Who's Afraid of the Dark?

this morning on the Meseta

Well OK, I got a little dark yesterday.

It IS the Winter Solstice today, after all. It’s OK. It’s only natural.

Winter Solstice. I looked it up, and read maxims and meditations about the Earth’s axis, the “shortest day of the year,” farmers, crops, light, and of course Druids. (Druids and Templars apparently did everything that’s mystical or hip.) Everybody was really strong on the lights, candles, the twinkling brightness, hope against the blackness of the long, long night.

But then again, I thought, what’s so bad about the dark? Isn’t it just as real and normal as light? Don’t plenty of good, fruitful things happen in the dark? Don’t seeds sprout out of the darkness of the soil?

I commiserated with a friend, like me trying to analyze our anger at the way things are going nowadays in our countries. I told her to go someplace very quiet, shut the door, and let herself poke around at the base of her anger – what is it she is clinging to that no longer fits, that’s not real, that’s frustrating her?

   

She stopped me. Isn’t it sinful, wallowing in that darkness, letting those feelings take over? Isn’t it kinda… dangerous? Shouldn’t you always strive for the light, the brightness, the music?

I thought about that for a minute. I said No.

Babies are formed in darkness, and it doesn’t do them any harm.  We are formed of both light and darkness, equal parts – light and shadow.  If you never let yourself “go dark,” you will never find out what’s down there waiting for you. It might be a dragon. It might be Prince Charming. It might be the brainstorm that’s gonna change your life forever. It’s all You. But if you’re always busy with light, bright sweetness and chatter, you’re never going to pull that powerful stuff out of your Shadow and learn to use it.

 

the labyrinth under the trees, in Fall 

I walked in the rain out to our little labyrinth, on the Camino between Moratinos and Terradillos de los Templarios. The Ditch Pigs crew reset its stones in November, it stands out along the path, but most pilgrims never notice it. I walked the circle in, and then the circle out, praying aloud for my family, projects, country, town, health, and friends. I do that every Solstice, and every Equinox, four times every year. It keeps my inner calendar set. It reminds me of where I am in time, on the Earth, in a medium-size spiral galaxy of stars. How small I am, how tiny my life is.

How little it means, darkness and light, evil and good, seasons and solstices. We all are little solar systems in our own heads, full of daylight and dark, good and evil, intellect and idiocy.   

We gotta be patient with our darkness, and not fear our long nights and dark sides. God lives in the dark, too. That’s where she came from.        

Damp and Darksome

a summer storm in Promised Land, described in FFOG opening chapter

Rain roars on the roof and muddies the gutters. It stays dark all day. Outdoors smells nice in the mornings, but the rivers and rills and ditches are flooding. We kinda enjoy the excitement until our socks get wet.
The book is out, finally. It's doing OK, considering how slowly deliveries are moving. After all the rush and work, it's anticlimactic. I am low.   
I bought new winter gloves, and lost the left one immediately. Always the left glove. My left hand is cold all the time. 
I miss my children, and my mom. I miss a few things about Christmas.
I ordered a new English-speaking computer, and it was swallowed up somewhere between UPS and Spanish Customs. I had to cancel the order. My old computer, this old trusty HP from 2014, is almost dead. I have a shiny red Dell, but it doesn't speak English. And even after 13 years of full-on life in Spain, I still do not have fluency enough to drive a computer in Spanish.

Evil people have taken over in England and the USA. No one seems to know how to stop them.
I am on a wait-list for an operation to remove my gall bladder. Maybe after the operation I will not be so splenetic. We shall see. Meantime, it hurts a lot. I wish it was over. I hope I can get the operation before Brexit takes away my health coverage. Life is complicated.
Christmas is almost here. Pilgrims are coming. Very wet pilgrims. 
It's raining so much the sewers are backing up. Our upstairs toilet doesn't want to flush. When the wind blows, water comes in beneath the front door. 
The dogs are healthy. They sing trios every morning in the barn to wake us up. I walk them to the Promised Land, and they vanish into holes at the rabbit warren. They are having the time of their lives, undermining the fence that keeps them off the fatal four-lane Autopista beyond. 
At home, the living room is draped in cats. They are making Paddy unwell. 
I had new photos for this blog, but the server rejects them. No can do. 
We have a little plastic Christmas tree, and I have a few gifts to put underneath it.
Maria Valle and Joaquin invited us to dinner Christmas Eve.
So even with all the sad-making circumstance, we'll be OK.
The sun will come back.
It always has, so far. 

