No judgements on walk to Santiago

JUDGEMENT. It’s a word that reeks of self-righteousness and superiority yet still it’s inherent to everyday life. Judgement can be about people or actions and done consciously or sub-consciously but all told we do judge and we are judged.

I have just completed the Portuguese Way of the Camino. Whatever about the whys of doing it, what did I learn from it?

Our Camino started out as 14 women in Terminal 2 of Dublin Airport, brought together by individual reasons for walking the Camino. We came from different backgrounds, different experiences owning different expectations. Although some of the women I knew better than others, the majority of the girls I did not know at all.

We meet, we shake hands and we introduce ourselves. Of course we scan each other, suss out each other and form first impressions of each other too. Judgement seeps in.

Yet somewhere mid-air, something happens. The plane is full of pilgrims. The plane is full of hope. The plane is full of strangers who talk like friends. Our sharing of what is to come takes over us. There is no room for judgement anymore as empathy settles in; we might be on a plane but we are all in the same boat! So when we arrive, 14 women from Ireland are already a little different and the journey has begun long before a dirt track has been trod.

The Camino is a conundrum. Strip it back and it’s just a long walk undertaken every day. What is so special about the thing? I had a little of that going on in my mind before I left - judging before I knew. Yes it is a daily walk, some days longer than others and yes there is a stripping back; back to a simplicity too often denied by the complications of life. There is something magically simple about a walk being the purpose of the day. Although I got tired, I never got tired of walking. On my Camino, I saw no masks, no bravado and no jokers. Yet we laughed all the time. We cried too but you don’t have to do the Camino to know that the two are never far apart.

The ease of chat and the ease of solitude were interchangeable. There was no pressure to be other than what you were feeling on any given day. I learned about guilt, I learned about gratitude and I learned about sorrow. Idyllic as it was meandering in the sunshine amongst vineyards and lemon trees, it was the humanity that weaved itself through the countryside that stays with me.

I walked into Santiago in the company of 13 ladies on a journey that imitated life. I witnessed grit, perseverance, pain, dignity and determination. I learned about silent burdens and quiet heartbreak and I learned not to judge just as others did not judge me.

So all told, what did I learn from the Camino? I learned about life without judgement.