On the seventh day I left Los Arcos and Viana was my destination. It was only 19 km, but it seemed very long. I arrived quite in time around 3pm. Next morning started really interesting. I don’t know if I had mentioned it before, but I don’t ike to start early around 7-7:30. This morning when I stepped out to the street I saw a tiny feather flying in front of me, as I reached out it landed eactly in my hand. Someone said „your guardian angel takes good care of you!” I put the feather in my wallet and started off tired with heavy legs. After a while I realized there was no one around me. I reached a crossroad with no signs at all. My guardiand angel sent me help in a person of a tractor driver, who showed me where I should go to get back to the pilgrim’s way. I only walked 1,5 km extra for which I was very grateful! Later on that day I found a second feather on the similar ground just like the first one. I put that away too. By that night I found out the meaning of it, I lost the first feather, probably while I was paying in a shop, it must have fallen out of my wallet, but I got a second chance to remember that I am taken care of and for that I should be thankful.
The next two destinations were Navarette and Azokra. I’ve learned a lot during these 2 days. I had two things in my mind, patience and persistance. First of all I had to learn to be much more patient with my body. Everyday starts really hard, my muscles are stiff, I have to accept that I can not go as fast as I would like to, because I’d have to pay a high price for that. Second of all, you can learn a lot about patience with others, when you are locked up for each night with a bunch of strangers all from different cultures, with different way of livings.
The other thing is the persistance. I think our God expects much more persistance from me in all the areas of my life. I have the chance to practice it here in the Camino. It made me think about my lack of persistance in the past but also the other way around, the times when I was expecting others to be persistant and I blamed them when they were not strong enough. Maybe I just got back what I gave without realizing it.
I think the Camino will teach me how to be persistant. I beieve and I hope, becauseIf I want to be honest with myself I had many things in my life where I should have been more persistant.
I pray constantly until noon, then after the Angelus I stop to have lunch. In the afternoon it’s only the Our Fathers and Hail Marys without counting. Sometimes I just realize I started a rosary without noticing and sometimes when I am on a flat road not praying I kind of miss it.
I think of listening to music or audio books, I am sure the time will come for that too, but I have to be patient.
