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L’Esprit du Chemin a hostel of, for and by pilgrims
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the way as a metaphor
"To take the road" is a well known metaphor for life. For many people their decision to walk or bike to Santiago de Compostela, coincides with a special occasion or a new phase in their lives.
Routes to Santiago are being described and signposted for ever increasing distances. Many travel guides and websites provide useful information.
However, the other route -the path of life- seems to become more and more of a labyrinth. World-wide, things are developing faster and faster. Our societies become more and more complicated and traditional relations are under pressure. People are allowed, and obliged, to make their own choices in all this turmoil. That is why many people really appreciate it is a gift, when they have the possibility of stepping out of ordinary life as a pilgrim for a while.
Being on the road, carrying everything you need with you yourself, the nature, the unknown, the rhythm of the long journey, the being on your own, the meeting with other people, making your own choices - away from the well-known and the familiar. Those are wonderful ingredients for a profound experience. So, undertaking a pilgrim’s journey is an excellent way of becoming at ease, of taking the time to discover what really matters. Gradually, you can, in a natural way, come into contact with who you really are, with your destination, and how you want to reach it.
So, a pilgrim’s journey is a powerful metaphor for life and an experience as such, which triggers changes or strengthens us. In a separate chapter we tell you more about it, inspired by the work of Joseph Campbell and by our experiences as “hospitaleros” on “the road” (“el Camino”).
the road not taken ...
TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
by Robert Frost
the road
The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.
by: J.R.R. Tolkien
