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CAMINO STAGE 21: El Berron to Oviedo Camino Primitivo Route of El Camino De Santiago. 10 miles, day 22, 15 days to go

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September 2021 kicked off a Jubilee or Holy Year. It is a year where the nobler human attributes of forgiveness and reconciliation, peace and solidarity are encouraged. These Jubilee years, mentioned in Leviticus in the Old Testament, occur every 50 years.

We arrived in Oviedo, the capital of Asturias, to join up and converge with the original Camino De Santiago route, Camino Primitivo, in the thick of the Jubilee celebrations. As pilgrims stopping at the Oviedo Cathedral, to get a sello or stamp on our Camino passport, we were greeted with lights, decorations and music to inspire us while walking the Camino during a Jubilee year. Afterwards, standing outside the cathedral, pondering how our lives could intersect with the original Biblical Jubilee celebration, a Francisco Goya painting on a banner at the Oviedo Fine Arts Museum next door caught my eye. I had just visited a Pablo Picasso exhibit in València a month before where Picasso paid homage to Goya by copying and reinterpreting Goya’s original 33 bullfight paintings, La Tauromaquia, into his own 26 brush drawings. Bullfighting, brought to Spain originally by the Moors, is a symbolic dance or fight between man and beast, and man vs himself. The Jubilee year, in that vein is also a fight against the beast in us—at odds with others, God and self, and to find reconciliation with all.

“Art, through its creative power, may trigger reconciliation and harmonization between individuals and peoples. Through art, beings can meet and exchange their points of view, as it rules out alienation, and arouses understanding. By definition, art is universal and helps to cross borders and barriers without prejudice.”

Erik Pevernagie

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Fighting and struggling against each other individually and collectively seems to be the original human condition, Cain vs Abel, Jacob vs Esau, Christianity vs Islam, political parties against each other, generations blaming each other—everyone is exhibiting bullish behavior. Applying Picasso’s methodology during the Jubilee year, and viewing each other in original ways, with new eyes, can we reinterpret them and ourselves and find middle ground? Can we make peace and converge on the original path of walking uprightly and justly side by side? Isaac’s twin sons Jacob and Esau, both enemies from childhood, as Jacob “stole Esau’s birthright” were able to reconcile and get along in later years — can we too coexist peacefully together?

“The arts represent one of the few areas in our society where people can come together to share an experience even if they see the world in radically different ways. The important thing is not that we agree about the experience that we share, but that we consider it worthwhile sharing an experience at all. In art and other forms of cultural expression, disagreement is accepted and embraced as an essential ingredient.”

Olafur Eliasson

It was interesting to us that in a Jubilee year, people are to “return to their families.” We just visited the Basque Lands of Steve’s grandfather, essentially “returning to family.” Our thoughts have also returned to him, thinking of the struggles he endured. Our original thought process moving to Spain was to find some of Steve’s ancestors but now in a Jubilee year, a consecrated or dedicated year, and we are redoubling efforts to family by doing genealogy.

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“Be original and explore new roads.”

Nanette Mathews

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“You were born an original. Don’t die a copy.” John Mason

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One of the people we met on the Camino is an artist who takes broken tiles from friend’s homes that are being remodeled and makes them mosaic backsplashes behind their stoves and sinks. The images she creates are incredibly intricate and lovely. This adventure on the Camino, walking beside diverse “broken” pilgrims, struggling with disabilities, missing limbs, illnesses, heartaches…has been an exercise in seeing the original mosaic pieces we each are and how we fit together to make a beautiful art. We all need each other, different opinions, thoughts and all. How we interact is constructive or destructive. Chose original kind reactions when faced with unoriginal hate and anger. Chose a Jubilee year of reconciliation and peace.