Althea Hayton

Camino Tales

Stories and more from

“Walk With Me - the pilgrim road

to Santiago”

About these stories

Before I set off on my pilgrimage to Santiago, I had been working as a volunteer with a local radio station and had learned a great deal about sound recording. As I am a writer and find it easy to create little stories of various kinds, it occurred to me that I could make recordings of my journey as it happened to me, concentrating on the inner, spiritual journey. As far as I was aware at the time, in 2005, this had never been done before.

I thought the result may be of interest to people who had made this same journey, or were planning to do so. I was particularly interested in reaching out to those who would never be able to make such a pilgrimage. I wanted to convey the actual lived experience, stage by stage. I knew that audio was going to be the best way to share my journey with other people.

Before I left, I made many long walks with my heavy knapsack filled with bricks to strengthen my back. On each walk, I

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wondered what story I could tell that could illustrate any point of personal development or spiritual growth that may emerge. By the time I was ready to set off for Spain, I believed that I would be able to find thirty stories. It would be a big challenge to find something interesting to say every day, but I was confident I could do it.

For my recording equipment, I used a Sony minidisc recorder, a lapel microphone and a pair of little earphones. All this, plus a supply of minidiscs, I was able to fit into my waist bag.

On the first evening I tried to make a recording. but I could not find a place with no people around and as little noise as possible. I gave up and decided that I would live out each day’s walk, evening activity and night’s sleep and make a recording early in the morning each day, reflecting on the previous day.

In this way, every day I was able to made a daily reflection on the inner journey I was making, drawing directly from my experiences.

When I returned home, the recordings were expertly remastered for me and made into a set of 30 seven-minute recordings. The result did not turn out to be a personal travelogue - of little interest to others - but the archetypal story of the spiritual journey, which anyone can share.

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1. Making a start

2. Forgiveness

3. Slowing down

4. Empty days

5. Pain

6. Believing in your capacities

7. Peace and simplicity

8. Wisdom

9. Silence

10. Hastiness and care

11. Trust

12. Avoiding pain

13. Facing the pain

14. Sharing the pain

15. The meaning of the journey

16. Impossible dreams

17. Surrender

18. Healing

19. Friendship

20. Death

21. Regrets

22. Spiritual growth

23. Giving

24. Not counting the cost

25. Privacy

26. Sin and forgiveness

27. Personal inadequancies

28. Unreasonable expectations

29. Freedom

30. The end of the journey

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The stages

The man with a cart [Beginnings]

This is a story about a man with a cart and he was on a journey to the end of the road. It was a very beautiful cart and it was decorated with colourful ribbons. It was pulled by a little horse that was pure white. Everybody

loved to see that horse coming along the road.

The man with the cart was a generous man. He was prepared to let anyone who needed to, ride in his cart. He was going along the way to the end of the road, when he

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passed a very thin old man with a very heavy bag. He leaned out of the cart and offered this man a ride. Oh! He did look grateful! He got into the cart and off they went. Then he saw a very fat man who was struggling to walk and feeling very hot because he was so fat. So the man with the cart smiled at him and said, “Would you like a ride?” The fat man climbed into the cart and looked very relieved.

The thin man and the fat man looked at each other and thought, “Now we are having a ride along the road and this man has been very generous to us. But why isn’t he giving the other pilgrims a ride?”

So they asked the man in the cart, “Why did you not give the pilgrims a lift?”

The man with the cart smiled and said, “Oh, these pilgrims are fine and healthy! They have good strong legs. They can walk the walk. You were having great difficulty, so that is why I have given you a ride. In the end, we will all reach the end of the road. Some of us will walk and some of us will ride, but we are all going the same way. We are all going together.”

So the man with the cart, with the beautiful white horse and the ribbons blowing in the wind, rode on to the end of the road.

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The Birthday Present [Empty days]

There was a woman called Colette and she was having a birthday, and her best friend in all the world gave her a present. It was a very ordinary cardboard box with a lid.

As soon as she had it in her hand it was clear to Colette that there was nothing in this

box. It felt very light, and when her f r iend wasn’t looking she gave it a little shake to see if the thing inside was so soft and so light that you could hardly feel it. But really, it was empty.

