# The Gathering Place Tags: #literature ## Metadata * Author: [Mary Colwell](https://www.amazon.comundefined) * ASIN: B0BRMW39BK * ISBN: 1399400541 * Reference: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BRMW39BK * [Kindle link](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0BRMW39BK) ## Highlights Despite a move away from traditional religion, there is still a pilgrim impulse inside many of us. — location: [105](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0BRMW39BK&location=105) ^ref-19260 --- Like so many relics around the world, the bones of St James have become monumental and symbolic; magnets that draw people to connect the spirit world with that of the living through a physical reminder of our own mortality. Under the weight of so much belief, legend and myth, bones transcend their physical reality to become a conduit to God. The facts about them become less important than the desire for a focus for spiritual expression. — location: [106](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0BRMW39BK&location=106) ^ref-39695 --- before our rational, scientific age they promised physical access to holiness, something that was important to the medieval mind where the boundary between the physical planet, human flesh, the mind and the spirit world was fluid and complex. — location: [119](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0BRMW39BK&location=119) ^ref-3544 --- the authenticity of the bones is of less interest than the meanings with which we imbue these dusty, fragile remains. Between the physical relics and the yearnings of the soul is built a citadel of tradition and history that has taken generations to construct, and it is not dismantled lightly. — location: [134](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0BRMW39BK&location=134) ^ref-48573 --- The time spent in expectation of arrival is not dead time, it is filled with thoughtfulness. Pilgrimage is defined by both the journey and the destination, and for many modern pilgrims on the Camino Francés, the journey is perhaps more important than the bones in the cathedral at Santiago itself. — location: [140](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0BRMW39BK&location=140) ^ref-34189 --- Myths are written to be transmissible through the generations and are often rich in references to the natural world, drawing from its wellspring of form, colour and behaviour. Their aim is to make sense of right and wrong, truth and falsehood, selfishness and love and what separates humanity from the divine. — location: [317](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0BRMW39BK&location=317) ^ref-14938 --- It is my first encounter with the violent history of the Camino, where blood is soaked into the very meaning of the trail, intermingled with hope and love. — location: [406](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0BRMW39BK&location=406) ^ref-40184 --- Caught up in the complexity of daily life, it is easy for the detail to dominate at the expense of the big picture. By stepping back to get an overview, life can become more manageable and finds a context. I wanted to walk alone and to let my thoughts synchronise with the rhythm of one step at a time. — location: [471](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0BRMW39BK&location=471) ^ref-1516 --- Deep inside I want to test the mettle of a faith I had been born into but struggle to fully accept. Too much about Catholicism as an institution rankles. Its male hierarchy, sexist dogma, exclusivity and its seemingly callous rejection of people who are non-binary or divorced; none of these are what love looks like to me. And yet, its heart, the essence of the Christian message, is beautiful. It is a faith based on compassion that embraces the poor, the lost, the sick and the lonely, that understands what failure looks like out on the streets and inside each heart. I have seen it in action numerous times at the forefront of need, working at the coalface of despair, and I want it to step up now, to be present and wise at a time when it feels like humanity is falling apart. This isn’t a religious pilgrimage as such, but it is one that will question and search religion for much-needed answers. — location: [484](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0BRMW39BK&location=484) ^ref-21263 --- Rounded, circular and curled designs date back to some of our earliest artistic expressions; they mimic our thoughts as they spiral outwards, curving round and through and over each other, interlocking and intertwining, to return to the starting point, to the centre of irreducible mystery. — location: [623](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0BRMW39BK&location=623) ^ref-4453 --- The Anglo-Saxons had a related word to llan, ‘friþ geard’, which roughly translates to ‘peace-yard’ and is also rich in meaning. ‘Frith’ means a state of harmony and calm coexistence, a time without war; it is the peace felt when surrounded by one’s own tribe or family, a sense of security within the familiarity of close relationships. But it goes further. Inherent in the word are echoes of the responsibilities of kinship and duty to the wider community, which can extend beyond the human to the natural world. — location: [636](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0BRMW39BK&location=636) ^ref-44425 --- My first impressions of Santa María de Orreaga are both oppressive and welcoming; gold, grandeur and majesty dominate. This is a celebration of the opulence of God, rather