All my writing is musing and open discussion as I learn and navigate my experience, and is not making any normative claims - see my approach to writing for more on how I intend to share!

Pilgrimage, divinity and false prophecy

I recently went on pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago. This is an ancient, Catholic pilgrimage route from across different starting points in France, Spain and Portugal to the Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, where it is believed the remains of St James, one of the 12 Apostles of Jesus, are buried. Although it has Catholic roots, it’s open to anyone who is interested in walking, reflecting and engaging in the ritual of the pilgrimage. I walked from Porto for 12 days and covered around 280km.

In my quest to find my tempo, I was broadly after three main things: to access the time and space to listen to myself, to feel reconnected to the Earth, and to explore my spirituality within a spiritual environment. The Camino, a sacred setting where I could spend multiple days walking through nature alongside others exploring their spirituality, felt like the perfect way to explore these aims!

I had many thoughts and reflections along the way, and some key lessons for me arose around the idea of divinity and spirituality. I hope to capture some of them here.

My understanding of spirituality

Before diving into how I experienced spirituality on the Camino, I feel like it’d be helpful to share how I went into the Camino approaching the topic. This will provide some context for the lessons and thoughts I had along the way.

I managed to capture this in an accidental yet helpful way: Brierley’s Guide to the Camino, whilst unnecessary for the actual walk nowadays, came with some useful questions to ask yourself before your first day of walking around spirituality.

One summary question in particular asked ‘How do you define spirituality? What does it mean to you?’ And the response I wrote down was:

Spirituality for me is the belief that there is something more, or could be something more, than the material, empirical world. That things like soul, magic, God, mean something more than e.g. scientific concepts. That there is something indescribable and strong and pervasive in the Universe that need not describing or defining. Whether this ‘thing’ is God or not, in a religious sense, is an open question. But the want and acceptance of believing and exploring this thing is spirituality.

And with these thoughts in my brain and body, I ventured out onto the Camino.

Spirituality on the Camino

Walking the Camino, I could feel my spiritual awareness and belief in the divine become stronger and clearer. Score!

I started to understand spirituality as some form of connection to ‘the divine’. As with my thought above, I don’t know how to define the divine (#DefineTheDivine), other than as something powerful, beautiful and ultimately indescribable. Nevertheless, even if I couldn’t define it, I could feel when I had connected with it.

I felt this connection through two main sources: people, and things (which can basically be read as: people, and everything else).

Spirituality through people

The 12 days of walking were punctuated by many magical moments and interactions. What stood out to me from these interactions was the message that extended beyond them. Each interaction was firmly human, yet shared lessons, ideas and insight, either explicitly or implicitly, that held something more.

There was Paolo, the volunteer host of one of the first public albergues on the pilgrimage in Rates, who shared with (merry) sincerity the thought that whatever step we take on the Camino, thousands of people have stepped in the same place before, and thousands more will in the future, connecting us across time with all other pilgrims.

There was the group of friends in Ponte de Lima, hosting a party and giving out free food, drink and shirts to pilgrims simply because they wanted to share in communal joy (a concept some of us hardened Westerners took a while to trust).

And there were interactions in religious spaces, like the daily mass for pilgrims put on by nuns in the monastery in Armenteira, and Debbie, an older British woman living in a small town on the route, singing beautiful blessings to pilgrims as they pass through with the most powerful, mesmerising voice.

The message of these interactions extended beyond what they directly shared. Each one communicated something that held deeper, richer meaning around things like shared experience and peace, which didn’t need to be described - it was just there, to be engaged with and taken on. I could feel this meaning and direction within myself, and it felt like some sort of connection with the divine: a human interaction sharing a message both indescribable and easy to understand.

Spirituality through things

There were also moments of connection with the divine accessed through things; some man made, some natural, some relatively new, some thousands of years old - confirmation that there is no one particular way to experience the divine.

Throughout my journey, in cities, towns and villages (and even at one point the centre of a roundabout), I found myself in spectacular churches. Every time I entered one of these spaces, I could feel the strength of the attempts to bring the essence of the divine into material form. The intense and delicate artistry with which they have been crafted emphatically showcases the belief and will that went into their creation. Whilst they will always be imperfect, they beautifully represent the human ambition and drive to connect with and express the divine in shared spaces.

An example of ornate church design in Herbón

In one church in particular, attached to a monastery in Herbón, I managed to spend a quiet half hour by myself. As time progressed, I felt an overriding feeling of support, as if the space created by people to connect with the divine in the church was holding me and allowing me the space to myself connect with the divine. I touched the walls inside the church, and felt something shift.

