Masterpiece

CAMINO STAGE 27: Grandas de Salime to A Fonsegrada Camino Primitivo Route of El Camino De Santiago. 16 Miles, Day 29, 8 days to go.

It was one of those days—- my Spanish walking companion Amerika tripped on a rock in the fog and fell, and I helped her up only to step in a huge fresh pile of cow poop a few steps later as my eyes were on her to make sure she was ok. The poop was followed by a snake slithering right in my path. Dung beetles entered stage right and pushed more poop to my boot. I thought I must be out of sync and off step but the Spaniards walking with us laughed and said “no, stepping in manure is good luck on a Camino.”

Snake

Michelangelo’s *Pieta* & *The Deposition*

In 1498, when Michelangelo was 24, he spent a year sculpting Carrara marble to create his masterpiece the Pietà, which means. compassion. His mother Mary lovingly holds the Savior after he was removed from the cross. At age 72, Michelangelo sculpted his “Florentine Pietà,” The Deposition, that sits in the Duomo in Florence, also of Christ taken down from the cross. Michelangelo looked at his second masterpiece but was completely disappointed with it, especially the leg. So he took a hammer and broke off the statue’s lower limb. Thinking about what we consider imperfect in our lives, viewing the The Deposition made me reconsider the role of “imperfection.” The truth is everyday is a masterpiece and we by extension are too. We can view all the problems we encounter, the gunk we step in, and all that we don’t like about ourselves and try to chip away as imperfections, or view the imperfect moments, mistakes and cracks as wisdom learned and perfection. Walking on an animal trail and smearing green poop all over my boot may not have been an imperfect day at all because laughing with friends and walking through wet weeds, and wild flowers cleared the mess away, and in its stead a memory of sweetness and perfection was left behind.

“Discovering that place where your passions and strengths meet is the first step toward sculpting your masterpiece, Your Life.” – Michelangelo

By late morning we had climbed above the clouds and up to a line of wind turbines on the Camino. They were a bit too tall to have a Don Quixote moment of fighting windmills, but I thought again of the battles we do pick, the hammer we take to the imperfections in ourselves and how many times it’s wasted energy and the wrong battles. Shortly after we left the wind turbines and Asturias behind, we entered a new comunidad — Galicia.

Those happy, grazing, fertilizing cows we walked past at the beginning of the day made the best chuletón at Catro Ventos restaurant for lunch. It allowed us to eat and have strength to keep walking. Stepping in mess, really is good luck.