Colette was bitterly dis-appointed and she put the

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box on the side and left it there.

Her friends kept asking, “When are you going to open your birthday present?” But she didn’t want to be hurt even more than she had been, by lifting the lid and proving that there was nothing in the box. She would rather not lift the lid and in that way always keep the mystery of never quite knowing.

Eventually Colette was ready to take the lid off the box. So her friends gathered around her. She took the box off the side and put it on her lap and summoning all her courage, she took off the lid. It was empty. Or it seemed so.

I n f ac t t he box was absolutely full to overflowing with the love of her best friend for Colette. As the lid came off, the love bubbled up over the side of the box. It spread over Colette, over her friends and into every corner of the room.

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The Tale Of Two Caterpillars [Self belief]

This is story about two caterpillars, called Carla and Carl. Carl was a big, brown caterpillar and Carla was a big, green caterpillar. They crawled around on the forest floor and didn’t do an awful lot more than just eat.

Then one day Carl became a chrysalis. He turned - as he would eventually - into a

beautiful moth, with orange blotches on his wings. He flew away. Carla was left wandering around the forest floor, wondering when she was going to become a butterfly.

She went to her friend the grasshopper and she said, “Grasshopper, what can I do? I’ve waited for such a long

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time. Carl has turned into a moth and I can’t wait to turn into a butterfly.”

The grasshopper looked at her wisely and said, “Go and look in the pond.” So she did. She looked in the pond and there were the same face, the same eyes - but perhaps there was something a bit different about her body? Her body didn’t seem to be the usual furry green. It looked like it had stripes swirling round it. It was a bit different from usual.

She went back to the grasshopper and said, “I looked into the pond and saw there were stripes on my body and I don’t understand them.”

T h e g r a s s h o p p e r s a i d , “Maybe you are a butterfly.”

Carla said, “Me? A butterfly?”

“Yes,” said the grasshopper.

Carla thought that the grasshopper was absolutely stupid, because she was obviously a caterpillar and was crawling about on the forest floor! But then she thought, “If I was a butterfly - if I was able to fly - then I would wiggle myself like this…. and like this….”

Before she knew it, she was flying! She was swirling around in the air! She flew over the pond and there was an image of herself - the most beautiful butterfly she had ever seen.

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Maria takes care [Hastiness]

There was a pilgrim and her name was Maria. Maria was walking along the road to Santiago and she came to a very rocky part of the path. She wanted to be at the top so she started to walk really quickly, because she wanted to climb this difficult bit and get it over with as fast as possible.

But the wise woman who walked with her said, “No! No! Slow down, because if you walk up this path too quickly, you might hurt your feet, you might hurt yourself. “

So Maria had to slow down. She had to be very careful with every footstep.

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Eventually she reached the top of the rocky hill. She was glad to see that the top of the hill was open and wide. She said, “Now I can go quickly! I can see the city in the distance! ato be there!"

But the wise woman said, "Look down at your feet - see: what is there at your feet?"

Maria looked down, and there on the path were beautiful little pink flowers, growing straight from the earth and scattered all over the pathway. It was a beautiful sight. She stopped still in her tracks to take a look, and she thought, "How I am I going to walk forward along this path w i t hou t c rush ing t hese beautiful flowers?"

The wise woman smiled and said nothing, for Maria seemed to be learning this lesson for herself.

So Maria looked carefully at her feet and walked slowly along the beautiful pink dotted pathway, until she reached the other side of the hill. Then she could walk down into the city.

And the wise woman knew then that Maria had learned her lesson: if she doesn't take care on the rocky path she may hurt herself, If she doesn’t take care on the smooth path she may crush the delicate little flowers that lie under her feel wherever she walks.

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The way through the forest [Faith and trust]

There were two brothers and they were riding through the forest together and they didn’t know how to find their way. They woke up one morning and there was a fog. Everywhere they looked, there was white mist.

There were two things they could do. One was that they could stand still and wait for

the fog to lift and then they can go on trying the paths and trying to see the way out of the forest.

But they decided to try something different. They decided they would certainly sit very still, but they would listen.

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So they sat on their horses very, very still, and they l istened. And in the far distance they heard the sound of running water.

