“I hear a swelling swoosh; from the south a bullet train whizzes into view on the tracks, knives through the landscape in a matter of moments, then disappears with a whoosh. It has just covered in a few seconds what has taken me hours to walk. That very fast train reminds me that, as a pilgrim, travel is made holy in its slowness. I see things that neither the passengers of the train nor the drivers of the automobiles see. I feel things that they will never feel. I have time to ponder, imagine, daydream. I tire. I thirst. In my slow walking, I find me.”
Source: Beyond Even the Stars: A Compostela Pilgrim in France
“Oddly, most narratives, both academic and personal, end when the goal is reached: the apostle is hugged, the Compostela is duly granted, and the pilgrim bids the Camino farewell and goes home. Although most first-person pilgrimage accounts are written after the journey is completed, the authors generally reveal only a glimpse into how the Camino continues to exist within their own lives. The experience is treated like a photo, a frozen memory; as if there were no flow between the pilgrimage itself and daily life. As pilgrims enter more deeply into the Camino it appears to leave an indelible mark, yet it is hard to discern the nature of this mark.”
Source: Pilgrim Stories: On and Off the Road to Santiago, Journeys Along an Ancient Way in Modern Spain
“To feel the pull, the draw, the interior attraction, and to want to follow it, even if it has no name still, that is the "pilgrim spirit."The "why" only becomes clear as time passes, only long after the walking is over.”
Source: Beyond Even the Stars: A Compostela Pilgrim in France
“people should walk this path even before they graduate" [...] "What's one month? It's not even a paragraph in the book of your life...”
Source: THE UNSTOPPABLE THIRST : El Camino de Santiago de Compostela An Alchemic Path Towards The Inner Self
“How, then, shall we face the future? When the sailor is out on the ocean, when everything is changing all around him, when the waves are born and die, he does not stare down into the waves, because they are changing. He looks up at the stars. Why? Because they are faithful; they have the same location now that they had for our ancestors and will have for generations to come. By what means does he conquer the changeable? By the eternal, one can conquer the future, because the eternal is the ground of the future, and therefore through it the future can be fathomed. What, then, is the eternal power in a human being? It is faith. What is the expectancy of faith? Victory-or, as Scripture so earnestly and so movingly teaches us, that all things must serve for good those who love God.”
Source: Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses
“Essentially, this thirst is not the longing for an extensive walk on the Camino. It's the longing of meeting your own being, outside the temptations of a fully materialistic world. Camino is just a channel, a concrete representation of your inner need to evade the loop your life is repeating over and over again, and find your true nature, your true voice, your true meaning on this planet. And when you walk this path, you complete a layer of your search.”
Source: THE UNSTOPPABLE THIRST : El Camino de Santiago de Compostela An Alchemic Path Towards The Inner Self
“You need to go. You will go,” she proclaimed. “You’re already a pilgrim, Freddi.”
Every time I spoke to her, she repeated it for years, including the last time I’d spoken with her, just a few days before I walked off the doorstep of that albergue in Saint-Jean-Pied-De-Port.
“Pilgrim.”
She was the first to call me that, but not the last. Everyone became a pilgrim that first day. Our openness with one another created something. We surrounded ourselves with people of all generations and cultures and backgrounds; we were united in exhaustion from carrying our damaged, decaying spirits.”
Source: Relish In the Tread
“You can't do that kind of thing normally, but normal dumped without a note nearly a month ago. These days, I'll happily set fire to a bridge the second after I've crossed it - I don't plan on being around for the consequences to catch up with me.”
Source: Dying Bites
“There's no fall greater than one from a burnt bridge.”
Source: Life Is Not Complicated-You Are: Turning Your Biggest Disappointments into Your Greatest Blessings
“What are we going to do, Ayden?" she whispered, glaring up at me.
"I don't know," I confessed. "But how about we burn that bridge when we get there?"
"I thought it was 'cross' that bridge?"
I lightly poked her in the eye and she laughed. "No. We're burning bridges. Crossing is so overrated." I smiled and touched the corner of her eyes, captivated by the iridescent blues.
"I think I like the sound of that," she whispered.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah.”
Source: Burning Bridges