I am going to go on one of the oldest pilgrimages in the world: the Camino de Santiago in Spain. I will take the northern route, The Camino del Norte. It starts in San Sebastian—in the north eastern corner of Spain—and treks along the north coast to Santiago de Compostela. It is approximately 512 miles in. Length, and is one of the toughest of the routes to Santiago. I am going to do this ancient pilgrimage through the help of modern means: GoFundMe.
I was first introduced to the Camino in 2011, when I began a graduate program in creative writing at Old Dominion University. Dr. Michael Pearson, my first creative writing professor in the program, who would eventually become my thesis advisor and mentor, had been taking students to walk sections of the Camino. His May 2011 experience can be found online at The Morning News.
The adventure goes beyond religion. I grew up Roman Catholic, and distanced myself from the church, and organized religion as a whole, in my late teens. I became angry with God as I awoke to my own consciousness and turned to rationalization through the means of science, philosophy, and art—I armed myself with ammunition against God. By the age of 20, I was working as an intern for the Fine and Decorative Arts Department of the British National Army museum, drinking beer on my lunch breaks while reading books like The God Delusion.
As my twenties progressed, I found myself exploring spirituality more and more. God, it became clear, did not have to be an entity defined by the church I had grown up in. That recognition opened the door to a more spiritual approach to life.
I believe in the energy and power that runs through the universe, that has brought us, one way or another, to this planet. In a culture so immersed in the notion that the externals are what brings one happiness—the material life—I have been moving in another direction: living life on the spiritual basis of doing the next right thing, treating people with kindness, and embracing life for what it is not what I wish that it was. Experiencing everything the Camino is and was is the opportunity of a lifetime for me to continue to grow on these lines.
For the sake of space, the ridiculously simplified history of the Camino is as follows: known as the Way of St. James, or simply The Way, the legend holds that St. James’s remains were taken from Jerusalem to northern Spain in the city of Santiago de Compostela. Since the middle ages, pilgrims have taken various routes to return to the remains of James. Over time, the pilgrimage has transformed into a route that people take for a variety of personal, cultural and religious reasons. PlanetDoc has an excellent documentary that dives deeper into this history, and the modern experience, that can be found on YouTube.
Through GoFundMe, I am looking to finance this ancient journey through modern means. This includes the flight there, from Los Angeles, California, the inexpensive hostels along the way (approximately $35 American per day should be close to covering the daily living expenses), some additional supplies that I do not have, and the minimal costs of a blog that I will update so that everyone can follow the trip.
I am a writer, so I hope to contribute to the long history of the pilgrimage by writing travel essays, and, hopefully, inspiring others to take a spiritual journey of their own. When considering this pilgrimage, I am often drawn back to the late David Foster Wallace:
Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship—be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles—is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.
Additional information on the Camino can be found here at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) website.
The GoFundMe site can be found here.
Photo Credit: Flickr/Fresco Tours
Hey, this is very cool! The Camino is an amazing experience and being a writter, I’m sure you will really draw on it 🙂 Good luck!