O’Cebreiro Forgiveness
I had against my better judgment stayed in an albergue the night before. It had been a cold, wet walk that day but my guide book told of a refugio run by a man who did healing and if we were lucky a queimada . I had read about the queimada in a spiritual fiction book and thought that it might be interesting to attend one, so I made up my mind that day that I would stay in this one last refugio. As soon as I walked in I knew it was a mistake.
I was very tired and cold for it had been raining hard all day again. The albergue was full and the hostelaria was unfriendly though she did offer my poor bedraggled self some tea. I got a sense that I should move on but was too tired to make this decision with any conviction and so got dragged along into registering. What really was the clincher in my wrong decision was that the rooms were designated for old and young people. The hostelaria pointed gruffly at the old people room and although I would have, of course, chosen it myself, my back went up defensively. There was an old man snoring away in the room beside the only lower bunk left but I was damned if I was going to be climbing in and out of the upper bunk, so I settled in beside him and checked that I had easy access to my ear plugs for the night.
I met some nice people that night during dinner, as usual, but they were all familiar with each other, as they had been traveling as a group for some time. They had many in-jokes and were in a boisterous mood. I felt out of it and wanted desperately to be alone in a hotel room.
I did what I have often done in the past in unpleasant situations, closed down, knowing I would eventually get through it. As soon as it was a presentably late time, 9 PM, I excused myself and went to bed. Slept badly, as usual and up early to face what I thought was going to be a difficult day.
What was before me was a 30 km. walk with 75% of it next to the highway. I would be walking in the pouring rain all day, as it had done for the past 6 days.
I would be entering the province of Galicia that day at the top of the mountain which lies the little town of O’Cebreiro. My coach, Sue Kenney, had a miraculous experience at the top of this mountain and it had a history of miracles including a statue of Mary that moved her head. The only miracle I was hoping for was to make it to the top of the mountain at all. The climb was steep and would last about two to three hours at the end the day and the day was in fact the longest I had ever walked. I could have stopped before the big climb, breaking it up into two days, but for some reason, again, I had a driving need to be there that night.
The refugio offered a service of driving you backpack up the mountain for you as it was known to be a long and exhausting day. I remember Sue speaking about this in her book. She accepted the offer but regretted it feeling she had lost a part of her on the journey. My pack was always fairly comfortable and at first I was determined to carry it. As a few of the pilgrims added their packs to the pile I sat and debated. I added into the argument that I wanted to know how my body would feel walking without the extra twenty-five pounds. The other side of the debate was about the notion of carrying your load or some kind of purity of pilgrim life. Impulsively, I went to the woman organizing it and said I was going to add my pack. She was a Scottish volunteer at the refugio who had been a bit cool with the pilgrims. She looked me straight in the eye and grabbed my face in her hands and put her lips to my forehead for what seemed an eternity. She breathed softly on my face and I tried to let go thinking that this had been written up as a place of healing and maybe she was sending me some healing energy for the walk. Just when I was conscious of other pilgrims who might wonder about this display, she let me go and said, “Go with God.”
Off I went with God or not, I’m not sure but definitely with a Dutch pilgrim who walked with me on the boring and very wet trail beside the highway. We separated at the bottom of the big climb and I found a lovely restaurant to have some soup before I started on my solo journey. There was no doubt that not carrying the extra weight made walking much easier for me, especially for my feet. I was completely wet but not sore and in fact found my energy level excellent, but I still had the most difficult part ahead of me.
As I started to climb, I found my mood shifted to being quite playful. I was singing songs and stopping often to take in the extraordinary views as I climbed away from civilization up the Galician mountains. The rain was pouring down and river like streams were making the trail very slippery and challenging to find a place to put your next step. So far on the Camino I had found challenges like this extraordinarily defeating. All I could think about would be when I was going to get there and the frustration of the rain and difficulty of the climb.
I was in complete awe of how easy the climb was, grant it without the pack but I could feel the strength I had acquired over the last four weeks. I hardly had to stop for breath and it was equally steep to the walk up the Pyrenees. My body for the first time in years was feeling strong and somewhat youthful. I grew quite giggly. I realized I was extremely happy.
I was contemplating the sense of living in the moment that I had been struggling with throughout my life but more pointedly on The Camino. I got the sense that part of the joy I was feeling was because I was truly present to my surroundings, the situation and my body. I was seeing things so sharply, the colours, the contours and contrasts. I was as happy as I had ever been. It felt like I was in love and decided this is what true love feels like. Then it dawned on me that to truly love one had to truly be in the present. As I experienced this thought my body felt lighter. I felt like I was flying up the mountain. It was a similar feeling to when I had the realization about self-love. I grabbed the thought and tried to think it through.