"Furnace" is Lit Up!

The stars are lining up. I drove to Rabanal del Camino on the feast day of Our Lady of Guadelupe, patroness of the Americas. (I am American-born, so she’s my girl.) Somewhere up above that terrific rain and windstorm was a full moon in Gemini, the last of the year 2019 — a great time to launch something new, I am told. (I usually leave the witches and fortune-telling and evil-eyes to the Basques and Gallegos and gypsies, but the coincidences lately are reaching Camino proportions!)

And so here we are in the warm lounge of The Stone Boat Inn, where Kim and I are launching A FURNACE FULL OF GOD, the memoir I have been writing for many, many years. Right now it is a trade paperback book of 246 pages, clear and bright, funny and profound, colorful and stark, it will make you laugh, it will surely make you cry (that was my specialty, back in my newspaper feature-writing days). There’s also a spankin’ new website that will collect all the blogs, non-profits, webs, etc. under a single umbrella.

If you have followed “Big Fun in a Tiny Pueblo” blog lo these many years, you may recognize some of these stories. “Furnace Full of God” is the story of Peaceable Kingdom, our house on the Camino, the pilgrims who stay there with us, the Holy Year 2010, and what happened that year to Moratinos, our tiny pueblo. It is spiritual, but not religious. It is deeply felt, but not mawkish. It is professionally written and edited, and beautifully designed and illustrated. I am very proud of what it’s become.

And now it’s become, here at Kim’s little Kingdom. The Camino even sent us Graham, an Australian pilgrim who’s a retired editor, and a curry chef! to keep the wheels turning and to act as witness, and to open the champagne bottle…

I know I am pushing the limit for Christmas giving, but if you order direct from Amazon, there’s still time! Order here for the first-edition paperback. Signed copies will be available from the shop at Casa Ivar in Santiago de Compostela as soon as possible. Kindle and e-reader editions will be available within a week, honest! And because you are already a Peaceable supporter, here’s a little Christmas bonus for you, a taste of what’s inside the Furnace: Chapter 17.

Woo Hoo!
Reb

Spain is in the House

On FaceBook I sometimes post what country is “in the house,” and often the followers enjoy a glimpse of life on the international pilgrim trail.  Today it is Spain.

The pilgrim arrived this afternoon, a taciturn Valenciano with pale skin and worn-down boots. His name is Pop. His Spanish has an odd French twist to it. He did not take off his hat, or say much more than hello. He had a cup of tea, and ate up the cookies I sat down alongside. He was gruff.

He greeted Paddy with a “You clearly speak no Spanish at all.”  Paddy surprised him with a reasonably fluent response, but nothing much more was said. Ollie shot me a look that said, “how rude!”  

We get the occasional Spaniard in winter, and they often decide to not stay here, especially if they are traveling solo. We try to make them welcome, but we clearly are too foreign for them, our house and company a bit too intimate for comfort. I thought Pop might move along, too, but he was clearly exhausted.

We let him get on with his shower and nap. Ollie made spaghetti Bolognese. I found some good wine in the little kitchen, left over from Thanksgiving.  Pop showed up for dinner.

He was transformed. Once he got his ear around our accents and some food in his belly, we chatted about Paddy’s painting studio, this week’s visit to a museum in La Rioja, the arts in Spain. And we learned that Pop is a professional puppeteer who travels from festival to festival doing “micro-theater,” 10-minute dramas performed on a stage the size of a bread box, using teeny-tiny marionettes. The audience watches through little peep-holes. He calls it a “Pop Show.” It originated in Brazil, he said, and it’s definitely adults-only entertainment.