Connection also came through non-human pursuits - slowly moving through meandering natural landscapes, from hills to plains, rivers to forests. Seeing how everything in the landscape works together symbiotically to flourish, also shifted something.

The route weaves through many different natural landscapes

Léa, a friend I met along the way, shared some wisdom I carried with me:

Beautiful things can happen in silence

I spent a number of days walking by myself, with only silence and nature for company. But I was never alone. In the space of silence, thoughts and feelings were able to emerge from somewhere - within, below, across, from the divine, who knows - to help me communicate with myself and the environment around me.

And finally, stories along the way, manifested in stone piles (added one by one by pilgrims), mementos left behind (sharing the purpose behind different pilgrims’ walks), and signs, guidance and even poems sharing lessons (a key one being to take any lessons learned beyond the Camino), all helped create a sense of connection between myself, other pilgrims, the Earth, and something greater.

Some powerful stuff, which really helped me engage with my spiritual core. I even had what I consider a life-altering spiritual experience along the way - feel free to ask me about it!

Where the Camino came from

Whilst the Camino provides the space for spiritual exploration, I also learned a lot about the history of it. I don’t want to go into a big historical is-this-accurate-or-not analysis, more raise some questions to consider.

As mentioned above, the pilgrimage takes the pilgrim to what is believed to be the remains of St. James. The story goes that St. James, one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus, preached the word of Jesus in Galicia, before being beheaded in Jerusalem. His body was then returned to Galicia, where two of his followers buried his remains in a field. About 800-900 years later, these remains were discovered by a shepherd, and, driven by King Alfonso II and rulers that followed him, formed the basis of the Cathedral, which formed the basis of Santiago de Compostela, and the entire Camino.

This was no easy undertaking. The cathedral itself took over 100 years to build, and by the 13th century over 250,000 pilgrims were completing the route every year - and with them the need for infrastructure across Spain and neighbouring regions to provide shelter, food, water and more. The question then becomes: was the motivation to take on the huge undertaking of establishing the Camino purely driven by attempts to connect with the divine, or were there other forces at play?

When answering this question, it’s important to consider the wider national and international context around which the Camino was set up. The discovery of St. James’ remains happened during a period in which churches and monarchs around Europe were looking to establish pilgrimage routes in their lands.

The reasons for this were varied. As summarised in this great post by Insider’s Travel, as well as the underlying religious reasons, strong drivers for the creation of these routes were politically motivated - to build nationalism, to unify people under a single religious identity, and even to build diplomatic relationships with different countries and entities.

In the case of the Camino, one critical relationship to strengthen was that between King Alfonso II, the Pope, and the Catholic church. If you’re inclined to want to establish a pilgrimage for some of the above reasons, and build stronger ties with the Catholic church, what better holy relic is there to build one around than the bones of one of the twelve original Apostles - that a shepherd stumbled across in a random field in Galicia! Such an important Catholic relic would form the perfect basis on which to build a giant cathedral, found a new city, strengthen ties with the Church as an institution and bring in thousands upon thousands of worshippers and pilgrims.

This is not to say the remains are definitely not those of St James, and is not to dispel the power and importance of pilgrimage. It is simply to consider the principles and will on which the Camino was established. When considering the lessons of humility throughout Jesus’ recorded teachings (a point raised by Léa), I find it hard to believe it was the will of St. James, or the will of the divine, that led to the pilgrimage being established. Rather, I see it rooted in the will of power-hungry, politically-motivated monarchs and religious elites.

Experiencing Santiago

Learning about the origins of the Camino made me feel disconnected from the spiritual journey I was on. This feeling strengthened for me arriving at the cathedral in Santiago. It’s impossible to deny that the building is magnificent. It never ceases to amaze me what people are capable of building, and what we have been able to achieve and do for so many years. However, the building does not feel welcoming, warm, and supportive - as may be expected from the teachings it represents. If anything, it feels imposing, scary and possibly menacing.

Janine, a friend I met along the way and who had already completed one Camino, had prepared us for this feeling of disconnect between message and reality. She had described how there was a large homeless population surrounding the cathedral, and how it raised the question of how you can so determinedly preach lessons of compassion and love, when you can’t (or are unwilling to?) support the people on your doorstep. Is the cathedral as an establishment truly representing the word that it is built on?

Similar feelings continued through the pilgrim’s mass at the cathedral. Again, whilst being a magnificent ceremony, it didn’t do much to connect me to the divine. At one point, I put my hands on the wall of the cathedral, as I had done in the church in the monastery, to see if I could connect with something. And I felt… nothing. Well, I felt no connection to the divine. What I did feel was an inhospitable building, not one where I am supported to be who I am and connect with the divine in whatever way works for me, but one where if I wanted to be welcome, I had to ‘connect with the divine’ in the methods and ways of the four, old, powerful men standing in the middle of the cathedral in formal gowns.