I had certainly found during the Incredible Summer what had ruined any chance for love in the last relationship I had was the pain from my past. I would inflict some past wrong onto the behaviour in my boyfriend blowing the issue up to be much larger than it was. Flashes of arguments came to me and I could see so clearly how I was being led into spirals of pain by some invisible past chains. I hated myself for the unreasonableness of the arguments on my side but only knew that I was in pain and it must be him that caused it.
On that mountain, I experienced the love of truly being present and knew that that was the way to love in a relationship. To see only what is now, not be dragged down by the past or sent hysterical by negative imagination of what the future will bring.
I had to stop and just be there in that moment and breathe in the profoundness of my understanding. It was not that I hadn’t heard or read spiritual leaders talk about this but here I was experiencing joy through universal love, the love that comes from being present. I knew than I could no longer hold hatred in myself. When questioning whether I was still holding on to the past, I knew I needed to let go of one very painful time that I carried the load of anger and resentment. It was focused toward one person that my logical mind had known for sometime was carrying the blame when in fact the crime did not fit the intensity of my feelings.
I knew that if ever I was to understand about letting this now belong to the past, which didn’t exist, this was the time. I closed my eyes and finally forgave her and then was able to share the joy that I was feeling into this forgiveness. I wanted her happiness. But there was more. I sensed something tingle through me as my image of her changed to being myself. I immediately understand that in finally forgiving her, I was on a much deeper level, finally forgiving myself. She had been the symbolic last bastion of my anger toward myself.
This surprised me and delighted me for now I knew I had experienced my own miracle on O’Cebreiro. I had forgiven myself. I had no idea for what I was forgiving myself for but I felt confident that I would eventually find that out.
What I did realize was that I could never live in the present without this forgiveness. What guilt, shame and self-loathing we carry around with us all comes from the past. If we are to be able to love we have to forgive whatever crimes we feel we have done. On the surface I thought I had cleared myself of guilt for any actions I had performed. The blame it turns out wasn’t about actions. It was about my body.
I had against my better judgment stayed in an albergue the night before. It had been a cold, wet walk that day but my guide book told of a refugio run by a man who did healing and if we were lucky a queimada . I had read about the queimada in a spiritual fiction book and thought that it might be interesting to attend one, so I made up my mind that day that I would stay in this one last refugio. As soon as I walked in I knew it was a mistake.
I was very tired and cold for it had been raining hard all day again. The albergue was full and the hostelaria was unfriendly though she did offer my poor bedraggled self some tea. I got a sense that I should move on but was too tired to make this decision with any conviction and so got dragged along into registering. What really was the clincher in my wrong decision was that the rooms were designated for old and young people. The hostelaria pointed gruffly at the old people room and although I would have, of course, chosen it myself, my back went up defensively. There was an old man snoring away in the room beside the only lower bunk left but I was damned if I was going to be climbing in and out of the upper bunk, so I settled in beside him and checked that I had easy access to my ear plugs for the night.
I met some nice people that night during dinner, as usual, but they were all familiar with each other, as they had been traveling as a group for some time. They had many in-jokes and were in a boisterous mood. I felt out of it and wanted desperately to be alone in a hotel room.
I did what I have often done in the past in unpleasant situations, closed down, knowing I would eventually get through it. As soon as it was a presentably late time, 9 PM, I excused myself and went to bed. Slept badly, as usual and up early to face what I thought was going to be a difficult day.
What was before me was a 30 km. walk with 75% of it next to the highway. I would be walking in the pouring rain all day, as it had done for the past 6 days.
I would be entering the province of Galicia that day at the top of the mountain which lies the little town of O’Cebreiro. My coach, Sue Kenney, had a miraculous experience at the top of this mountain and it had a history of miracles including a statue of Mary that moved her head. The only miracle I was hoping for was to make it to the top of the mountain at all. The climb was steep and would last about two to three hours at the end the day and the day was in fact the longest I had ever walked. I could have stopped before the big climb, breaking it up into two days, but for some reason, again, I had a driving need to be there that night.
