through the mountains (Mattia).
These are my cathedrals, my altars.
When I sit inside the gold-lined Church that purports to hold the bodily remains of St James (a disciple of Jesus), I don’t feel as moved. As I see the arms of hundreds of Pilgrims hugging the golden statue of the St James apostle, kissing his shoulders, I feel more disturbed by the pedestal-ization that the Catholic Chuch (as an institution) propagates. When the Spanish elder sitting next to me in this Cathedral reprimands me for doing something wrong (letting my flip flops hang off my tired feet, and letting my toe touch the knee rest), I don’t feel anything sacred; I just feel how sad it is that so many humans rely on rules and regulations, priests and gold-clad altars, to feel into a sense of Spirit. I try to feel compassion and love for these folks too – but it’s a challenge for me.
Early in our walk yesterday, I saw a quotation written on a wall:
“I am not a body
I am free
I am still as God created me”
I was moved by this.
Because:
I feel like my body most of the time. In fact, embodiment is super important to me and kind of radical. My politics are embodied. In my life, I listen to my body, I take care of my body. I rest, eat well, sleep, stretch, exercise. I do what makes me feel good in body. And yet, it’s true that bodies are just vessels of an essential mystery. We are not actually a body. But we are. When I walk 310 kilometers, and my Achilles pulses with pain (not so much anymore), and my left big toe is numb, and my body is exhausted – I feel like my body. But also, beyond a body, beyond my body.
One of the essential complexities of life is figuring out how to move beyond our identification with our bodies.
In the end, in death, we leave our bodies behind.
Last night, we had our “penultimate” (second to last) dinner with our Camino family. Sergio said, we call it the penultimate because the last never comes. I think it must be like that in life. The last anything never comes. We simply live until we transcend to the next world, and there is no final anything. Except breath. There is a final breath in the body. A final heartbeat before we go.
El Camino continues.
