El Camino and the Grace of Injury

Ani on July 24, 2025

Blessed are those who walk with attentiveness, consideration, and compassion for their places of poverty, for theirs is the kingdom of Love.

The rise and fall of the cicada song is my morning serenade today. Lying on my belly I see my green grass companions waving with the nudge of the breeze. The wind’s softness touches my face, too, and caresses my body with an affectionate greeting. Here we are vibing together—the Great We. Brother Sky is generously offering a fresh palette to paint, while Sister Sun is sealing everything with a warm kiss. I am gifting myself the space to integrate my El Camino journey. So, I am noticing and inquiring of some things.

El Camino de Santiago or the Way of St. James is a pilgrimage of devotion, traditionally penance, through various Spanish terrains. There are many paths that pilgrims or peregrinos may follow, and I journeyed along the route known as the Portuguese Way led by the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation. There were approximately 25 peregrinos in our group, including three leaders. We began most mornings with a centering practice, had breakfast, met for announcements, stretched, then headed out at around 8:45 am each day maintaining silence until noon. I wore a fanny pack geared for hikers, but most of my fellow pereginos carried backpacks. I was also equipped with hiking poles and a floppy hat. Our luggage was transported from location to location by a travel service called Follow the Camino. Most days we had breakfast and dinner together, getting lunch individually along the trail.

I notice that my heart is full of love and gratitude for this experience that felt like it was a metaphor for life. Situations arise moment to moment for which a response is necessary; posing the same questions as always, “How do I want to show up? What seeds within me shall I preference to water?” These situations also offer the opportunity to choose how I might be present to myself—to my thoughts, feelings, and intuition and whether I might validate and honor these. And just like in ordinary life, each day is a chance to pray and practice, to be lost in awe, to bow in reverence, and to awaken to joy.

My Spanish fifth great, great abuelo, Jean Joachin de Ortega migrated to the area of Louisiana sometime near the end of the 18^th century, serving in the military, and I notice that my Camino experience was enriched by consciously connecting to my ancestors of the land where I was walking. I imagined that many of them were devout, as I am, perhaps even Camino pilgrims. Just for the love of it and in preparation for my pilgrimage, I also studied the language of my familia de Espana. The practice of speaking their native tongue provided an access link to their legacy for me.

We had been encouraged by our pilgrimage leaders to train for about four months before we embarked on our walk in order to develop stamina, strength, and the ability to keep up a pace of at least 2.5-3 miles per hour. As I was able, I followed their recommendations. So on our first day I set out at a brisk pace, in fact leading the pack—that is until one of our leaders broke silence to call out to me that I was going in the wrong direction. I course-corrected and made sure to stay behind at least one of the pace setters so as not to go astray again.

The expansive stretch along the Spanish coast from Oia to Baiona is absolutely glorious, and I arrived at our first destination without difficulty. After resting a bit, I changed into my flat sandals and treaded down a steep hill in search of sunscreen in the bustling town strip. Suddenly mid-descent, I experienced a pain in my right calf muscle. The discomfort quickly progressed into what seemed like a calf strain.

Because the next day was my 62^nd birthday and the longest trek of the trip (approximately 18 miles), I was determined to tape up, wear my knee compression sleeve, and sally forth--which I did, keeping pace with one of our leaders for most of the day. By the third day, however, the pain had intensified, and I was unable to keep the target pace without extreme discomfort and a pronounced limp. So, not wishing to incrementally wander alone for the chance of losing my way, I asked the slowest pod of pilgrims in our group if I could join them. Hence began the lesson that most informed my pilgrimage.

My companions came into our shared journey with physical challenges of which I was completely unaware—from constant foot pain to shortness of breath on moderate exertion. Their pilgrimage entailed elements that might have dissuaded me from choosing to embark in the first place. For example, if I knew that I would have to make frequent stops to rest and catch my breath--meaning that what for others would be a four to six-hour walk would be for me a six to eight-hour walk--would I have even considered doing this? The answer is, "No." So, I caught myself casting them as “brave souls” because the context of their lives included physical challenges: the stark revelation of my ableist bias.

Then entered the term “inspiring” into my thought stream. Holy Toledo! I was thinking that it was especially impressive because these pilgrims chose to engage in this long walk despite their physical challenges. I was legitimizing certain physical capacities as normative! Rather than acknowledging that we all enter every situation with issues (seen or unseen) that provide certain difficulties to overcome, I was making them "the other."

How much of my life has been centered around the understanding of my capacities, my resources, and my beliefs as normal? Nevertheless, the both/and is that I have been conditioned, as we all have, into my default perspective. So the growing realization of this ableist lens came with a sense of self-compassion and compassion for all of us.

The reality, however, is that I am inspired by these fellow pilgrims, and I intuitively knew that I did not need to other them in order to be stirred by their role modeling. So I mined for the true basis of this appreciative feeling. And here is what I found: I am inspired by their patience, surrender, and resilience. I witnessed firsthand how they were patient with themselves and the process, how they surrendered to the steep inclines and declines undaunted, and how they woke up each day embodying resilience. Thank you, teachers; not because you do hard things within a context different than my own, but because you embody values to which I aspire.