And so our worlds expanded. We learned of an art form we’d never seen or heard of before.

Pop got a hot meal and some company after a long day on a lonely stretch of Camino.  He went to bed early, smiling a big gap-tooth smile.

      

I don’t like flags, or nations, or the concept of countries and states and tribes. I think those ideas have served their purpose, and are becoming obstacles now to our evolution. It’s time we stopped celebrating the things that divide us, and focus on what we have in common.

But it IS fun to scan through the pilgrim registry books here at Peaceable and Villa de Grado and see where all our pilgrims come from, what place made them what they are.

Tonight it’s Valencia, over east, along the Mediterranean coast.

Spain is in the house, along with Germany, England, and the US of A.  

Coming Right UP

No, I am not dead.  I have spent the last few months dedicating my energies to Peaceable Projects Inc., the US-based charity we founded two years ago.  I've edited three books with author Mitch Weiss, and just this very day released this to the whole world and a few thousand email contacts:   

Back in America it's Thanksgiving Day.

The Ditch Pigs Camino Cleanup is out on the road somewhere between Vilares del Orbigo and San Justo de la Vega, picking up trash in the rain.

Meantime, me and Kim are hogging two "office tables" in the bar at Hotel Asturplaza in Astorga, Spain, using their internet and friendly food and drink service...

"A Furnace Full of God" is now registered, barcoded, and posted on Amazon!

This memoir is the product of years of work: writing, editing, designing, drawing, and just plain living, by me (Rebekah Scott) and Kim, aka Stone Boat Midwifery, who made it all look so good.
(I think this makes us digital nomads!)

We still need to look over the final author copy before we make it public, and then we will post the final link and let you know ... and you'll have them in time for Christmas giving.

Walk in the Dark

I just walked in the dark down the road to the labyrinth, trying to settle my Christmas dinner deeper down into my stomach. I am keeping more fit this winter.  

I saw a star fall down. 

It´s been a very full day. The neighbors came over after Mass for a champagne toast and snacks.  A pilgrim was at church, so we brought her home with us. She was alone for Christmas Eve, but not now for Christmas day. She´s from New York City. She doesn’t  speak Spanish, but we made her  welcome. 

We ate an enormous pan of lasagne with fennel seeds in the sauce. Wonderful. (there is no ricotta to be had here, so I subbed-in smashed-up cottage cheese and mascarpone…wow!)  Greens from the garden, and some  Caldo Gallego from Maria de la Valle.  We drank dark red wine from Valdeorras, a gift from Laurie up in O Cebreiro.  Joaquin and Luca, Maria and Nancy from New York, Oliver and Paddy and me.  Christmas.  No presents, but lots of gifts.

It seems a lot more than average numbers of people are sending holiday greetings this year. Times are scary, maybe we feel the need to hug a little closer...  

There are some fine people in my life. 

We got a tree this year, a plastic one. It is very jolly, it makes me happy.

I am working on a book for AP, another sad and harrowing story. Kim has started production on “Furnace Full of God: Love and Death in a Camino Village,”  my newest book.   

Paddy is well, considering. He´s had a bad cough for months now, the doctors can´t figure it out so they simply say “wear a scarf,” or “don´t have ice in your gin & tonics.”  Paddy is sure this is going to kill him, but he´s been saying that stuff ever since I met him.  He is slowing down, and he cannot see so well, and he can´t always hear what´s going on, or maybe he´s just not listening. He is still dearly beloved.  He got a beautiful new black hat for Christmas, and he won an enormous basket of goodies in a lottery draw at the local tavern.  What more could he ask for?