than the simple contemplation fostered by the cloister. The sheer profusion of ornate, gilded decoration, the glow of many candles and the wealth of stained glass overwhelm the senses, making it hard to know where to look or to rest the eye. This is a church that was built to impress, to be a marked contrast to the simplicity of ordinary life; a reminder to penitents of the glory of God beyond their reach. — location: [666](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0BRMW39BK&location=666) ^ref-18813 --- The whole world is out of kilter. There are odd juxtapositions everywhere; weird behaviours are being normalised as a reaction to the pandemic. It is nothing new, though, extreme responses, both religious and secular, have always emerged in times of fear and feeling out of control. — location: [915](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0BRMW39BK&location=915) ^ref-32226 --- Through the centuries many thousands of pilgrims must have died on The Way with no one to mark their lives. Their quiet spirit is all that remains, somehow defining the path more clearly. — location: [947](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0BRMW39BK&location=947) ^ref-1324 --- The two walks merge and intertwine in my mind, despite their different characters, remoteness and physicality. Perhaps it is because they share the same motivation: a desire to move through a landscape to explore mystery and to get closer to something of great personal importance, but what that is exactly is difficult to describe. — location: [978](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0BRMW39BK&location=978) ^ref-35393 --- Remote mountains claimed a luminous and gentle soul at the age of 24, someone I loved very much, and I have struggled to make peace with rock and ice ever since. That is part of this Camino journey, too. — location: [981](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0BRMW39BK&location=981) ^ref-40870 --- People ought to saunter in the mountains – not hike! Do you know the origin of that word ‘saunter’? It’s a beautiful word. Away back in the Middle Ages people used to go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and when people in the villages through which they passed asked where they were going, they would reply, ‘A la sainte terre,’ ‘To the Holy Land.’ And so they became known as sainte-terre-ers or saunterers. Now these mountains are our Holy Land, and we ought to saunter through them reverently, not ‘hike’ through them. — location: [1011](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0BRMW39BK&location=1011) ^ref-7647 --- Serendipity is built into the Camino. People who have experienced it talk about it as a character that engages with you as you walk. They stress the road is not inanimate but somehow living and responsive. — location: [1182](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0BRMW39BK&location=1182) ^ref-51644 --- Passion, pain, agony and ecstasy are part of Catholicism’s nature. The message is clear – there is no glorious, heavenly gain without excruciating, earthly pain, and rapturous suffering is etched onto the faces of the millions of statues of saints that decorate Catholic churches. I — location: [1265](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0BRMW39BK&location=1265) ^ref-44379 --- Staring, despairing eyes – human and non-human – force questions, demand answers, but none are forthcoming. What can any one individual do in the face of this enormity? — location: [1580](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0BRMW39BK&location=1580) ^ref-53116 --- When people say it is the journeying involved in pilgrimage that matters as much as the destination, it is because the time spent en route is the creative space that allows the invisible to get to work. The combination of walking, someone’s personal history and the stories both old and new that are ever-present, all form a potent solution where feelings, hunches and notions begin to crystalise. They fill the void normally crowded out with daily life, getting stronger and more substantial as each day passes. It cannot be instantaneous, it is an unfolding, developing process, like mother of pearl accreting around a stone. Insight is born in the gap between experiencing and recognition, between an inkling and an understanding. Call it prayer if you like. Back home when it is all over, perhaps even years later, our brains analyse, dissect, sift and sort, and turn a raw experience into something containable, but before that, there are only beginnings, and they are unique. — location: [1725](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0BRMW39BK&location=1725) ^ref-50599 --- It is a very modern undertaking to go on pilgrimage to search within for answers to life’s questions. For much of human history, especially in the West, those answers were found in the realm of an external deity; the meaning of life was framed within prescribed Christian doctrine. A medieval pilgrimage fell within particular bounds: to honour the saints, to offer service to God, to seek forgiveness for grievous sin (murder was a common one), to gain indulgences (a way to reduce the punishment for sins in the afterlife) and to ask for healing from sickness. The idea of pilgrimage to explore your inner landscape would have made no sense. As the centuries have rolled by, individualism has trumped the once unassailable role of religion. Conformity to doctrine has given way to autonomy, and, in the West in particular, belonging to an