The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience. ~ Emily Dickinson

Total distance on foot: 15.2 mi / 24.6km
Towns traveled through: Cornado, Santa Mariña, Olvieroa, Negreira, Aguapesada
This day in 2013: Day 41 Negreira to Santa Mariña

First thing in the morning, the same condescending barista that checked me in last night is at the counter again. After a good night’s sleep, and no longer exhausted and weary from walking, I feel a desire to connect and discover her better nature, if she has one.

Approaching the bar, I glance at my watch and ask her, “Did you even sleep?” I see you. I see you working here night and day. 

A light sparks in her eyes. “Yesss…” A grin spreads across her face.

“It must be difficult working so many hours.” All that repetition, all those revolving pilgrims everyday.

“No, not too difficult,” she says, her body square with mine. Yesterday she talked with her back to me. “I am from here, in this village, and I am lucky to have a job,” she adds with softness.

There isn’t an ounce of impatience in her voice now. We’ve made a real connection, however momentary. Maybe we all just need someone to see us for who we are, to meet us where we are and just listen.

While she makes my café americano I ask, “Have you walked the Camino?”

“No,” she replies flatly. “I don’t like walking.”

“Me either.”

Surprised, she looks at me. “No? Then why are you walking?”

“I had to. I felt called to. I walked it three years ago, and it changed my life. Now I’m walking in reverse for gratitude.”

“Again?” Her slight frown shows I’ve given her something to think about. There’s something amazing about this pilgrimage. Maybe she’ll discover one day.

*   *   *

I am walking for gratitude, it’s true. But another part of my reason for returning to Spain to “go backwards” is to connect with the Divine. Emily Dickinson once wrote, “The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.” On my first Camino, I had several encounters with something vast and loving and far wiser than I. And, for whatever reason, those experiences don’t happen as often or as intensely in my everyday life.

So I’m back.

I suspect that many pilgrims have similar moments of pure peace, deep understanding, and euphoric joy. However, as I’ve read pilgrims’ numerous narratives about the Camino, I note with frustration how many skirt around describing those very ecstatic moments Emily Dickinson mentions. While we’re walking out there, our soul is open. One moment, you’re walking on the solid ground and, the next, something transcendent happens. What is that—and why don’t we find words to express it?

One reason I want to avoid describing these experiences is because they defy logic. Spiritual encounters don’t stand up to rigorous scrutiny—nor should they, perhaps. I just note with some humor that I’d prefer to reference science and data to support my theories.

The other reason is that I don’t want you to think I’m nuts, dear reader, and want to avoid being subject to your skepticism. However, in spite of these, I know firsthand that the Divine speaks—through messages, coincidences, through people and myriad creative channels. It wants to connect. I can’t say for certain what these encounters mean—except perhaps to confirm we’re not alone—but trusting them has led to wonderful changes in my life. Perhaps my retelling will inspire you to trust in your own experiences of the Divine, no matter how illogical, and inspire the healing and change you seek.

*   *   *

Years ago, when I began my own journey of emotional and spiritual growth, I awoke one sunny morning with a very real sense that I had a wing coming from my right shoulder. It was more like a nub, really, a radiant little bump on my scapula with the potential to be more. At this astonishing realization, I frowned and thought, What the heck? It’s not every day that one hallucinates a new appendage. Yet there was a rightness about it, not scary, but merely perplexing and completely out of my life’s experience. Huh… I have a kind of wing thing back there. And then I went on with my life.

A year later, I saw an angel intuitive (coincidentally also a fellow peregrina) who validated this awareness as a good omen from the Powers That Be. She encouraged me to trust it and be open to messages. In the time since then, especially when I’m feeling really open and joyful, I wake with the sensation that this energetic wing is still there, changing, growing in to a tiny fan of white feathers.

What the heck, right?

Whatever this sensation is, it feels like a sign about who I really am. Maybe we all have a secret truer self than we believe is logically possible. A gift. A superpower. A wordless connection with the Divine. Anyway, in the midst of daily living, they’re easy to overlook or brush off. It doesn’t mean you’re not a living miracle.

*   *   *

When I left Finisterre three years ago, it felt like ripping two vital parts of myself apart. While transporting my body back home to Oregon, my heart protested, saying over and over I’m not ready! A message I ignored. What else could I do but go home? However—and this is important—although I physically left Spain, my soul stayed rooted out on the rocks of Finisterre. In the intervening years of this painful split, I created a life my soul would want to return to.

Now, after three years’ absence, returning again to this place is emotional. A profound relief.

To finally stand on those rocks again is to know wholeness at last. I have retrieved what I lost. With no lost parts, no lingering questions, no division, everything in me feels united—body, mind, heart, soul.

Now I would walk my whole, holy self home.

*   *   *

This morning, walking with this inner wholeness, I feel amazing. Galicia is her stunning self. The early golden sunlight glows through the spring-green leaves of trees. Shadows and light play across the path through tunnels of moss-covered stones. How stunningly beautiful and magical everything is that I  stop walking just to absorb it, to really take it in. I don’t care that pilgrims stare at me in wonder. I am in love with the world, the glittering streams, the distant sunlit hills, and the whispery eucalyptus forests.

In the middle of this fragrant woods, I recognize a little dirt slope to my right with a small hole dug into it. It’s still there. Three years ago, Meg spotted a nest of bumblebees here in this very spot. We stopped and stared at them with delight as they bumbled along their happy comings and goings. Marveling.

I grin at the memory, overflowing with joy. Suddenly, I’m awash in memories of my stunned attraction to her and the bolt of energetic lightning that went through me in her presence in Santiago.

My soul opens to the ecstatic experience. As I walk, I feel taller, almost regal. Then, natural as anything, two gorgeous white wings unfold behind me, like they’ve been tucked up and waiting for the right moment to unfurl. The astonishing sensation of their feathered weight is accompanied by a sense of rightness. No more nubs and half-wings. There they are.

What Meg showed me, I now feel to the center of my being. It’s not just part of me anymore—something to be brushed off or tolerated—it is me. I am it.

I walk on toward Santiago, illuminated from the inside out.