About 1200 years ago, a group of devout Christians found a tomb with the buried remains of the apostle, St. James, in Galicia, a region of northwestern Spain. To honor him, Spanish kings built a magnificent cathedral in Santiago where his remains are buried today. Since then, millions of pilgrims — “peregrinos” — have walked hundreds of miles to Santiago’s cathedral along one of several paths beginning in Portugal, Spain or France. Four peregrinos finished the Camino de Santiago last week — Belle (BFF from the 6th grade), Laura (long time Berkeley friend), and Leticia (Belle’s buddy from her days in Sonoma County). And me.
Continue readingCamino
The Train in Spain

Travel is always enlightening. It is also occasionally disappointing and tiring, and, if you are traveling alone, lonely. Sometimes it is more than all of this. Sometimes you find a “thin place.” A thin place is where the distance between heaven and earth seems shorter, and reveals something deeper. Yesterday, I rode the train from Bilbao to Madrid and found a thin place.
Continue readingCosmic Relief
This seems to be a good time to look for reminders of what is best about the world. At least, they will help keep my focus on the path I want to travel down the road (oh hey, a mixed metaphor with synonyms). So here is today….