Sometimes I worry the about becoming a Camino de Santiago pilgrimage addict. The Iberian Peninsula, after all, is littered with Camino routes stretching back into France and even Italy. The many routes reflect the myriad origins of medieval pilgrims heading toward the fabled city of Santiago de Compostela, claimed as the resting place of Saint James.
I did my first pilgrimage in 2017, completing the popular Camino Frances route that runs some 550 miles from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port in the Pyrenees beside the FrenchSpanish border through the mighty pastoral breadth of northern Spain’s interior toward Santiago and then on to Finisterre on Spain’s most western Galician coast.
But that was small fry compared to what I did during the global pandemic. When I arrived in Portugal’s capital city of Lisbon at the end of 2020, the tap-tapping of my walking sticks on the pavement caused the trendy young things on the quayside watching the sunset to turn their heads my way. Behind me lay about 1,200 miles of multiple Caminos joined together.
From Bayonne in France I had hiked the Camino del Norte route, following Spain’s rugged northern coastline, before joining the Camino Primitivo, which drops from the coastline into the mountains before converging with the Camino Frances in its final approach to Santiago. Continuing to Finisterre and the coastline—the logical end of any peregrination—I did a sharp left and began the Camino Portuguese.
This story is from the July/August 2021 edition of Spirituality & Health.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign in
This story is from the July/August 2021 edition of Spirituality & Health.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign in
Why-Still-The Sound of Silence?
Three healing professionals-Amza Ali, MD,Justin Grant, PhD, and Mary-Elizabeth Gifford-consider the high costs of not speaking up for palliative care with psychedelics.
Why Dance Makes Brains Better
How an effort to help people with Parkinson's disease now helps everyone keep a healthier brain, mind, and body
Become a Connoisseur of Time
We know we’re only here for a short time. So, we don’t really want to get more efficient at spending our time. And we don’t really want to cram it with more distractions. What we really want is to experience our lives in ever-richer ways. And that means getting off the clock. Here, a master outlines how to do just that. Here, a master oulines how to do just that. An interview with Joel Bennett, PhD
CRISIS AND TRANSFORMATION
SUZANNE MARRIOTT's beautiful memoir on caregiving, published this month, began taking shape years ago with conversations at a S+H writer's workshop.
FAITH TECH
STEPHEN KIESLING has a virtual dialogue with venture capitalists bent on buying the stairways to heaven.
HACKER SPIRITUALITY
Theologian ANNE FOERST suggests that the young man who stole your identity set out to find himself on a quest for freedom.
DELIGHTFULLY DEEP IN THE WEEDS
Digital editor BRENNA LILLY spent a week apprenticed to a master seaweed harvester-and learned much more than how to gather kelp.
THE FUTURE OF TOUCH
Spa aficionado MARY BEMIS traveled to New York to receive her first massage from a robot.
THE MISSING MIDDLE
CORI HOWARD finds that it takes more than Marie Kondo and burning sage to transition to an empty nest.
DANCE INTO A NEW GROOVE
NOT MOVING is a good way to get stuck emotionally and intellectually, to remain the same, to avoid any new flow of old emotions, and to keep things locked up in our body and mind. Even if we do move regularly, when our bodies are always moving in the same way, we can lose the vital possibilities of sending breath into the areas of our bodies where those stuck emotions, inspirations, or ideas are hiding.
NETFLIX TO CHARGE AN ADDITIONAL $8 MONTH FOR VIEWERS LIVING OUTSIDE US SUBSCRIBERS' HOUSEHOLDS
Netflix on Tuesday outlined how it intends to crack down on the rampant sharing of account passwords in the U.S., its latest bid to reel in more subscribers to its video streaming service as its growth slows.
APPLE SET TO RELEASE OFFICIAL 'TED LASSO' MERCHANDISE
As the acclaimed Apple TV+ Original series, Ted Lasso, continues to reel in an impassioned following, Apple is poised to make the most of the show’s popularity by entering the official merchandise arena.
TWITTER ACCUSES MICROSOFT OF MISUSING ITS DATA, FORESHADOWING A POSSIBLE FIGHT OVER AI
A lawyer for Twitter owner Elon Musk accused Microsoft of misusing the service’s data and demanded an audit from the software giant.
META FINED RECORD $1.3 BILLION AND ORDERED TO STOP SENDING EUROPEAN USER DATA TO US
The European Union slapped Meta with a record $1.3 billion privacy fine this week and ordered it to stop transferring users’ personal information across the Atlantic by October, the latest salvo in a decadelong case sparked by U.S. cybersnooping fears
DO NOT CALL: STATES SUE TELECOM COMPANY OVER BILLIONS OF ROBOCALLS
Attorneys general across the U.S. joined in a lawsuit against a telecommunications company accused of making more than 7.5 billion robocalls to people on the national Do Not Call Registry
DELAWARE TAPS AI TO EVACUATE CROWDED BEACHES WHEN FLOODS HIT
Delaware’s low elevation mixed with crowded beaches and limited exit routes make the state particularly vulnerable to massive flooding, but officials hope an influx of federal infrastructure money will trigger future evacuation plans automatically via artificial intelligence.
READY FOR A DIGITAL EURO? AT 25, EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK PREPS FOR FUTURE OF MONEY
As it marks its 25th anniversary this week, the European Central Bank is readying a proposed design for a digital version of the euro, responding to pressure from developing technology that could change how money is used over the bank’s next decades
CAR SEATS & BABY FORMULA ARE REGULATED. IS SOCIAL MEDIA NEXT?
The U.S. surgeon general is warning there is not enough evidence to show that social media is safe for children and teens — and is calling on tech companies, parents and caregivers to take “immediate action to protect kids now.”
BEST BUY POSTS MIXED 10 RESULTS BUT GADGET SLUMP WILL BOTTOM OUT AS SHOPPERS REPLACE THEIR DEVICES
Best Buy turned in a first-quarter profit that beat Wall Street expectations, while the nation’s largest consumer electronics chain continued to wrestle with weak consumer demand for gadgets.
MILLIONS DITCHED CARS FOR BIKES DURING THE PANDEMIC. THESE CITIES WANT THE HABIT TO STICK
In the agonies of the virus that upended most of the world, millions of people from Bogota to Berlin saw what life could be like on two wheels instead of four.