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John Mifsud:
I've been back almost a week now from Santiago and this is a topic close to my heart.
Perhaps I haven't fallen into the post–Camino blues for a very simple reason: this time, I started thinking about going on the Camino again next year even before I got home .
I've just written a blogpost on why I think some of us keep going back (
No Smoke without Fire) although I'm sure many of you would have your own views on this which I'd very much like to hear.
Buen camino John
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Richard Ferguson:
I think that anyone who completes a major commitment feels a let down of some kind. If you spent six months getting ready for a big party, you would feel a let down when it was over, although you would probably be pretty high during the party itself.
I had been holding onto the idea of the camino during my last year of work, when my life seemed to be disintegrating. I needed something
to look forward to, to keep my spirits up. I went on my camino a
few months after I retired. When I turned the corner in Santiago and saw a corner of the Cathedral, I just stopped and stood there in the rain. I had made it. But it felt very anticlimactic, I felt the let down immediately. Was that all there was? It took me six months to fully realize what I had gotten out of the Camino. Of all the things that I have been able to do in the five years since I retired, the Camino seems by far the most important.
I have been thinking about going back ever since.
I would argue that the let down is inevitable, that one plans for a major undertaking for months or years, then one is 100% focused on it while you are doing it. When you have finished, the planning is over, and the doing is over. Unless you plan to write a book, it is over, and you have to turn your focus to regular life. You hope that you have gotten something out of it.
Richard
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Eiler Prytz:
Richard –
Do you think that you have to (turn your focus to regular life)? There are many accounts on how the camino has changed people's life. I can at least talk for myself. Nancy Louise Frey has discussed this in her interesting article:
The Return: When the Yellow Arrows No Longer Mark the Way
Kind regards Eiler
– in dark Oslo, where it has started to snow in the highlands
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Bob Spenger:
I felt it as soon as I crossed the bridge and entered the city. At that point I had to fight a very strong urge to turn around and go back without ever completing the last mile or so to the cathedral.
Bob S.
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Kathy Gower:
Incorporating one's experiences post pilgrimage and the re–entry process is something that both interests me and that I have written about before.
It is a very real phenomena and each one of us finds their own way of making those experiences live in our "regular" lives. Two ways are both transformative processes:
historicizing: using those experiences and ways of being, feeling, etc. to understand past experiences, and, using your Camino experiences to understand situations as they come up in the future.
In these ways, the "giving back to the Camino" translates to finding other ways to exhibit that gratitude and grace, community and solitude. Reliving and reflecting on Camino experiences transforms, often, into finding ways of continuing on the comraderie and friendship and simplicity, post–pilgrimage.
As I have just returned from walking the last leg of the Via Podensis into Spain, these feelings are real and continue to percolate within me...especially when I arrived at the home of Rebekah and Paddy and watched as many pilgrims walk by in an hour than I had seen the whole 2.5 weeks of walking in France. I was still a pilgrim, yet removed...
It will remain to be seen how having completed LePuy to Santiago (approx. 1,000 miles, albeit in stages) will continue to work it's magic on me...thank goodness there are many more routes!
Kathy Gower
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Silvia Nilsen:
A priest wrote an article for AMIGOS (CSJ of SA newsletter) on Post Camino Blues. I have added it to the files. Interesting reading.
I think this subject could be an interesting study for someone interested in physiology or human sciences, not just psychology.
When you rise with the sun, walk long distances every day in synch with the turn of the earth, carrying everything you possess on your back, rarely staying in one place for more than a day, leaving yesterday behind (who can remember where they were three days ago?) not worrying too much about tomorrow, it must have a powerful influence on the whole person.
Physically your lungs are filled to capacity with 'outdoor' oxygen, the endorphins kick in, the adrenalin pumps, your senses are assailed by new sights, sounds, smells, different foods (sometimes minimum food). You live in a state of flux and might experience angst, exhaustion, joy, wonderment, trepidation, delight, amazement, tearfulness, happiness – all in the same day.
After 30 days (maybe 40, 50, 60 days) you suddenly stop.
Your body wants to get up and go but you have come to the end of the trail. You might spend a day or two in the same place and then you fly home, back to your cupboards full of clothes, your 'things' your responsibilities, the 8pm news.
Just as it took 30 days for the body to get used to a new vigorous routine, it will take time to get back to the old routine.
No wonder we feel 'out–of–sorts', disoriented and 'down'.
Silvia
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Terje Lerstein:
Camino Blues, Have been back home for months and haven't been able to put the words to what I feel. "Camino blues" must be the right word. It can last for quite some time, and everyone I met on the Camino and still communicate with "suffers " from the blues. I used some time going through pictures, maps etc. to put things in place and made myself a slide show out of it. For who? Mainly for myself. Of course we must all get back into our daily routines – sort of. I think I will keep a lot of the blues in daily life. I think I have learned to be more patient, more able to sort out what is important in life – and what is not. I have found out that we have several beatiful trails in Norway, ending in Trondheim. Would like to do one of them next year... after the Big Camino. Plan to do Arles – Santiago starting mid April. The Camino is addictive and I feel fine with my blues.
