For those of you who have not yet heard of the musician or the album, I would like to use today’s post to introduce you to Camino by Oliver Schroer, an album which I highly recommend. The cd comes out of a pilgrimage that Oliver, his wife, and some friends went on in 2004. As explained on his website, they walked 1000 km of an eleven hundred year old pilgrim trail through France and Spain known as the Camino de Santiago. During the walk, the music on this album–that primarily of Oliver playing his violin–was recorded. This is powerful music to be sure.
As I have confessed to a few friends, I have often fantasized of playing this album out into the neighbourhood one still summer or autumn night. (Recently, I thought New Year’s Eve would be another wonderful time to do this.) I have imagined the music arriving in the ears of backyard and balcony dwellers, in the kitchens and bedrooms and living rooms of people with their windows held ajar. I have imagined people might stop what they were doing then and just listen and that there would be something very special, very moving and touching for them in the experience (kind of like the man who played the penny whistle outside in my neighbourhood a month or so ago). I’ve also imagined doing this somehow when the power is out, because I find that power outages in the summer can be special times–it seems to draw people out of their rooms and walls and into the fresh air, into conversations over the soft glow of flickering candles and the hush and stillness that takes up space in the absence of the usual electrical whirring and hums. Of course, I realize that some people would likely not appreciate my gesture and it could significantly annoy some people. Consequently, I expect I would hold back. Still, I like to imagine the potential beauty of it, if for no other reason than it pleases me and is filled with magic and love.
The liner notes to the album are a wonderful read. I want to share with you a brief excerpt from the English version of the notes, which are also available on Oliver’s website. Peter Coffman, one of Oliver’s friends who went on the pilgrimage and who took several photographs along the way, wrote of El Camino the following:
El Camino. The Road. The Way. It is a metaphor for a spiritual voyage, an inward journey symbolized by an outward one.
But it is also a very real, very physical path. It is a muddy trail through a forest. It is a hot, dusty line slicing through a parched landscape. It is a country road hugging the edge of a river gorge. It is a cobblestone lane through a medieval village. It is the hard, concrete shoulder of a bleak highway. It is a row of stones crossing a stream. It is continuous, unbroken, yet changing in shape, colour, texture, mood. The one constant is the sound of footsteps — the heartbeat of the pilgrimage.
I love that description and the last two lines. Thank you Peter Coffman for writing that.
I think a lot about the journeys people take, make, and find themselves on and about the idea of journeys, individual and collective ones, the fullness of them, the twists and turns. I think about one’s inner life (and outer life), the ups and downs, the changing weather and landscapes, as well as about that idea of some constant or constants–some thing or things that are with us throughout, most surely our own breathing, one breath at a time, and our own feet stepping along whether literal or metaphorical. I think, among other things, of the moon as one of these constants for me, of the moon as one example. I have many images and memories of the moon’s presence as I have walked along.
I wonder tonight as I type alongside my cat and two flickering candles about what your journey might be like, what is happening right now, what has happened already, what hurts, what feels good, what is unfolding or yet to unfold. I reflect upon the journeys of people I know and people I don’t know. I feel quieted and moved and also a sense of connection. I tune in to the rhythm of my breath, and the image of the moon, and of the sound of footsteps walking. I wish to greet you today wherever you are and exactly where you are at in this moment. Namaste.
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