INCHING TOWARDS BURGOS

I've made it through the long stretch through pinewoods that my guidebook mentions; it took a few walks to go a mere fourteen kilometres, a distance I used to do in a long afternoon.  My injury is slowly improving.   I'm using anti-inflammatories, so these walks have been enjoyable, rather than penetential.  The bush is alive with returning birds and burgeoning wildflowers.

As I tiptoed through the trilliums the other day, I found myself thinking it was like walking through a field of stars; it made me smile, since one of the stories about the origin of the word Compostela says that it comes from campo de stellae--field of stars.  The other story is a little more grisly and suggests that it comes from composita tella, which in vulgar Latin meant burying place.  Field of  Stars, Field of Bones...take your pick.  It was a long time ago.

So, anyway, while I missed out on beautiful views, blooming heather, and a medieval monastery, I have instead my very own field of stars, not to mention a swamp full of warblers and swathes of marsh marigolds;  a baby porcupine trundling across the path; a beautiful doe who stood to let me take her photo; and the scimitar-winged silhouette of an osprey; more wildlife in an afternoon than one might see in a month of Camino walking.

  I've been very lucky  to see wildlife on my walks in Spain; I've seen an otter, a fox, a rabbit, a slowworm ( a kind of legless lizard that we don't have here)  and multitudes of lovely birds, but such sightings were remarkable.  I can remember these animal encounters

 precisely because they were unusual. 

 Here just outside my door, I don't exactly take the wildlife for granted, (and I might be unpleasantly surprised if I spotted a bear), but nature is more bountiful.  I don't know when I might be able to travel to Spain again;the lockdown may continue until a vaccine is found; the communal living of the Camino will take some time to revive; who knows what a transatlantic flight will cost in the age of social distancing?  So, there may not be a monastery in my future, but I will have the temple in 'my' woods for a while yet, and it is there I will go to soothe my spirit and refresh my body.

Amen to that!