Oliver is here with us again this winter. He is a great help to us.  The house stays much cleaner when he is around, especially as I am working many hours on manuscripts.                                           

Peaceable Projects is quiet these days since the Ditch Pigs´ big gig in Portugal.  I hope in 2019  to get the Memorial Grove better marked,  identifiable and accessible.  I meet in late January with FICS members who usually know who has pressing projects we can help with. 

So there is plenty to do now,  and the future is wide open.  And this year has been excellent, if a little hard on our hearts…   Harry Dog and Jean-Marc Kitty both  went off to A Better Place, and left big holes in our household.   

I am very privileged. My stomach is full, my house is warm, my neighbors are friendly. I can walk out in the dark alone and watch a star fall, and know I am loved.

Thank you all for making me so very, very rich.  

Rain in November

Paddy and Reb, at Stone Boat, Rabanal

A voice cries in the wilderness... A longtime reader wrote and said "Please write a blog entry!"
He asked Please. So here goes.
I am not in a writing kind of mood these days, even though there are a few things happening that are blog-worthy... especially knowing so many blogsters will write about their every eyelash, for audiences of thousands.

It´s raining hard in Moratinos, the pellet-burner, draped in cats, is humming away in the corner. We are down to three dogs (two of them ours) and four cats (two and a half are ours.) Someone suggested I write about how I name our animals, and why so many of them are from two particular villages in the mountains west of here. All our critters have human names, except perhaps Juan Carlos Gato, who I call Punkinhead. (Juan Carlos is not my cat, he just lives here for months at a time and is involved in a deep intimate relationship with Gus, in whom we hold a half-share.) It´s complicated. And probably very tedious to those who are here looking for Camino Tipz.

Ruby, Judy, and Laika 

 I know much of our fame is built on our connection to the Camino de Santiago. I still enjoy individual pilgrims a lot, we are still listed as a winter camino bunkhouse, but in the last few months I find myself ever more bored and ill-disposed toward the whole Mystique, the Mystery, the Tourist Commodity That Is The Camino. I am not suffering fools gladly, especially the ones who want to be my friend so they can somehow monetize me. It´s Camino that people want, but I don´t have a lot of it to give right now. That is why, I think, I´ve pulled away from blogging.

I am putting my writing chops to work for the Associated Press. I am helping an investigative reporter turn their long-term projects into book-length narratives.

The Ditch Pigs continue. We meet up on Sunday outside Oporto. The weather forecast says rain, heavy rain, and showers. We shall see! On the other side of that somewhere is a trip to Grado, Asturias, to wrap up 2018 at the albergue there. Milio, the magical guy behind the whole operation, has it all under control... I am not really sure what my role is, hospitality-wise. But I´ve been recruiting volunteers for next year, and the Power of Social Networking is working in my favor. I only need about four more people to have the whole March-through-October rota covered! I think that is why FICS keeps me around. That, and because I am American -- they need a few non-Gallegos so they can keep the "international" in the title.

We have a lot more Spanish volunteers this year, and Dutch. And one each from Bulgaria and  Uruguay!

The apartment and house in Torremolinos are sold, thank God. I am not sure why that was so difficult for me, knife-wielding burglars notwithstanding.

Ollie is here, right through December. His presence is directly due to a timely reading of St. Paul´s Epistle to Philemon. Being a Benedictine means spiritual disciplines like "Lectio Divina," a close reading of obscure scriptures and holy books. Which are by their nature demanding, character-wise! I am driven more and more to silence, and solitude. It looks a lot like my old nemesis Depression, but it is not.

At least I don´t think so.

Paddy is slowing down, slowly. He has a cough that the doctors do not take seriously, because he´s had it for so long. He cannot see very well, and his dicky retinas won´t let him fly in airplanes, and he doesn´t like walking for more than a mile or two. So if you want to see Paddy, you have to come here. He is still very much himself, but a bit worn around the edges these days.

And now I must go and make a pumpkin pie, and a pumpkin roll... Thanksgiving Day is Thursday, and we have company coming, and 16 tons of roasted pumpkin in the freezer!