…TO REBIRTH…
Stage 27 / Saturday 23 May / From Lascabanes to Lauzerte / 22 km
Yes, decidedly, I am quite rejuvenated since I chose to make the detour by Rocamadour. The fright I had had just before arriving there has contributed. When my pole no long supported me after breaking, I could have fallen into the ravine, and who knows what might have happened next! But I am safe and sound, and not only alive but feeling a new youthfulness to skip about on the path: it’s nearly a rebirth!
All this energy that I feel, resulting from nearly 3 weeks of breaking-in period into the act of walking, catapults me forward. And getting more and more used to the weight of my backpack, my legs are more muscular and seem to have better oiled articulations. As a result, in my head, the mill of my thoughts is turning full speed without concern for the body which supports it. The fact that I’m not progressing in resolving a good number of my questions bothers me less and less: on the contrary, that seems to me increasingly routine, almost boring. As if, paradoxically, searching is less tiring than finding!
This sentiment that I am born anew, this is not the first time that I feel it. It came to me at certain important stages of my live: the entry into boarding school — where I had to reinvent myself without the proximity of my parents; the arrival in the city where I did my higher studies—where for the first time I had at my disposal the freedom of an adult; entry into marital life – where suddenly my 1 became ½ (see explanation in 2 previous stages). Each time it took audacity and courage to face it.
And still today, my rebirth seems to be the near-conclusion of a better knowledge of what distinguishes an “adret” from an “ubac”, the sun-facing side versus the north-facing side of the same mountain (in the Northern hemisphere)! Let me explain: I feel like climbing toward something, I am still in the shadow and uncertainty on the north side, I don’t know yet what the other side is like. But I know I’m getting closer to the south slope, which will have much more light and a fuller view.
Two slopes of a single mountain, like the two sides of the same mirror, implying duality but also complementarity! One must dare to climb; one must dare go around in order to have a better overview. And this freeing audacity contributes to my rebirth, my renaissance! In progressing toward the top, I’m daring to leave my comfort zone of the flat valley where my intimidating catechists had confined me. Taking the upper hand, I dare ask questions about the “truth” of the religion they wanted to inculcate in me.
Trying to go behind the mirror, I risk breaking the smooth and well-behaved picture they wanted of me. So what, does it matter? I feel that I’m on the right path, where a more freely consenting adhesion will not necessarily deny my past inertia, but rather open me to a more enlivening, luminous and clarifying future. This future, will it scintillate more brightly like a star above a field? Campus stellae? Compostela?
I’m swimming in doubt again, but I’ve already trimmed down certain concepts. The majority of my thoughts seem to be oriented toward a bit more convergence. Except that an insidious doubt can easily arrive like a charging lancer. Can I truly be reborn to a more certain future without completely denying the past? And this past, if it were to be redone, would I know better how to direct it today?
What does it matter at the moment, these disturbing vacillations! Here I am at the foot of the Lauzerte bastide [a walled town] and I will climb it hardily, still on the same reinvigorating thrust. It will be good to make my Sunday stop there and find in this pleasant town the conclusion of this fourth week of my pilgrimage – where I’ve been called to better discern beauty and love, and to be reborn to happiness in sensing some kind of a presence alongside me …
