Learning How To Walk: Part I

May 5th, 2012 "For in their hearts doth Nature stir them so, Then people long on pilgrimage to go, And palmers to be seeking foreign strands, To distant shrines renowned in sundry lands." - Geoffery Chaucer, late 14th Century "I hope to discover the way of the ancient traveller, to understand distance and how it feels to cross it when stripped of modern modes of transport. I want to travel, but I don't want to come to take travel for granted. I want to allow the world to flow organically around me, and to allow myself to flow organically through the world. .... I'm sure that the most precious gifts will be unasked for and unexpected." - 2010 journal entry I'm back on the road again, this time literally and with no vessel but my own body. As some of you are aware, I will be departing from Montreal to Toulouse, France, on Monday to begin my pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. I have talked with a few of you about this, but many of you may be completely unaware of my plans. Therefore, I'm sending this letter out to my usual mailing list and to new friends that I have made since my latest travels to tell you of my plans. If you would not like to receive these letters please send me an email saying so and I will not take any offence. For those of you who are new to my newsletter list, keeping in touch with my family and friends around the world is something that I have tried to do consistently since I was ten years old when my family and I set out on my first major trip on our 40' sailing vessel Silent Sound. If you're interested, you can find an archive of these letters from my Pacific, Canada, and Tanzania trips on my blog at bradleyclements.blogspot.com. Europe is a place that has fascinated me all of my life, and even though I have loved and cherished every place that I have had the incredible fortune to go I have often felt a strange attraction to Europe: the strongest homesickness that I've ever felt has been for a place that I have never been. Even as the origin of some of the things which I resent most (global colonialism) I still feel a loving connection to much of Europe and its heritage. But despite having always wanted to go to “Europe," I have never had a clear vision of precisely where or why to go. Until six or seven years ago, shortly after returning from our Pacific trip, when I first heard of the Camino de Santiago. This occurred with the music of Oliver Schroer on CBC, from his solo violin and ambient sound album recorded in chapels along the Way. It was several months later that I heard another fleeting mention on CBC, and eventually I found books and started reading. I read of mystics, movie stars, evangelical preachers, anthropologists, chefs, authors and musicians and their resent experiences upon the revitalized route, and I read of queens, kings, popes, peasants, poets, knights, diplomats, and the many others who travelled it during its heyday between the 10th and the 16th Centuries. By two years ago I knew that this was how I would come to Europe, at least for the first time, but when? At that time I was just beginning my Associate Degree in Anthropology at Camosun College in Victoria, BC. I was loving the immersion in my favourite academic fields with a course load of over 100% and the intensive community involvement that accompanied my election to the College's Education Council and later to the Executive Committee of the Student Society, but I felt that after two years I would need a rest academically to attend to my spirituality and the restless “travel bug” which had been too patient. I decided that I would go upon my graduation from Camosun, before continuing my studies at UBC. The Camino is a pilgrimage route to the relic of St. James (also known as Saint-Jacques, Santiago, and Xacobus) which has been walked by Catholics since the miraculous discovery in of the relic in 813 AD. The route was also followed by pre-Christian Celts to Cabo Finisterre which was the Westernmost point of the traditional Celtic world, the “End of the Earth” from which stretched the uncrossed Atlantic. It was in the same Pyreneean pass that the Camino Frances climbs that Roland saw his demise in the rearguard of Charlemagne's army in the Battle of Roncesvalles, which I read of in the 11th Century The Song of Roland when I was around 13. Unlike other Christian pilgrimages, the primary part of the Camino is the journey, not the destination. The majority of pilgrims still take the journey by foot, and some by bike or horse. Of the many routes to Santiago de Compostela from all over the continent – Portugal, Madrid, England, Paris, Rome, Belgium, Germany, even as far away as Moscow – I will be beginning halfway along the Chemin d'Arles in Toulouse, Midi-Pyrénée, France. Toulouse was a pilgrim destination in its own right contemporaneously with Santiago de Compostela, housing many relics in the huge Romanesque Basilique Saint-Sernin which was built upon the same plan as the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela. This route will take me through the foothills of the French Pyrenees for about two weeks through Gascony and Aquitaine to St.