Virtual Camino: Mind Meets Road
Virtual Camino
Even if we managed to stay healthy this year, we’ve all had a few disappointments since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. How do people, some who have planned a Camino journey for months or years, face the disappointment of a walk canceled or postponed, potentially never to happen?
A former pilgrim recently posted that 339 pilgrims arrived in Santiago de Compostela on one day this year at the height of the season in August. 2,600 pilgrims walked into Santiago on the same day my son and I arrived at the Cathedral in August 2018. If you’re American you’ve been asked not to come to Spain, and obviously many other pilgrims stayed home this year, too.
The American Pilgrims on the Camino Facebook group is filled with positive reframing. Pilgrims confined to the home where they had hoped to start a challenging physical and mental journey are now providing creative inspiration from that very doorstep.
Some would-be pilgrims are carrying on with virtual Caminos designed to walk the daily distances they had planned, right in their own neighborhoods or on their treadmills, or sometimes a combination of both. The destination? The Santiago de Compostela of the mind.
They might have taken their cues from Phil, whose Stage IV cancer prevented him from following his dream to walk across Spain, so he crafted a path on his 10-acre plot of land on Vashon Island near Seattle.
After each lap, Phil plotted his progress on a Camino map. As he measured his daily steps towards the destination of Santiago, Phil found healing in the rhythm of walking. Annie Oneil produced the award-winning 2016 film Phil’s Camino about his journey.
Annie herself hosts a virtual Camino group where I “ran into” a fellow pilgrim I met on my 2018 Camino. The virtual Camino world is small but mighty.
One would-be pilgrim sent the money he would have spent on lodging directly to each Spanish alberque where he had intended to stay on the route; another is improving her physical condition for the time when she can finally make her trip to Spain. Former pilgrims are posting photos of previous pilgrimages and expressing gratitude for their memories.
As I scanned entries by pilgrims who posted photos of full backpacks leaning against chairs and empty hiking boots next to doorways, I felt hope for them. The lessons of the Camino begin the moment the idea is conceived. As I heard often from fellow pilgrims on the road, the Camino gives you want you need, not necessarily what you want.
Has your 2020 been a long list of despondent hashtags? Take your mind and your body on a virtual Camino through your neighborhood and into your imagination. Follow the virtual Camino and see where it takes you.
My virtual Camino has been a summer filled with daily walks, language lessons, dreams of a walk in 2021, and an August spent mining my memories to write this mini-guide I called Quick Prep for a Long Walk on the Camino de Santiago.
Whether you’re planning a long walk of your own or simply curious about how I planned for the two of mine (you might be surprised), I hope you’ll take a look. Be sure to let me know what you think.