Today is Day 29 of our Camino. The Way has felt hard. And I feel so blessed to be here. This poem of David Whyte’s has bubbled its way to awareness these last two days as I have walked through western Spain — over mountains, through tiny villages and cities, and among vineyards and cherry orchards.

Sweet Darkness

When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your womb
tonight.

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.

You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

— David Whyte
from The House of Belonging
©1996 Many Rivers Press

The Camino has provided space and opportunity to realize that I have cluttered my life with things and people and activities that do not bring me alive. The Way is so huge that the smallness I have allowed is starkly apparent. I am seeing into my heart — seeing glimmers of the things and people and activities that are life-giving for me. I am learning in my innermost being that my heart, Earth’s heart, and God’s heart are one and the same.