Terje
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Mike Smith:
Uncle Bob wrote: "I felt it as soon as I crossed the bridge and entered the city. At that point I had to fight a very strong urge to turn around and go back without ever completing the last mile or so to the cathedral."
I wonder if that was an unconscious wish to not complete the task so that it could be completed at a later stage?
When I walked into the Praza do Obraidoro I was momentarily overcome by the same feeling... now what?
But, I had a very strong sense that it would not be the only time I would walk into Santiago and see the spires. I began planning for another camino...
somewhere... almost immediately.
As it is, I have been back to Santiago again, via Seville.
I have also walked the lonely walk... the St Olav Pilgrimage in Norway.
Then, if I start getting overheated I can cool myself down by thinking of the St Paul Trail in Turkey. There is a rugged piece of history, religion and culture wrapped in a wild landscape! No bedbugs there... there ain't many beds!
One day... one day.
In the meantime, it's natural to feel a little down after the effort of the camino. Start planning for the next. It may not be religious, spiritual or even physical... there are many 'caminos' to be traversed in this life.
Mike
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Lise:
I'm a French Canadian that just joined the Santiagobis group. I thank the friend who talked to me about your group. And for now like the topic of the Camino Blues.
Almost 4 months I came back from the Camino, and had feeled a lot the Camino Blues. Feeling a stranger in my own life for a while, not completely back home for weeks.
The tranformation in me had been a deep one. But really think that the Camino spirit can live in us forever. It's engraved in our heart and can guide our life in our everyday life.
What helps me to keep it alive is to keep contact with some people of the Camino family and to do color inks painting from the pictures.
And all the messages about the Camino Blues make me feel that maybe it would be time for me to go on a new project in writing a book in French about the return of the Camino.
I had been also addicted to the Camino and plan to do it again next year. Will do it in spring what can be a good way not to have to deal with bugs.
Many thanks to the ones who create this group and keep it alive.
Lise
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Richard Ferguson:
In response to Eiler, I think that most people do turn their focus back to their regular life after pilgrimage. The Frey article referenced was interesting; it mentioned the pilgrims who go back year after year, and perhaps never fully return to their regular life. I think that it is probably more common that people return to their regular life, but perhaps they are looking at life from a different point of view. If a pilgrimage does not change your life in some way, maybe it was a walking vacation more than a pilgrimage.
To me, the camino was both a learning and a religious experience. I still apply today what I learned on the camino years ago. Insofar as I still subscribe to a couple of internet camino groups, and attended one of the annual gatherings, I am obviously still connected to the camino. But I don't walk everywhere I go.
There is also the philosophical question about whether one should be focused on the world or not. Cloistered religious orders have withdrawn from the world. Occasionally people build a cabin way back in the woods, and only go to the nearest small town a few times a year. Someone whose whole life if focused on the camino could be considered to have also withdrawn from the world, at least to some degree. They have decided that they prefer the pilgrim life to regular life. But at that point, the pilgrim life becomes their regular life. Philosophically, I think that people should be engaged in regular life, engaged in the world, rather than in a permanent escape from regular life.
If you consider pilgrimage in the traditional sense, it is taking you away from your regular life, but generally a pilgrimage comes to an end. This is true of the Haj, a pilgrimage to Rome, or walking to Santiago. A pilgrimage is generally done for religious or spiritual reasons. I think that the historic model is that people went on pilgrimage for some period of time, and then returned to their regular life. Certainly one would expect a pilgrim to come back a somewhat different person. One would not expect a pilgrim to return, and then leave their job and family for the traveling life, although I am sure that some people go on pilgrimage because they are considering a major life change. I don't mean to criticize those who do decide to become permanent or semi–permanent pilgrims. I think that Thomas Merton suggested that for some people, their vocation in life is wandering through life looking for their vocation.
To sum up, I think that it is appropriate, normal, and philosophically correct to return from pilgrimage to your previous life, but with a somewhat different view or focus.
Richard
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Ana Young:
I remember after my first Camino, when I had given up my life in L.A. for a try in Spain, even knowing it was all but impossible ... I did return to L.A., stayed with a friend and got another job. All I thought about, all I had burned into my brain from the time I was on the bus returning to Madrid for my return "home" was steely determination to find a way to return there.
After a week at the new job a bus strike intervened and I had to leave the job. All during this time, I meditated. I told the Universe I had done all the legwork, now "show me the way!"
I left for Japan soon afterwards for a teaching job, and the entire time I felt my own camino was continuing after all. I was still on pilgrimage. I even found a miniature version of the famous 88–temple Japanese pilgrimage to do intermittently during my time there – in preparation for my return to "my"
Camino. And I did return to that.
So I had Camino blues, too. But the Universe decided to keep me on the Road. That took care of most of the blues.
Ana
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Ana Young:
Richard's points of view are interesting re: returning from pilgrimage, and your focus then.
I agree that, for a healthy reintegration into "regular" life, one needs to go forward instead of backward. But then I think my own take on it departs somewhat.