organised religion is far less common than ascribing to a more diffuse spirituality. What hasn’t changed is the search for a higher connection, which is as important as it ever was. And much of the sharing of the journey is done over food and drink in the evening. — location: [1812](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0BRMW39BK&location=1812) ^ref-1492 --- Academic studies of miracles are in-depth and rigorous investigations into that unpredictable encounter between mind and world. The political, religious and social atmosphere of the time is important, as are the lives of those who are said to have performed them. — location: [2047](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0BRMW39BK&location=2047) ^ref-22950 --- My personal conclusion chimes with that of several commentators – whatever it was that actually happened was enhanced to reflect a political, religious and social context. Some of those accretions were born out of hopes and fears in times of sickness and war, others to rebel against political oppression, some asserted the authority of the church, or gave moral warnings; there is a long list of motivations for embellishing stories. Over the years, layer upon layer has been added. Whatever the original incident, the account grew like a snowball rolling downhill. Extracting the kernel of fact from the miraculous story is nigh on impossible, but the core is less appealing to me than the messy but rich human weavings layered around it. — location: [2050](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0BRMW39BK&location=2050) ^ref-16469 --- Grief is brutal and angular, not rounded and soft; an immovable, permanent fixture in our inner landscape. The initial shock and intensity after someone’s death may subside over time, but the heartache, the empty space, the immutability, the never-fulfilled search for their presence – that becomes part of you. It is inserted into your being and it won’t be removed. — location: [2107](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0BRMW39BK&location=2107) ^ref-54876 --- It may seem counter-intuitive, but it has been shown that when we work within constraints, such as being given a set of rules or walking a pre-described route, our brains become focussed and more creative; the opposite is true when faced with total freedom. Boundaries redirect energy away from endless decision-making and towards problem-solving. Unconditional freedom may seem tempting, but it is often a route to aimlessness, confusion and complacency, a floundering in a sea of indecision. Whatever — location: [2314](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0BRMW39BK&location=2314) ^ref-10182 --- The set route of the Camino is a constraint. Day-to-day decisions about direction and route are removed allowing the brain the freedom to explore. When added to the benefits produced by walking, which is known to help the thinking process, pilgrimage becomes more than the sum of its parts. — location: [2339](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0BRMW39BK&location=2339) ^ref-35684 --- This is the great blessing of the Church of the Peregrina on the outskirts of Sahagún: somewhere to smile and be quietly joyful – and to feel you have a place. — location: [2405](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0BRMW39BK&location=2405) ^ref-18013 --- rolling stone gathers no moss, and a little moss is a good thing on a man,’ said the American nineteenth-century naturalist John Burroughs, who disliked travel, preferring to deepen his relationship to the woods around his log cabin near New York, a home-made haven, which he called Slabsides. If you want to learn something new, he advised, go for the same walk twice. — location: [2555](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0BRMW39BK&location=2555) ^ref-38605 --- grief is personal and never truly disappears, but hopelessness does, and he is right. Eventually, as days turn to weeks which turn into months, the intense grief that has permeated every waking moment gives way to gentler memories and the family begins to heal. — location: [2695](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0BRMW39BK&location=2695) ^ref-37727 --- ‘No one knows the rules anymore, there is no structure, no release, now anything can happen, and we can do nothing about it.’ — location: [2884](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0BRMW39BK&location=2884) ^ref-36706 --- Is this a medieval circus that plays on a sentimentality for the past? Yes. Is it a commercial venture that exploits the desire for meaning, the image of saints and the bizarreness of miracles? Yes. Is it worth doing? YES. — location: [3270](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0BRMW39BK&location=3270) ^ref-33250 --- The biggest contribution has been the filling of a spiritual tank running on empty, of glimpsing a sense of perspective on present troubles that only a thousand years of history can provide, of tentatively reconnecting with a global religion whose institutional structure I want to love more than I do. The Camino was there when I needed it, it provided delight alongside the doubt and confusion, and it allowed a slow gathering. — location: [3276](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0BRMW39BK&location=3276) ^ref-8179 --- Ultreia. Don’t give up, keep going, keep moving forwards – keep pushing through to the end. — location: [3302](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0BRMW39BK&location=3302) ^ref-42040 ---