THIS IS A SCENE FROM MY CAMINO NOVEL-IN-PROCESS. PLEASE SEE THE FIRST EXCERPT, “THE MESSIES,” WHICH INTRODUCES THE NOVEL AND WHY I’M POSTING THIS WRITING IN ITS RAW STATE.

Martha is walking. Always walking. Although the sun is shining, for now, yesterday’s rain is still very much present in the deep Meseta mud and the puddles. Her shoes are muddy. The hems of her pants are muddy. Her mood is muddy.

What the hell am I doing out here? Martha thought, not for the first time and almost certainly not for the last time.

“You’re here to heal,” said the Voice.

Oh, God. Not you again. And what does healing look like? Healing looks like wholeness, and connection to Source, and health. So that’s wholeness, holiness, and health, right?

The Old English root* is very happy right now. As she walks, she takes those words one by one.

Wholeness. Opposite of split apart. When something’s whole, everything is attached and doing its job. Wholeness has good boundaries – intact boundaries. There’s an “in” and an “out.” I know what is inside me and what’s not inside me. I know what’s me and what isn’t me. And I feel and am aware of ALL of me. I don’t split off the shadowy parts – the parts that remember bad stuff and feel shitty.

 And what does “feel shitty” mean? It means feel sad and hurt and small and powerless. That sounds like childhood stuff. Wholeness means feeling the feelings of the little girl hearing her brother being beaten; watching her dad drive away with her cats to the pound; losing her dad, brother, sister, and mom – oh, my – that’s deep pain. And no one saw me. No one cared. It’s the anger at being powerless and invisible, too. So “wholeness” means welcoming and loving those memories and that knowledge. Wholeness is gathering in ALL of me in and feeling those feelings. Wholeness is care for ALL of me – body, mind, soul, emotions.

Walking and thinking. Thinking and walking. That’s Martha’s Camino, today.

Holiness – knowing I’m going to die?! Being open to the More in which I live and move and have my being. Trusting what I know from that place in me that’s connected to ALL THAT IS. Holiness is fostering that connection, or is that “health”? Health is everything I do that fosters holiness and wholeness. And there’s actually a lot of overlap between wholeness and holiness. Holiness underlies wholeness. Holiness is the foundation of wholeness. Wholeness without holiness is struggle. It’s knowing that I’m held in Love that makes wholeness possible – it’s faith in the ultimate okay-ness that allows me to invite the memories and the old feelings back into the light. The submerged and frozen feelings – like a chest freezer in my chest! A good place for a chest freezer, right?

She is suddenly afraid of her post-Camino life. Eventually she’ll have to stop walking, right? Eventually she’ll get to Santiago, or Finisterre, or run out of money, or her body will give out somehow, and she’ll have to face her future. A wave of panic sweeps through her – heart racing, breath shaky, hands quivering, skin sweating – what will she do with herself when this is over?

The Voice asks a question: “Sweetheart, what do you WANT to do?”

And she knows that the roots of the panic are in the old tension between doing what she thought she should do and what she wanted to do. It’s been a long time since she’s known what she wants to do. Really, truly, deep in the core of her being wants to do. A very long time.

Martha understands her job now: pay attention to what she really, truly, deep down in the core of her being wants. And the parts of her that she split off – the girl with the sadness – have wisdom for her. The girl who knows what she wanted got left behind – frozen in the chest freezer – for safekeeping, it turns out. She’s there, along with powerlessness, invisibility, anger, and deep hurt. She’s so sad and wounded. She’s lying in there, all curled up, covered in frost, eyes closed.

If I thaw her out I’ll be a crazy person. But she knows what I really, truly want deep down in the core of my being. She knows. Did I put her in the freezer? No, I did not. I didn’t know she was there. I didn’t know I was there. She’s a part of me.

 Okay, then.

Martha walks off the path and sits on a rock in the sun. She reaches into the chest freezer and picks up the frozen girl child. The child is solid and sturdy. And cold. So cold.

Martha cradles this girl to her body, gently stroking her, putting her warm cheek against the child’s frozen face, and waits. Hours pass. She notices, for the first time, that she’s surrounded by bright red poppies. Poppies everywhere, white daisies and sky-blue cornflowers mixed in. The Meseta breeze blows. The flowers sway. The trees in the distance move, too, and she feels the warm air on her skin.

* Our modern English words heal, health, whole, and holy all find their root in the Old English word hāl, which means “healthy and entire.”