…DETAILING…
Stage 76 / Saturday 11 July / From Vega del Valcarce to Triacastela / 31 km
I have joyfully attacked the ascension of the last chain of mountains separating the province of León from that of Galicia. The path was winding yesterday in my detour near Padela under the cover of immense century-old walnut trees, then the vegetation became more rare: genêts now border the last switchbacks that lead to the O Cebreiro pass. Barely on the other side, western side and therefore more humid, there are rich stands of trees filled with carpets of ferns to welcome you. I have the impression of entering Britanny, and I understand how it was proven that the inhabitants of these countries, the Galicians, had the same Celtic origins as our Bretons. “Everything is connected!” it seems to me…
While lower in the valley swifts were swooping, I observe here immense flights of starlings. First it’s like a black cloud in the sky, constantly changing shape. It enlarges and shrinks according to their changes of direction. The birds are all united and grouped in their rapid flight. In certain turns, the cloud changes color and takes nuances more iridescent. The arabesques that these starlings design fascinate me. There doesn’t appear to be a leader of the flock. But it indeed seems that all the individuals respond instantaneously and with discipline to the same order: “Hard right, slowly to the left, steep plunge down, then slowly back up!”
Who is dictating this gracious behavior? From whence comes the order to which they respond thus in unison? To whose will do they bend? They emigrate harmoniously toward a destination to which their ancestors had already gone and where they know they will find lodging room and board! Without worrying about tomorrow, as Jesus wisely recommended to his disciples: “Look at the birds of the sky—they neither sow nor reap nor store up in barns. But your father in heaven nourishes them.” (Mt 6:26) That comes back to me from childhood catechism. They insisted that God is everywhere, knows everything, rules everything, in the least detail.
I rebelled later, not being able to see God like a Santa Claus entering at the same time all the chimneys of all the houses in the world to leave gifts for the children. How could he be everywhere at once? How could God penetrate every individual, and moreover every animal, vegetable, and mineral, each atom and each particle supposedly free and non-localizable? How would every act or gesture of my person be examined? Would it have any importance, what am I saying, the least influence?
And yet, I realize well that a certain omniscience of nature, in any case when I examine the universal law of gravitation, which seems well proven and unchangeable: the least change of position of a mass has an influence on another distant mass. Every particle is thus informed of the displacement of another particle, in a dynamic and unceasing interaction. Then, as the mystics say in their own way, why not admit that “Everything is connected!” and not only Galicia and Brittany … Admitting it would force me to envisage an omniscient God!
If I refuse the religious angle, this dynamic of the universe where everything is connected cannot have its origin beyond the universe, but only within the universe itself. Would movement then have always existed? The idea of a God resting on the seventh day, after having created everything out of nothing, would only be myth and invention. Can I imagine that movement is eternal, a constant of nature, period. Was the first new thing ever created already … movement?
Incapable of imitating the restless universe, I am suddenly overcome by fatigue. I stop walking and I rest for a moment in a lovely square of fresh and welcoming ferns, out of sight of from the pilgrims continuing on the path a few meters away. When I awaken from a little nap, I am delighted to observe the delicate detail of the ferns, the continual repetition of the same lines in perfectly precise symmetry, from the largest to the smallest. It is the movement of growth captured in a still picture. Yes, everything is connected, down to the last detail!