According to ableism theorist, Fiona Kumari Campbell (2012), “At its core ableism characterizes impairment or disability (irrespective of ‘type’) as inherently negative and should the opportunity present itself, to be ameliorated, cured or indeed eliminated” (p. 213). What this means, in part, is that an ableist perspective normalizes health, effectively discounting the lived experience of people who do not have optimum or near optimum physical health resources. This viewpoint is akin to the normalization of wealth culture, Eurocentric culture, traditional gender roles, and Christian hegemony, to name a few.

So, pilgrimage initiated me into an expanded perspective. Not only was I awakened to the hardships other pilgrims were facing, but I also met my newly discovered ableist bias from an additional angle—my relationship to my own capabilities. The ability to keep the suggested pace was stripped from me with the advent of my calf injury. Now I was being invited to incorporate this circumstance within the umbrella of my pilgrimage. I was given the opportunity to release any judgment of my own ability to keep the pace. I lived the reality of the first shall be last. My physical poverty, so to speak, became a doorway to clarity.

After my day with the slower-paced peregrinos, I honored my right leg’s need for rest by ceasing the walk for 24 hours. Two of the slower-paced pilgrims also chose not to walk that day due to physical infirmity. This meant that one slower-paced peregrino would be left alone. But that ended up not being the case because a faster-paced peregrino sister volunteered to walk with the one that might have been left behind. This sister became the guardian of the Camino, a physically resourced person in solidarity with a less physically resourced person.

The next day, I was faced with the recognition that the only way to continue walking was to do so very slowly, as not to force undue flexion of my right ankle. If I walked slowly, the pain was at a two out of ten, with ten being the utmost pain. If I tried to walk at pace, the pain immediately jumped to a rating of eight. I was at a choice point. I could accept the reality of my injury or generate a narrative of self-pity and complaint. The fact was, however, that I was not on a hike or in a race. I was engaged in a pilgrimage. The only relevant question, then, was, “How do I want to show up?” I was given the grace to understand that my injury meant nothing about the quality of my pilgrimage. This was simply an opportunity to awaken to love, just like every other moment in my life.

As I was the last walker in our group that day—the physically poor--another more physically resourced sister volunteered to be the guardian of the Camino for me. She meandered behind me enjoying the gifts of the trail, staying mostly out of my sight. About an hour into the walk (during our silent time), she came up beside me and offered a lovely, bright smile to let me know that I was not alone.

Thus my pilgrimage became a slow, mindful prayer walk of many miles. It seemed like I was living out the Christian bible verse, “Blessed are the poor, for yours is the kingdom of God” (Luke 6:20). I felt this way because I received so many graces that I would not have received had I not been physically poor. For example, a kind woman about my age from Argentina slowed down to walk with me. She could not speak English, so I attempted to converse with her in Spanish. I ascertained that she had six children. She encouraged me to put on my hat because the day was getting hot, and when she eventually walked on, she turned around to remind me to drink my water.

On another day, a young Argentinian woman reduced her speed to walk alongside me for a while. She gifted me with a sweet love note written in Spanish by an Argentinian child (for the express purpose of distributing these notes to peregrinos). At a different time, a young, male pilgrim stopped to help me and some fellow peregrinos cross over a culvert. And because I wasn’t trying to keep a certain pace, I was able to stop to smell the flowers and to sit alongside other pilgrims to put my feet in a cool, clear stream. Certainly, I would not have received these visits, the love note, or taken the precious opportunities offered by my slow pace had I been travelling at a faster speed.

An additional grace of the pilgrimage came with a prompt offered in our listening circle one night: "What does God want you to know?" For the almost three years since my husband's sudden death, there were many days when despair visited me, and I felt so very alone. Yet my response to the question came immediately. Walking in my physical poverty now and entering the pilgrimage with the emotional poverty of grief, I was supported in every way by unexpected companions and sweet messages of caring. God, however we conceive of that Holy Mystery, was undeniably communicating that I am not alone.

After walking approximately 29 miles at pace and 46 miles very slowly over six days, I arrived in the square before the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela weeping tears of joy. There were bagpipes serenading us, groups of peregrinos singing, and an air of celebration suffusing the lively environment. When I went to get my credencial de peregrino certified at the Pilgrim’s Office in Santiago de Compostela, I could not answer the attendant’s questions without happy tears streaming down my face.  And sitting in the cathedral after that long, prayerful journey, I allowed myself to soak in the sacredness of my experience. Later I purchased a sterling silver ring in a shop in the square as a symbol to remind myself to attune with compassion to who might be poor in any given circumstance--whether physically, emotionally, financially, spiritually, or in other ways--knowing that I might be that person.

Blessed are those who walk with attentiveness, consideration, and compassion for their places of poverty, for theirs is the kingdom of Love.

Buen Camino.

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Dear friend,

May your mind be peaceful and calm,

may your body be relaxed and comfortable,

and may your heart be filled with love.

Thank you for reading.

Blessings and gratitude,

Ani

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Reference

Campbell, F. K. (2012). Stalking ableism: Using disability to expose ‘abled’ narcissism. In Disability and social theory: New developments and directions (pp. 212-230). London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.