…IN BECOMING…
Stage 12 / Friday 8 May / From Le Puy-en-Velay to Monistrol-d’Allier / 20 km
Ultreya [onward], that’s the expression that pilgrims in the Middle Ages used to encourage each other on the “road to Santiago”, the path of Saint James. Perhaps from the Latin “ultra” (beyond, further), the word invites “moving beyond”, facing the difficulties that the future holds for you. Many of these pilgrims came this way, passing by Le Puy since the time when a bishop here, Godescalc, became the first recorded French pilgrim in history to dare walking to the ends of Galicia in the year 951.
Leaving on a pilgrimage, that means putting oneself into … becoming. It is to freely accept projecting oneself into the future with a distant goal that seduces, in order to extricate yourself for a time from a humdrum present, not always attractive, nor motivating. This is not to say that this choice makes you necessarily freer, for once the arrow has left the bow, it has got to reach its goal without changing direction. But at least, for a moment, the pilgrim that I am delights in the pleasant illusion that this is not a fantasy that leads him on to Santiago. He refuses to believe that this choice was perhaps entirely determined on a cosmic scale. From his point of view, the decision to get underway has seemed irreversible to him. But the act remains uncertain to accomplish, given the numerous setbacks which can suddenly appear and over which he has no control. The wind could deviate the arrow. An obstacle might arise.
Thus the past is full of unrealized futures which may weigh heavily, while the near future may be perceptible, a becoming to which I aspire, in the hope that it will lighten me. But I remain uncertain about the form it will take, this “becoming”, and I believe I am refusing to accept that this could be in fact what inspires me and makes me move forward! Is it really formed by my thoughts and desires, or is it that “becoming” which firmly directs my thoughts and desires as it wishes?
I anticipate my future with sufficient intelligence, with rigor in accomplishing what is planned today, but would I be better off in modifying this future to my advantage? Compared to the present, where I lack hindsight, I can only enlighten my becoming in the glow of past scraps that have earned me “experience.” Yet I feel quite incapable of living the moment precisely in order to guarantee myself personally the rosiest of futures. Ah! So marvelous would be the wave of the magic wand that would allow me to master past, present, and future all at the same time!
Would it be easier to put myself in a grander scale, encompassing all those around me, rather than just myself, and to predict their future during my lifetime and beyond? I doubt it. However, it is with conviction that some, like the visionary Teilhard de Chardin, dare to speak about a confluence point towards which all humanity would converge. Will all these humans reach this Omega point, before the agonizing sun carbonizes the earth as it becomes a giant star? If it comes to that, I am among those who would at least want to be able to descend in the flames with panache: since the end is inevitable, as much on the human as the individual level, I myself prefer to take my future in my own hands rather than giving others the opportunity to do so!
In the meantime, struggling to climb and descend, crossing the heights that separate the Loire from the Allier, I shudder to imagine the extent of the successive waves of hills I must cross on the path. I fear the steep slopes awaiting me, as much in meditation as geographically. Ups and downs. Exaltation followed by depression! While yesterday I felt utterly free, I find myself today rather depressed!
Momentarily ill at ease, I sit down on a stump to catch my breath, and here comes a TGV (high speed) pilgrim who throws an “Ultreya!” my way with a big smile! He’s obviously not asking himself questions about his future: he’s charging on! And here I am getting up and practically running after him … with panache! Who could have predicted this sudden burst of energy in my becoming?
