Wishing you a peaceful Easter. I’m sharing this extract from my book: Deep Walking for Body, Mind and Soul as a reflection for the season — on the Cross, on suffering, and on the possibility of new beginnings.
“It is easy to bond with people on the Camino. You share daily experiences, memories and the highs and lows that come with a pilgrimage walk.
Then comes the time to say goodbye, which can be a painful process if you have spent days and weeks walking with someone. It is like saying goodbye to an old friend when you know it will be some time before you will see each other again.
Ray was a veteran pilgrim, walking the Camino for the last time. He had undergone surgery for colon cancer some weeks before, and was taking his walk slowly and with great mindfulness.
It was from the awareness that every moment that he still had to live was precious. “I’ve been on this same path many times,” he confided, “but this time I am seeing so many things I did not see before.”
“It is like reading a good book, and then you read it a second time and a third time, discovering each time something new from a different state of awareness,” he said.
Talking with Ray led to the realization that life itself is meaning and the purpose of each individual is moving to a higher state of consciousness during a lifetime whose end we cannot predict.
Ray decided to take a few days’ rest near the town of Sarria, wanting to walk the last 100 kilometers (62 miles) to Santiago in his own time.
On saying goodbye, Ray gave me a Christian cross that he had lovingly carved out of wood from an olive tree.
While I was touched by his gift that came from the heart, I had mixed feelings about the cross that also symbolized the “corporate identity” of the church with which I had a long-troubled relationship.
I was unaware at the time that my pilgrim friend had given me an astounding gift. I hung it around my neck, its mystery opening to me with every step to Santiago and healing the old wound.
In the Christian tradition the cross is the symbol of Christ’s pain and suffering. It resonated with the people in the Middle Ages who themselves went through a dark time of humanity. But in the modern era?
The tragedy is that the fixation on this symbol of suffering misses the essence of Jesus’ teachings—that of transmuting suffering and death in resurrection.
This might sound blasphemous for some but we have a religion focused on life being an endless endurance of pain and suffering with the salvation only coming in the hereafter.
This was very much the thinking during the Middle Ages. Christians paid tithes to the church to “buy” their way into heaven. With disease, war and childbirth being a constant daily reminder that life on earth could be a short sojourn, the church fed into the fears of what comes in the afterlife. If certain beliefs, habits and rules were not followed, you ended up in the eternal flames of hell.
Life on earth at the time must surely have been hell for many people, struggling to eke out a living in the overcrowded towns and cities infested with rodents and human excrement. Living in the rural areas was no better, as every freak weather condition could mean a failed harvest and famine.
The devil was blamed for bad luck, accidents, immoral behavior, theft, illness and death. He was frequently depicted in places of worship, paintings and manuscripts of the time. Hell was a dark underground world ruled by Satan and full of demons, monstrosity and deformity. The horrors could not be worse if you turned your back against God and the church.
At the same time Christ was the savior in the sky above. Depictions of heaven and Christ could frequently be found on high ceilings and on top of the altar. God’s mercy and the reward in the afterlife came after leading a life following rules and beliefs.
There are many depictions of the world of darkness and the world of light in the old cathedrals, chapels and churches on the Camino, such as in Jaca, Lugo and Oviedo, giving an inkling of the mindset of the time.
The dividing lines between good and evil could not be more vivid.
In contrast, the Cathedral of Santiago is an expression of joy. It probably stems from the joy many pilgrims felt in finally reaching their destination after months of arduous walking. The Monte de Gozo, or Mountain of Joy, is situated on a hilltop from where the pilgrims had a beautiful view of the ancient city of Santiago.
The Portal of Glory in the cathedral features over 200 Romanesque sculptures, featuring angels, saints and prophets. Angels carry and lead the soul to paradise. The angels play instruments in concert to the glory of God.
Built in the form of a cruciform, the cathedral is almost austere coming from the entrance but opens up to a magnificent organ and choir with illuminated chapels on either side.
Even today pilgrims are overwhelmed when entering the cathedral for the first time.
If he or she has walked on the northern route, he/she will have passed by numerous crosses along the wayside, depicting the crucified Christ in many shapes and forms of gruesome suffering.
No wonder the first Vikings visiting England went back to their homeland telling their people that the Anglo-Saxons were easy prey because they were worshipping a dead God.
The cross is in fact an old symbol pre-dating Christian times and deeply embedded in pagan and Celtic tradition.
In many of the churches and chapels on the Camino the “Goddess,” the Virgin Mary, is the central figure on the altar. Especially in Galicia the ancient stone crosses depict Jesus on the one side and the Mother Mary on the other, which on a symbolic level unites the male and the female aspect.
One of the sad aspects of the Protestant movement was the banishment of the Madonna, the female aspect, from the altar, replacing it with the crucifix.
Many priceless artifacts were burned and destroyed in the fanatic 30-year religious war between Catholicism and Protestantism that ravaged central Europe in the 15th century.
While the Roman Cross has a long central vertical line, the Celtic cross has both the vertical and horizontal lines in equal length, with a circle around it.
The horizontal lines symbolize the past and the future, with the mind locked in one of these two thoughts on a daily basis. The vertical line, however, represents the alignment with the above and the below, the awakened state of the present “heart moment” in the center where the cross meets.
We thus find many an ancient painting depicting a heart or a mandala in the center of the cross.
As we say the old Celtic powerful prayer of protection, we visualize the Goddess, the Mother, Mary, the Madonna:
She is as above me as below, to the left and to the right, before me and behind me as well as within me.”
Reino Gevers – Host of the LivingToBe podcast
P.S: If you enjoyed this article you might be interested in reading more in “Deep Walking for Body, Mind and Soul” published by Morgan James, New York. Get it today on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and where all good books are sold.
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