Dear Readers,

Welcome back. This month, we share a second excerpt from the travel journal of InHabit’s Travel Studies Consultant, Jennifer Wieland. Jen, a former travel designer with Butterfield & Robinson, lives in London, UK, and her role as an international educator has allowed her to live in diverse locations such as Paris, Leysin, and Boston. Her travel journals are filled with insights, serendipitous encounters, and moments of reflection that invite us to explore the world with open hearts and curious minds.

Through the pages of her journal, Jen takes us along her experience of the Camino trek. Her storytelling and contemplative observations paint a beautiful picture of the landscapes, people, and spiritual essence of this ancient pilgrimage.

Last month, in Serendipity on the Camino, Jen shared about her journey between Le Puy en Velay and St Jean Pied du Port, known as the Via Podiensis - part of the many pilgrim ways to Santiago de Compostela. Here, we continue on the next leg of her Camino to Conques, exploring what it means to journey alone while tracing the footsteps of so many others before her.

Enjoy,
Annie

“The rhythm of walking generates a kind of rhythm of thinking, and the passage through landscape echoes or stimulates the passage through a series of thoughts. This creates an odd consonance between internal and external passage, one that suggests that the mind is also a landscape of sorts and that walking is one way to traverse it….- for the motions of the mind cannot be traced, but those of the feet can.” - Rebecca Solnit

The gift of companionship

After walking almost 200 km from Le Puy en Velay to a day’s walk outside of Conques together, my beautiful new friend and soulmate, Zade, and I say goodbye. I plan to continue walking, but she does not. She has a different time frame, and other commitments. I give her a deep long embrace, praise her and wish her well, and she’s gone.

The transition to walking alone is profound. In some ways, I feel my path more clearly. Without Zade by my side, I now listen to myself more deeply, more consistently. I also replay conversations we had, hearing her voice and her songs vibrate through me. She is still a presence here, and I continue to be filled up and fueled by our time together. I carry with gratitude the gift and the joy of her companionship.

Solitude and self-discovery

I soon find a comforting rhythm in my steps. I notice that in walking day after day, something new stirs in me. A depth of connection and strength of communication between my spirit and my physical being moves me to care for my life differently. I am compelled to listen more intently to my voice within, and I allow my depth of spirit to guide me. From this connection and communication emerges a new, transformative mindset. I see and understand its flow: explore, diverge, converge, dream of change, and fill up with wonder. With this mindset, I find that somehow I believe, even in moments of physical and mental despair, that I will be led to peace, to revelation or epiphany. Everything feels right. All will be well.  

It seems advantageous to be walking alone now. My responses to the world can at times be moulded by those I have around me, but today I don’t temper my curiosity or seek to fit in with anyone’s expectations. I feel so aware of the ways I can be taken in by a need to adjust myself to others. But now, alone outside the village of Conques, I have no such concerns. Here, I feel free to allow other parts of myself to emerge. I clean the dusty window of a small chapel where I stop to say a prayer. Shortly after that, I stop again to sketch a row of mushrooms I see carpeting the path beneath me.

Returning

The sun is now behind the trees, the valley is in view. It's a warm, beautiful end of the day, but my knees hurt so much that I decide to walk backwards for the last 300 metres into the village of Conques, which relieves my muscle stress and changes my perspective. Considering a new point of view should always be encouraged.

I have been here before, but in a different way - years ago with friends, all of us oblivious to the Camino. We spent our time kayaking on the river and driving through to another place. Today, Conques feels like déjà vu as I stand still, aching. At once, I have  a sense of both having already been here, and of having never truly been here. I am caught off guard as two streams of thought collide.  

From a distance I see the towering granite walls of the great Abbey Church of Conques and catch a glimpse of the stained glass windows of Solanges. The pain in my knees resounds through my body. I breathe deeply through every step. I start to ponder what it was like for so many mediaeval barefooted pilgrims on this same path. How did they cope with their bodies rejecting the spiritual purpose of their journey? Their bodies and their minds separating - the suffering becoming utterly bewildering as they descend into the valley below to reach the Abbey Church.
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Tracing the footsteps of others

I lean down and touch the ground. I imagine the many who have traced the same path. How their feet must have been so worn and calloused, red and bruised, perhaps scarred and bleeding, with splintered, blistered, stubbed toes. And then my own feet feel relief; I am grateful for my rugged boots. I sense all of their traces so clearly in my mind’s eye and they dig deep into my soul. I am walking on top of layers and layers of traces, footprints. Suddenly I feel much lighter, as if I am being accompanied by all those who have passed this way. My self - my soul - is not separate from their souls. I wonder if I will ever truly feel alone again.  

I am tired and jubilant at the same time. I sit, rest and daydream. I am flying like a bird above the Camino; I imagine it like a tapestry sewn of various fibres. Many branches of different lengths and widths that open up into wide negative spaces, fields joined by rivers and gorges. Its curved shapes and wide negative spaces move as if in a sort of labyrinth, a stark contrast to the concrete and metal constructions of paved roads and motorways that now appear so far removed from nature. I float back down, down through the trees. The light dances through the leaves, the light and shadow playing together. My eyes turn to the Camino here beneath me, to the traces of the many who have walked before me. I am rooted in their footsteps.

My place in the whole

I am inspired by the words of the Swiss artist, Saype, who says that our lives and our actions are destined to become traces of our passage in this world, and it is up to us to know what to do with them. I am taken with the mystery of humanity and our place in nature; with our traces, our imprints, and the memory that survives in them. Our touching the world leaves traces. Traces help us understand the world, all that surrounds and encounters us, and our place within the whole.

I stand up and walk. My stride changes, I pick up speed. I am travelling on, adding to, centuries of traces. Traces left by earnest and sceptical, fearful and devout, peaceful and tempestuous believers intent on touching the relics of Sainte Foy in the great Abbey Church of Conques. They trust in a cure, they hope for an afterlife, they tend their wounds. For now, full of gratitude and awe, I look forward to a warm meal, a bed and a restful sleep.