From what I can see, those who return year after year to the Camino are not any more separated from regular life than anyone else. They just have a regular life (or have created one post–Camino #1) that allows for this annual departure. They are serial pilgrims, and that's ok. Incredibly healthy, in fact, because these pilgrims give themselves that annual introspection⁄exploration rite. To me that's so much a part of what life is all about.
As for those who have dedicated their lives to the Camino in some way –– have changed their lives entirely to do this –– they are not the majority by any means. They've decided their calling in life is to investigate, describe, promote, extol or otherwise help keep the Camino alive. And that's ok, too.
How do we know, really, that there were not a few people in the 12th century who did that –– went on pilgrimage, then decided afterwards to devote their lives to some aspect of it? We don't –– at least we haven't discovered them yet. I wouldn't be surprised if one or more did exist and maybe couldn't write so we don't know about them.
What I'm saying is that the long–term effects of pilgrimage vary in different pilgrims. Most return home to their original lives; some return to the same home to a different physical life, perhaps different work or other different circumstances; others go off pilgrimage to a different home; still others step off the Camino and become travelers; and a few dedicate their lives to the Camino and work in some aspect of it –– either on or off the actual Road.
There, my take. Great Sunday, Ana
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Silvia Nilsen:
Thomas Merton (who was a great spiritual writer) said:
"Sitting at home and meditating on the divine presence is not enough for our time. We [must] come to the end of a long journey and see that the stranger we meet there is no other than ourselves – which is the same as saying we find Christ in him."
Silvia
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Silvia Nilsen:
There were indeed Confraternities in the middle ages that would confirm that Jacobean pilgrims devoted some of their time to the pilgrimage after they had done it. Walter Starkie mentions St Jacques confraternities in France.
In her book "Jacobean Pilgrims from England to ST James of Compostela (from the early 12th to late 15th C) Constance Storrs wrote about the many St James Confraternities in England.
"They were established in honour of the saint, to commemorate the pilgrimage by special ceremonies on the vigil and day of the feast and sometimes to provide funds for their members who wished to go to Santiago. Membership was originally restricted to those who had made voluntary, not a penetential pilgrimage; but in the later Middle Ages brothers and sisters were admitted who had actually not been to Santiago. In England numerous confraternities ... were in existence by the 14th Century. The fraternity of St James in Holme and Norfolk had been founded some "time without memory" and that of St James of Lynn, Norfolk went back to a long time before the pestilence." There was one in Icklingham in Suffolk, Lincolnshire (founded 1365).
So, I would think there were many 'born–again' camino pilgrims in the Middle Ages just as there are today.
Silvia
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Brandon Wilson
Hi everyone. I just returned from my 2700–mile walking pilgrimage from France to Jerusalem. I left in late April and arrived in the Holy City in late September, and let me tell you that I know what you mean by the "Camino blues." I believe that anyone walking the pilgrimage path goes through such an abrupt adjustment once they return to so–called "normal" life.
There is the physical aspect. When walking each day your body releases endorphins that by themselves create a bit of euphoria, or pilgrim's high. Your body is toned (eventually) and I believe it really looks forward to the exertion each day sadly lacking in most of our everyday lives.
Then there is the mental⁄emotional withdrawal. While on the trail each day is a wealth of new experiences and challenges: new friends, new foods, new sights and just the welcome solitude and chance for reflection or meditation. We are unplugged, yet more aware and somehow more alive.
Suddenly, whether we reach Santiago, Rome or Jerusalem, we are seen by others as just another "tourist" (well, maybe a little grottier) and our mantle of "peregrinohood" reluctantly vanishes. Our friends, with whom we've shared so much and with whom we've grown so close, return home. We struggle to understand all the thoughts and emotions we've had throughout the journey while boarding the plane, and flying back home ourselves. The "Brigadoon" vanishes in a fog, except for the sweet memories remaining in our minds.
We wonder where the past month went (or in my case five months) as we debate ever unpacking our backpacks. Our bodies suddenly ache more than they ever did on the trail and we try to fit our feet into our "normal" shoes. Our friends ask, "How was it?" or "What was your favorite part?" or equally innocuous questions. How do you answer them? "Fine" or "It was all interesting" doesn't scratch the surface. But most of the time, they can't relate to the experience; only someone who has walked the trails. "Maybe you should walk it sometime" we reply with enthusiasm.
Perhaps this is one reason that some say the "camino" begins after you reach Santiago. We still struggle with the feelings and want to recreate the joy we felt at seeing the city from afar that first time. We want to re–attain the simplicity of carrying all our needs on our back. We search for the intensity of relationships of like–minds. We look for a clear–cut, measurable goal each day, instead of tasks that have little meaning or hope to an end. We look for a chance to unplug from the noise and din of a noisy, troubled world without the social stigma that we'd receive back home.
Maybe that's why we experience the "blues." Maybe that's why many of us continue to walk these trails––in hope, in peace.
Thank God, more trails are reappearing all the time – for us – and future pilgrims of the world.
Brandon Wilson
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