The Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela is the official end of the Camino. It’s there that pilgrims receive the Compostela — the certificate of completion of this pilgrimage. Joe and I collected our Compostelas with wide smiles and sweet pride the day after we arrived. Joe’s certificate has his name on it and it recognizes exactly what I witnessed: a difficult and valiant inner walk with the sacred self.
There are two names on my Compostela, but more on that in my final post.
For many people, however, the true “end” of the Camino is 50 miles beyond the cathedral on the seaside cliffs of Finisterre. Ancient pilgrims believed this region was an exact translation of that name, in other words “the end of the earth” to which St. James pledged to bring the Gospel. In homage to the saint’s intention, they would walk all the way to the sea and collect a scallop shell from the beach. This calcium badge of honor was worn on hat or cloak until the pilgrims death and was considered as sacred a proof as any written Compostela from the Catholic Church.
When Joe and I finally reached Finisterre with our friend Joy, I pulled the heaviest rock I’d been carrying out of my pack. It’s was a good 2-pounder I found on Puget Sound (the Pacific Ocean). Written on this rock are the names of the people, places and animals I love or have loved and people, places and animals I know are in need of love or healing. The list is long. The rocked was covered completely with names weaving in and out of each other.
Holding the rock in my hand above the Atlantic Ocean at the end of the Earth, I moved my heart into the Lovingkindness prayer I learned by listening to Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron (she’s on the rock). It is thus that the rock was infused with every person, place or animal touched or loved by those I have loved or touched. And so on and so on, extending love out to all people, extending it beyond people to all sentient beings, extending it down into the planet and out into the cosmos.
I continue to meditate with the Lovingkindness prayer daily, which for boils down to this: “May we be happy; may be know the root of all happiness; May we be free from suffering; may we know the root of suffering.”
I returned the rock and all those inscribed on it by pen or prayer or intention to the water. It flew from my hand in a long arc, moving up and out and over the cliff before dropping into the dark and crashing waves below.
I stood and watched where it disappeared for a long time and in that space, felt a flooding of what I will call, simply, without evidence and without dogma, my soul. I felt the pull of a great tide of creation within me and at the same time all the power of the depths from wince we are all born, up from which we swim toward the waves life, and down into which we will return. All of us.
I felt a cleansing, a letting go of all the fear I have harbored about this continuous holy circle. There was a time -- not long ago actually -- when I felt quite lost and alone riding the circle line that bends from birth to death. Offering my loves over to the water, to a power that is indeed higher than myself, I felt us all standing hand-in-hand with them all, in one circle. I admit, for just a second, the “I’d like to teach the world to sing” lyrics of that Coke commercial from the 70s crept into my mind.
I felt at peace with all if it watching the sun set on the end of the Earth. I opened up to an absolute trust in the beautiful, unpredictable, singular trajectory that is one life -- my life. Just as strongly, I was pulled into that trust in the Divine that links my circle to yours.
The words of theologian Julian of Norwich came to me as I scrambled up the cliff to the road where Joe waited:
“All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
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