So they carefully found their way though the fog until they were closer to the sound of this water, and then they realised that it was a river.

And they looked into the river once they could see it, to see which way it was going, and they said, "Right! Let's follow the river.”

So very slowly, they rode along the riverside.

They noticed that the wind was at their back, as if it were blowing them along, very gently.

One brother looked at the other and said, "This is good - we can't see our way out of the forest, but we have the wind at our back and the river to guide us, so maybe that will be enough to help us to find our way home.”

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The Door [Patience]

I was walking along the path and I noticed what looked like a door. It was covered with ivy but it seemed to have the shape of a door. I was curious and I wanted to know how to get to the land on the other side. I pulled the ivy off and sure enough there was a door set into the wall, but

there was no latch, no handle - seeming ly no way o f opening the door at all. I felt very f rust rated because something inside me told me that on the other side of this d o o r w a s s o m e t h i n g wonderful - and something for me.

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So I scrabbled round the edge of the door to see if I could get my fingers into the crack, but there was no crack. Then I dug away at the earth at the bottom of the door to see if I could just see through that crack at the bottom of the door, but there was nothing to b e s e e n . I b e c a m e s o frustrated that I hammered on the door, and said, "Why won’t you open? Why won’t you let me through?" I wept and all I did was sit in front of that door and wait for some kind of inspiration for how I was to open that door so I could go through.

I was sitting there one day and I heard a voice behind me, and it was my friend

saying, "Come walk with me! Come talk with me!" I said, "No, I can't come. I want to see if I can open this door. This is such a wonderful door. If I can open it you can come though too!"

But my friend walked away and I thought, this is strange - why does my friend not want to walk through this door too? I sat there fo, dear reader, r another day and another day, ge t t ing more and more obsessed with the door. Eventually I just gave up and lay on the ground. I thought, "My life is over. my life is meaningless. Until I can get through this door, I will have nothing..”

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Still I heard voices behind me. I turned and there were my friends, waving and saying, "Come with us!"

Then a new idea came to me. I knew in that moment that the reason why I couldn't open the door was that it was going to open towards me. It will open when it's ready. So I turned from the door, took the hand of my friend and we walked on together.

I walked for 400 miles and held you always in mind as I walked and talked!

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A full day’s recording: (7 mins)

Stage 19 (Recorded on the way out of Leon)

THE MEDITATION

Well - not the most beautiful place I’ve ever sat to make you a recording. I am in an outer suburb of Leon. I’m surrounded by factories and waste ground and things that are broken down, but also bright new factories with lots of lorries parked outside. So - a mixture of things that are breaking down and things that are being built and things that are brand new.

And that is exactly where things are at the moment. Leon is a kind of finishing place for some people and a starting place for others. There are people who have begun their pilgrimage today and there are people who have left and gone home. For me personally that means I have lost a very good friend that I have got to know over the last week, and there was much tearful hugging and many tearful farewells. What was extraordinary was that two minutes after I had made my final

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farewell, another pilgrim came up to me and said, “I am alone and starting today. May I walk with you?”

So I was struck with the concept of friendship and how friendship ends and how new friendships begin. And this is a reasonable step for us to take, now that we have surrendered to the process of healing. We have decided that we are going to open the door and let the healing come.

This may prove to be the most difficult part of the pilgrimage for me, and quite possibly for you too, because we are going to have to maintain that openness, whether we have a busy life or not; whether or not we have problems. We are going to have to keep ourselves wide open to all the graces and all the gifts that the Holy spirit will send. Unless we are aware and open to them, we will ignore them. They will lie there right in our path and we will walk straight over them.

And friendships are a vital part of this process, which brings me to the issue of being alone. I think that being alone is the deep theme that always underlies friendship - why do we have friends anyway? We have friends so that we can share our lives with others. Human beings were not designed to be alone. That is certainly the case. We live in families; we live in communities;

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we live in cities, we are designed to be in social groups. That is how we were created. God created us to be together. There are so many paradoxes as spiritual growth proceeds. Until you have learned to walk alone, then you can’t really find a good friend. A good friend is somebody who you can stand with and walk with, but not somebody you completely depend on; without whom you are incomplete; without whom you can’t function.