The refugio offered a service of driving you backpack up the mountain for you as it was known to be a long and exhausting day. I remember Sue speaking about this in her book. She accepted the offer but regretted it feeling she had lost a part of her on the journey. My pack was always fairly comfortable and at first I was determined to carry it. As a few of the pilgrims added their packs to the pile I sat and debated. I added into the argument that I wanted to know how my body would feel walking without the extra twenty-five pounds. The other side of the debate was about the notion of carrying your load or some kind of purity of pilgrim life. Impulsively, I went to the woman organizing it and said I was going to add my pack. She was a Scottish volunteer at the refugio who had been a bit cool with the pilgrims. She looked me straight in the eye and grabbed my face in her hands and put her lips to my forehead for what seemed an eternity. She breathed softly on my face and I tried to let go thinking that this had been written up as a place of healing and maybe she was sending me some healing energy for the walk. Just when I was conscious of other pilgrims who might wonder about this display, she let me go and said, “Go with God.”
Off I went with God or not, I’m not sure but definitely with a Dutch pilgrim who walked with me on the boring and very wet trail beside the highway. We separated at the bottom of the big climb and I found a lovely restaurant to have some soup before I started on my solo journey. There was no doubt that not carrying the extra weight made walking much easier for me, especially for my feet. I was completely wet but not sore and in fact found my energy level excellent, but I still had the most difficult part ahead of me.
As I started to climb, I found my mood shifted to being quite playful. I was singing songs and stopping often to take in the extraordinary views as I climbed away from civilization up the Galician mountains. The rain was pouring down and river like streams were making the trail very slippery and challenging to find a place to put your next step. So far on the Camino I had found challenges like this extraordinarily defeating. All I could think about would be when I was going to get there and the frustration of the rain and difficulty of the climb.
I was in complete awe of how easy the climb was, grant it without the pack but I could feel the strength I had acquired over the last four weeks. I hardly had to stop for breath and it was equally steep to the walk up the Pyrenees. My body for the first time in years was feeling strong and somewhat youthful. I grew quite giggly. I realized I was extremely happy.
I was contemplating the sense of living in the moment that I had been struggling with throughout my life but more pointedly on The Camino. I got the sense that part of the joy I was feeling was because I was truly present to my surroundings, the situation and my body. I was seeing things so sharply, the colours, the contours and contrasts. I was as happy as I had ever been. It felt like I was in love and decided this is what true love feels like. Then it dawned on me that to truly love one had to truly be in the present. As I experienced this thought my body felt lighter. I felt like I was flying up the mountain. It was a similar feeling to when I had the realization about self-love. I grabbed the thought and tried to think it through.
I had certainly found during the Incredible Summer what had ruined any chance for love in the last relationship I had was the pain from my past. I would inflict some past wrong onto the behaviour in my boyfriend blowing the issue up to be much larger than it was. Flashes of arguments came to me and I could see so clearly how I was being led into spirals of pain by some invisible past chains. I hated myself for the unreasonableness of the arguments on my side but only knew that I was in pain and it must be him that caused it.
On that mountain, I experienced the love of truly being present and knew that that was the way to love in a relationship. To see only what is now, not be dragged down by the past or sent hysterical by negative imagination of what the future will bring.
I had to stop and just be there in that moment and breathe in the profoundness of my understanding. It was not that I hadn’t heard or read spiritual leaders talk about this but here I was experiencing joy through universal love, the love that comes from being present. I knew than I could no longer hold hatred in myself. When questioning whether I was still holding on to the past, I knew I needed to let go of one very painful time that I carried the load of anger and resentment. It was focused toward one person that my logical mind had known for sometime was carrying the blame when in fact the crime did not fit the intensity of my feelings.
I knew that if ever I was to understand about letting this now belong to the past, which didn’t exist, this was the time. I closed my eyes and finally forgave her and then was able to share the joy that I was feeling into this forgiveness. I wanted her happiness. But there was more. I sensed something tingle through me as my image of her changed to being myself. I immediately understand that in finally forgiving her, I was on a much deeper level, finally forgiving myself. She had been the symbolic last bastion of my anger toward myself.
This surprised me and delighted me for now I knew I had experienced my own miracle on O’Cebreiro. I had forgiven myself. I had no idea for what I was forgiving myself for but I felt confident that I would eventually find that out.
What I did realize was that I could never live in the present without this forgiveness. What guilt, shame and self-loathing we carry around with us all comes from the past. If we are to be able to love we have to forgive whatever crimes we feel we have done. On the surface I thought I had cleared myself of guilt for any actions I had performed. The blame it turns out wasn’t about actions. It was about my body.