…SO THINKS…

Stage 39 / Thursday 4 June / From Arzacq-Arraziguet to Argagnon / 39 km

 

Oh, the pleasure of finding undulating terrain again after the flatness of the Landes! And the cabbage soup [garbure, a local dish], no doubt about it, is a carburant! This pot roast of pork, bacon, and goose-liver has given me such an excess of energy that I’m almost going to cover two stages in one today. This energy will also feed my brain, because it seems to be proven that the act of thinking (or dreaming!) releases a certain level of cerebral energy. That invites me to think about what is thought! No doubt: it affects the gray matter of my brain! It’s indeed there that I hurt, a headache, after an intense period of activity reflecting on one subject or another. Modern science, with cerebral imaging, has even been able to indicate the zones of the cortex which emit rays during such an activity. Does that mean thought is not a purely neurobiological phenomenon, localized only in the brain?

 

Firstly, let’s return to the word “image”: what goes on in my little brain, when I think, is an image, a representation of reality such as it exists elsewhere, outside the brain. It’s a reconstitution, in its way, of something exterior. Even if in writing this I think I’m catching a bit of reality, how else can I be sure of this? How can I escape from tinkering and clever strategies, concocted across the neurons and synapses of my cerebral cortex? If my brain only composes pictures enabling me to adapt to everyday life, how can I be sure of the true reality of my life? And if it creates images, religions, myths, and who knows what else, however constraining or splendid they may seem, they might only be trickeries!

 

Secondly, when I am thinking here and now, it’s the cortex of my brain, the peripheral region of cerebral hemispheres of the body in which I live that organizes a mental construction in me. But might there also be an outside source making my thoughts blossom, by magnetic resonance or some other phenomenon as yet unidentified?

 

The energy generating ideas in my brain might be doing this from what it has known and experienced. But this same energy can invite this same body to perform acts which are not part of its knowledge and experience. Like this setting off to Compostela! My body becomes thus an object of concern in my thoughts, the idea of a pilgrimage combining with a hope that once there, I will think more correctly than before my departure! If not, what’s the point of this effort? It’s difficult to believe that this hope born in me, which lives in me (step by step) as I advance, and which becomes concrete in these abundant notes, finds its origin solely in my experience.

 

I dare to imagine, therefore, that my brain is capable of thinking beyond pure vitality. My brain has a capacity for openness which makes my thinking not only empirical, but also speculative. I weave between the rigor of experience and the wager of beliefs that come from elsewhere. “A pilgrimage,” I had read, “never leaves you as you were before: it transforms you.” Again I see the image of my stages as columns planted one after another in the slow building of an imaginary cathedral. Oh intuitive thought of this holy structure, you are indeed able to elevate me—which I have desired from the start! For if arriving in Santiago, the cathedral of my thoughts will count as many columns as stages completed, this will indeed be a grandiose building! Surely more imposing than the discreet oratories or timid chapels encountered along the way…

 

Thirdly, all this energy swirling in my head, which organizes my empirical thoughts and discovers my intuitive thoughts, can it not act as a mirror, reflecting, overflowing? That is to say, can it not have an influence on the outside, on other beings, or even further away. If there has been a magnetic resonance in me, can I not also be a source of resonance beyond myself? To have an energetic, undulating, vibrant action which functions at a distance – who knows? Can one not see a conjunction of such reciprocal influences in the sudden acclamation of a crowd, in the rhythmic applause at a concert? My thought therefore functions not only on its own but also under other influences that I receive consciously or unconsciously! And thus I feel still more comfortable with the much-debated idea of telepathy …