Have You had Spiritual Experiences?

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This is the second installment of my story behind the story series that I’m sharing as I write my new novel Camino Child.

Blog entry from my Via de la Plata trek, Oct./Nov. 2016:

Eric and I had left together, and we joined Lara to seek out a bar/café [. . .] She and I ordered café con leches, and we started talking. She had walked the Camino Francés (CF) six years earlier, and we discussed our favorite parts of the Way [. . .] she told us about a spiritual place she had heard about on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees near the Camino Francés. She asked if I knew of it. I did not. [. . .] Lara had gone there to explore the spiritual site, having been told of a practice that involved removing one’s shoes and walking around the church to experience its spiritual powers. Lara said she didn’t take off her shoes but decided to walk around the edifice three times. Then she sat for a while to see what occurred. After nothing seemed to happen, she donned her backpack, began to walk back to the Way, and headed toward Santiago. As she moved, she told us, she suddenly felt a new strength and flow to the movements that propelled her down the trail. This feeling lasted for more than ten kilometers, she said.

Summer’s story, as told by her:

Note: Our protagonist, Summer, has been invited to join a new group of Camino friends to the mysterious church of Saint Mary of Eunate. She has taken her shoes off and walked around the church three times. Now she’s ready to go.

I feel weightless. I am gliding across the grass. The church sweeps past. My legs are moving, I know they are. But I don’t feel the effort, don’t feel sore feet touching the dirt path I have come to. I fold my arms across my chest. What is this? I’m now on a single-track path. I can see Howard and Beth and the rest of the group not far ahead, slightly out of focus. There is a multi-layered glow surrounding each of them, even Filipe.

My progress is effortless, a delightful tune buzzing in my head, my feet happy, pain-free. What the heck is this; is this what Howard meant? I can’t focus on my own questions, they slip away.

I don’t seem to be moving fast. Slow, if anything. I am not catching the others, not perceptibly. But everything around me glows in a murky, out-of-focus rush past the windows that are my eyes. That’s it. I’m on a ride, in a vehicle, zooming along, but slowly. I bring my blurred awareness to a point inside these windows. Every blood vessel and capillary thrums with the flow of their purpose. Each muscle is relaxed, doing its work without struggle. My heart is pumping in slow motion, like walking isn’t any kind of real work. It feels like I’m sliding, rolling on skates, pushed by a huge sail on a tiny breeze. Farther down the trail I come to another farm road. Without the tiniest thought of it, I follow the others.

I can hear the conversations from up ahead. I don’t want to catch them. I don’t really want to hear their words. Or are these their thoughts?

It’s like a movie. I’m inside of it, but outside at the same time. The countryside glides by, but I don’t notice, don’t fully absorb its passing.

We return to the official Camino path, popping out from our detour to Eunate at the outskirts of Puente la Reina.

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While sketching out the backstory and family history for Camino Child and our lead character, Summer Darling, I wrote a novella about her grandmother when she was a young woman backpacking through Europe in the 1980s with her older sister. CLICK here to download your FREE copy of Georgia & Patricia.

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