This was summarised by the description of Eucharist, which the preacher asked was to only be undertaken by those of ‘God’s race, members of the Catholic church’. It felt to me like an endeavour grappling with human-centred identity and power, not one helping everyone discover God-centred connection.

The idea of false prophecy kept entering my mind. That if I brought St James here, he would be dismayed by what had become of his legacy. That he would be further dismayed by all the imagery of him wielding swords, used rhetorically to mobilise the nation against the Moors. I felt, however, that if I were to show him the spiritual elements throughout the Camino described above, he would connect these as closer to God and to divinity.

Summary - seeking the divine in a political world

I felt like I learned a lot about what spirituality means for me through the Camino, and I am extremely grateful for the experience I had.

And to clarify - I’m absolutely not disavowing the importance of religion, or pilgrimage, with the above. My experience simply helped me feel more strongly how religion and spirituality can work for me, and it is different for everyone!

My main lessons that I’m taking away are:

• Connection with the divine is not prescribed in any way. It can be accessed by whatever means work for you. Pre-existing means and people can help, guide and show you, but this also has to be in harmony with the direction you have within. Let people help you discover what this is, but don’t let people tell you what it is for you. It can be anything, and when you land on the right answer you’ll feel it in your soul. God is gay!
• The beauty in religion lies in its attempts to access, communicate with and share the divine, whatever it may be. The abundance of this across religions throughout human history is inherently meaningful and rich. However, once religion strays from this human(s)-to-God relationship into the human(s)-to-human(s) issue of power, it loses its primary focus and can cause (and has caused) immense harm.

What really came home to me is how my spirituality is tied into the political spaces that govern the world - and govern religion. Whilst I don’t believe in the way the Camino was established (political gains), and how institutional religion is often practiced and spread (dogma and violence over unprescribed connection with the divine), the structures and environments created as a result can be used and repurposed by me, you and anyone, to create and change the world and lives we want - in my case on the Camino, they could be used to actually foster a powerful, personal connection with divinity, which ultimately sat outside the religious-political framework in which they were created.

This links into wider thoughts I’ve learned about through Dr. Fatima’s book club reading ‘A Third University is Possible’ by la paperson around repurposing pre-existing tools. The ideas in this book are primarily aimed at universities, and one strong argument is that whilst universities try to educate students and staff in order to maintain the system (similar to the idea of the master’s tools not being able to bring down the master’s house), we can redirect the systems created and tools we’ve been taught to use towards radically different ends (this is a wider topic I’m thinking about at the moment and plan to write more on in the future).

It makes me wonder - how can we repurpose the tools of institutionalised, perhaps hegemonic, religious institutions, towards the goals of shared connection with the divine for everyone? One idea could be to see more playful religious spaces - ones where we can explore our connection with the divine as curious and excited adventurers, rather than ones where we fear ostracisation and shame by failing to abide by formal rules of worship. I’d love your thoughts on this question in the comments!

I also learned some other lessons around the importance of shared experience (both directly with others and indirectly through shared projects) and not rushing (my tempo is slower than I have previously thought), but this is long enough for now!

Another question for the comments - how, if at all, do you access and connect with the divine? What works for you, what lessons have you learned along the way? Anything we can share is something that may help others understand their own journeys, and I’d love to hear your thoughts! ✨

Given the lessons I’ve been learning about shared experience, I want to end here with a shoutout to all the people I met and friends I made on the Camino, who made it so memorable and all helped me along the way in my spiritual journey.

Thank you to: Marie, Catherine, Michael, Eve, Alex, Caleb, Adela, Veronika, Melissa, Sicilia, Arnauld, Jeff, Leo, Alesio, Ryan, MC, Paolo, Joao, Norrie, Joyce, Robin, Mitch, Gabbie, Jennifer, Fernanda, Mikel, Eugenia, Dominika, Ricardo, Giada, Algulena, Jarri, Ben, Ben, Balint, Tilman, Toby, Zack, Hermes, Gal, Bernadette, Clara, Sarita, Tomas, Serena, Giovanna, Joana, Roddy, Xiu Mae, Elka, Dani, Claudio, Danielle, Paul, Luisa and Jeanna.

And special shout out to Carolina, Léa, Janine and Gabi, with whom I spent most of the Camino. You are all very special people!

I hope you all managed to have the Camino experience you were after.