-Jean-Pied-de-Port, where the Camino Frances begins. The Camino Frances travels for about 800 kilometers across the Pyrenees and the Spanish foothills and Meseta through Navarre, La Rioja, Castile and Galicia, and the towns of Roncesvalles, Pamplona, Burgos, Léon, and Astorga to Santiago. From there I intend to continue for another week to the original destination, Finisterre, before flying back to Montreal from Madrid. I completed my Associate Degree in Anthropology from Camosun this April, ending my last semester again on the honour roll after my exams in Cultural Anthropology, Archaeology, Atmosphere and Biosphere, Social Systems and the Environment, and Geography of Cities. The semester had also been full of the constant, fascinating and dynamic activism and advocacy work in my role on the Student Society's Executive; coaching some amazing young archers with Helena, the international level coach who I've had the honour of working with for the past five years; following the NDP leadership race (supporting Nathan Cullen but very satisfied with Thomas Mulcair); going to a variety of rallies, especially concerning the Northern Gateway Pipeline; and enjoying great food, company and conversation with Bill and Maureen and friends, whose home I had the pleasure of staying in. At the end of the semester came the difficulty of parting with many amazing people. My professors who had truly engaged me and gone above and beyond with their care for their students and their passion for their subjects. My classmates who so often amazed me with their friendship, interests, intelligence, and community involvement. My extraordinarily inspiring colleagues at the Student Society, elected students and staff bonded by many challenges, common passions, good humour and lots of hard work. The Committees and Councils that I had sat with and befriended. The many local community organizations and leaders who I had worked with, especially the local BC NDP politicians. And of course my extended adoptive family, Bill, Maureen, Dylan, Robyn, Derek, Joanne, Sean, Jesus, Ashlee, Barry, Carmen, and friends who humbled me with their friendship and hospitality, and who I enjoyed many hours of good food, conversations, music, guitar playing, political debating, and joking. After reducing most of my worldly possessions down to two suitcases and two backpacks, Bill drove me to the airport at 5 in the morning on April 25th and I flew to Ottawa via Calgary and Toronto. Dad greeted me at the airport with Max, the dog, and took me home to Mom, Harry, and Clouseau, the cat. I have been here in Ottawa for two weeks now, sorting out my gear, equipping myself, exercising my languages and my legs, and dealing with remaining obligations. Tomorrow Mom, Dad and I are driving to Montreal where we will visit Silent Sound, who was sailed over the Northwest Passage and then purchased by a Montreal family: a fitting beginning to a trip, perhaps, by paying homage to the vessel which carried me on my first. I will fly out from Montreal's Pierre Elliot Trudeau airport on Monday evening for a long stop over in Heathrow, London, and arriving in Blagnac airport in Toulouse Tuesday afternoon. After a day in the city, I walk. Having been raised on the move, the feeling of departure is natural to me – I have few of the emotions that many expect me to have. I am certainly excited to be doing something which I have been irresistibly called to. I am certainly frightened to be travelling alone extensively for the first time in my life. But ultimately I am calm. Perhaps because I have been preparing myself for this moment for years, perhaps because movement has been so integral to my life, perhaps because the full reality of what is happening has not fully settled upon me, or perhaps because there feels to be a certain inevitability to this trip, I do not know. Different from other trips I have done which have been with my family or to volunteer, this trip is quite personal, just as my spirituality has been quite personal. This trip is a spiritual journey, something of which there is little casual dialogue in today's society, and I have little framework to analyze it or to formulate expectations around it. Despite this, I do intend to share this experience with any of you who would like to be a part of it. This is a journey that we can take together, if you like. "...he saw two brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him." - Matthew, 4:21-22 I have been called, so now I will walk !Via con Dios! Bradley Clements Ottawa, Ontario