Train Of Thought

Train of Thought

‘The train on the move
Locks itself into the groove’
‘The Soulful Tread’ Gordon Haskell

Some quiet personal reflections that please me.
I feel I would like somebody to hear them, why?
Are they unique? No.
Can they be expressed in poetry? Well not by me.
A short story perhaps? No, not now. Want to get down some ideas
Almost as a diary entry except I have always sought to
understand things is a few simple words. So, some lines on PILGRIMAGES.
(Perhaps notes for a short story one day.)

Nobody who returns home after completing a pilgrimage says, after a day or two back, that it is as if he had never been away. Any questions one may be asked about the weather are irrelevant here. On a pilgrimage across northern Spain it will be hot, it will be cold, you will be soaked to your under clothes and you will stumble in fog.

Did you have a good time? Also not relevant. In the course of a 500 mile walk you will frequently be surprised, elated, angry, worried, lost, curious, weary and hungry. You will feel alone. You will be in the company of friends you met perhaps only a week earlier but who will know you better than people you work with. You will share meals and you will eat alone. You will sleep the best and worst you can remember. You will, I mean this is certain, feel freer than ever before.

As your legs swing like pendulums day after day you notice some changes. You lose weight of course but apart from the lightness, the rightness of walking (humans have a long history of this, you become part of a bigger family) your mind ‘syncs’ with your body. It’s a form of meditation bordering on hypnosis. And you are on an ancient track. In a sense locked in. This is the ultimate freedom to think.
Except it’s not really thinking – it’s experiencing. The newness, the adventure first and the awareness later. As you walk some things are clear.
You depend on others. If you walk alone it is possible only because millions have preceded you, wished you well, built a bridge or opened a café or a refuge for the night.

A human walking is very different from a human behind a desk. Here it is natural to neither see, hear, speak nor do evil. You exploit nobody, nobody exploits you.

You learn the right balance with effort and food. You learn the value of that balance.

You need rather less than you may have thought. This applies to both the material (make your own list here, mine starts with TV, expensive clothes) and immaterial (status, quick put downs, approval).

Illusions do not help your life. 'God' is in the small things. Notice them.

Wade knee deep in the world that your senses reveal and you are freed from worry, you can actually BE.

When you return and meet another pilgrim you will be able to share experiences, descriptions of routes, trees, buildings and – crucially, feelings, more fully than you can describe anything outside of your own garden that you have seen since you were a young child.

You will find that it doesn’t matter in what frame of mind you started walking, whether it starts as a pilgrimage or not it finishes be being one and

YOU WILL REDISCOVERED YOUR HUMANITY.