A friend like that is bad for you, because when you are with that friend you are incomplete. So you need to learn to walk alone and recognise that you are complete in yourself. Only when you have got to that point can you make a friend and you will be able to stand alone in your own space with your friend, who also stands alone in their own space.

And I’m conscious on the Camino, as people walk, of this wonderful respect that people have for one another. Sometimes they want to be alone - as I do: I have to be alone to make these recordings, so I excuse myself from any partnership or group I am with. I say, “I must go and make the recording now” and I go. Then I might walk alone for quite a while because they have gone ahead, and I have to catch up. Maybe

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I catch up with them in a bar having a drink or maybe I don’t see them at all for the rest of the day.

And likewise, they if they want to be alone they say, “I think I’ll walk alone for a while”, and everyone respects that.

So here is something that might translate into your life. Can you walk alone? Are you complete in yourself? If you are not, maybe that’s something to work on for you. And if you look at how much you depend on your friendships maybe there something a little bit unhealthy - maybe you need to learn to live independently on your own.

Then you can come to friend and share your life equally with them - just sharing, not depending. That’s the critical thing.

THE STORY

And I have a story for you about couples - and these are not necessarily friends, as you will see, but it’s about couples. It’s a true story and it’s about me.

I haven’t told you many stories about me, but this one is.

Before I set off on this pilgrimage journey, I knew I would need a shell, because the scallop shell is the sign of the pilgrim.

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And I knew - because my friend told me - that pilgrims traditionally wear a shell, usually tied to their bag, so that wherever they go they can be recognised as pilgrims.

And it happens that in my cupboard in my own kitchen I had a little set of scallop shells for serving Coquilles St Jacques -(you know, scallops. I must say it’s something I love to eat but I’ve never cooked it. ) And there they sat, these shells, waiting for me to serve coquilles St Jacques.

So when my friend was walking the Camino and so was I - on different dates - I said, “I will give you a shell.” And I took two scallop shells out of the cupboard, nice white ones, and I gave one to her and I have one for myself. I drilled two holes in them and tied one of them to my rucksack.

I think you know what a scallop shell looks like. If you take one hand, put the fingers of one hand into a scoop and then you have an approximate shape of a scallop shell - and approximately the size of the one I have. It’s about the size of the palm of your hand.

When I put the shell onto my bag - simply because the sharp edge of the shell its was best if it was not outermost - I tied the shell so that it rested against my bag, as it were with the hand

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down. So if you turn your hand over and put in onto your lap with the palm of your hand downmost, that’s the shape that my shell was making.

And for the whole of the Camino until yesterday, that is where my shell was. I had no idea that this had any meaning at all until I recognised that everybody was carrying their shell the other way. I meditated on this a little bit and I realised what I was doing: I had concentrated in giving to others - giving advice, (well not advice exactly, but sharing my wisdom) sharing these recordings: (a lot of people have listened to these,) sharing my food, because this is the way to be a pilgrim. But what I had not been allowing anything much to come to me. It occurred to me that I had to make a change in my life. I had to turn my shell around.

So if you take your hand - now it’s palm downwards - if you turn your hand so the palm is upwards, what we have is two things. If you hold out your hand like that, you have an offering, as though you are giving something. But you are also ready to receive, - and its being ready to receive that it now indicates.

So hanging on the back of my bag, there is a shell turned from giving to receiving - from being closed to being open.

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THE PRAYER

Dear Jesus

We have opened our hearts

And we yearn for you to enter and heal and transform.

Please help us to open our hands,

To open our lives,

And above all to open our eyes;

So that we may see signs of your presence

And the gifts of your grace

Wherever we walk.

Amen.

More stories and reflections

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Copyright

This ebook is offered to readers free of charge but it is in copyright and under the authorship of Althea Hayton.

No unauthorised copying in any form is allowed without express permission of the author.

Copyright © Althea Hayton 2014

“Walk with Me” is a series of 30 meditations, stories and prayers

created and recorded on the road every day by Althea Hayton, as

she made her pilgrimage from Pamplona to Santiago de

Compostela in 2005.

Available as a set of 3 CDs with explanatory booklet

ISBN 09525654-7-1

For more details, click here

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