Noel Braun - The Day Was Made For Walking: Searching for Meaning on the Camino de Santiago

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Noel Braun commenced his working career as a country school teacher, then moved into a corporate career, which took him from Melbourne to Perth and Sydney. He has had a lifelong passion for writing and wrote the first words of his novels nearly forty years ago. After a busy career and raising a family of four, he has found the time in retirement to fulfil his long-held ambition and see his work in print.

Noel has published two novels: Friend and Philosopher and Whistler Street. He has also published a memoir, No Way to Behave at a Funeral, which describes his journey following the death by suicide of his wife Maris. He is working on other manuscripts and on developing a new career in writing.

Noel lives on Sydneys northern beaches. He is a keen walker and enjoys getting out in the national parks surrounding his home.

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First published in Australia 2013

This edition published 2013

Copyright Noel Braun 2013

Cover design, typesetting: Chameleon Print Design

The right of Noel Braun to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Braun, Noel

The Day Was Made for Walking

ISBN: 9781742983899 (ePub, Mobi)

Digital edition distributed by

Port Campbell Press

www.portcampbellpress.com.au

Conversion by

We are pilgrims on the journey

We are brothers on the road

We are here to help each other

Walk the mile and bear the load.

From The Servant Song by Richard Gillard.

The Way of Saint James

. A journey of the heart and soul

. In the silence and solitude, I might feel closer to God

France

Le Chemin de Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle

. Walk within you. Listen to my footfalls in your heart

. A thousand mile journey begins with a single step

. Javance lentement mais surement

(I advance slowly but surely)

. Dans le silence et la solitude, on nentend plus que lessentiel

(In the silence and solitude one hears only the essentials)

. La joie nest pas dans les choses, elle est en nous

(Joy is not in things, it is in us)

. May the road rise to meet you

. Vivre le chemin

(Live the way)

. Vis le jour daujourdhui

(Live today today)

. Ce que est trs dur rend trs fort

(What is very hard makes one very strong)

Spain

El Camino de Santiago de Compostela

. Reaching all the way to the heavens

. Because Im in Spain

. Its not the places you visit but the people you meet

. The voice that calls me, I hear at the deepest part of me

. No man is an island

. Im searching for an answer that may never be discovered

. Being in the present

. If the power of love was able to replace the love of power

. Like a crowd coming out of a football match

. Ive been to the end of the Earth and back

. If you wish to be sure of the road youre travelling, close your eyes and walk in the dark

I was shit-scared. My heart was pounding. My guts ached.

I could smell my own sweat.

I was in legendary Le Puy-en-Velay in the Haute Loire France and stood in the porch of the cathedral Notre Dame de Puy, striking in its dominance. I looked past the ancient town below, beyond the modern city to the surrounding mountain ridges and imagined over the horizon that Santiago and Saint James were beckoning.

I glanced down the long daunting flight of steps. I could think of no valid reason to delay, so, before I lost my nerve, I took my first wobbly step into the unknown. Id received my pilgrims blessing at the Pilgrims Mass where I prayed for St James protection.

With pack on my back, and pilgrim shell attached, I walked down the narrow street. A plaque announced that I was passing the spot where was born the Via Podiensis, the great route of pilgrimage towards Santiago de Compostela. A signpost indicated 1521 kilometres to go.

Only 1521 kilometres!

The day was Monday, 15 August 2010.

I was about to set out on the Way of Saint James, or in Spanish El Camino de Santiago de Compostela, or in French Le Chemin de Saint-Jacques de Compostelle. Its a long distance footpath with a difference. People have been walking it as a pilgrimage route for over a thousand years. I imagine that the 1500 kilometres route from Le Puy-en-Velay in the Haute Loire, France, to Santiago the supposed burial place of Saint James the Apostle, in the western part of Galicia, Spain has changed little in that time. Parts of it are now modern tarred roads, and many of the hospitals and other accommodation set up by religious orders along the way to cater for the needs of pilgrims have long disappeared. The practice of pilgrimage has been resurrected in modern times and todays pilgrims still follow the path taken by the medieval pilgrims; a route that passes through the same villages, climbs the same hills, crosses the same rivers and passes the same churches, chapels and cathedrals.