Back to the drawing board.

I used to draw a lot. Then I got disenchanted, because the results often fell short of what I had hoped for. I also compared my work to other people’s, which is a foolish thing to do, though hard to avoid. But in essence, I got distracted by concentrating on a perceived goal - the finished drawing - rather than on the process and the activity itself. When viewed in this light, then drawing, like so many other things, can be a form of meditation. I owe that insight (or reminder) to my friend, the excellent painter Tom Young.

 London.

 Le Roux, France.

    Drawing of a swimming Polar bear, a beautiful sculpture by Tanya Brett.

In the Ashram.

When I returned to the UK after the walk, at the end of January, I was on a high. I felt incredibly light, like nothing really mattered, but in a joyous and playful way, rather than a nihilistic one. Everything felt like a bonus, and my everyday interactions (with everyone - friends, taxi drivers, supermarket cashiers) reflected that. Then I started to work on the upkeep and maintenance of my parents' house, and my childhood home, in Sussex. It has started to look a bit sad and neglected in recent years, despite my mother's best efforts. My to-do list soon began to feel overwhelming, the cost of landscaping (both raw materials and labour) came as a shock after years abroad, and the days were cold, wet, and short. After 3 months, I was feeling more tired, flat and unenthused (about everything) than I ever have before. I had no desire to read and got into the habit of an escapist martini (or two) before dinner every night, passing out directly afterwards. Was it the weather? The physical labour? The to-do list? The challenges of coming home after years away? Or some vulgar virus? I went to see my GP, who did a blood test; nothing abnormal. With the growing suspicion that the malaise was primarily psychological, I consulted a friend and then booked a flight to India to spend a month at the Amritapuri ashram in Kerala, for £5 a day. I get a simple room, 3 vegetarian meals a day, access to various supposedly beneficent activities/ practices, as well as proximity to Amma herself, the 'hugging Saint' and, according to some, a divine incarnation... I arrived last week.

If you would like to read about the experience – and it has been life-changing - then please go to my normal webpage www.clausvonbohlen.com

The End (in 150 words).

Finally, I am in Finisterre. This was the end of the known world in ancient times, and it still has a ragged, liminal feel. It's three days' walk from Santiago, through misty eucalyptus forests where strips of torn bark lie strewn across the path. It also feels appropriate for me personally. Of the last eight years, I have spent four in America, and four in the Middle East, interspersed with a few summers of psychonauting; I feel that I have been exploring the limits of my own known world, and now the time has come for a period of consolidation. One day I would like to come back, throw my telephone into the ocean, and walk back to Austria, entirely unencumbered. When that day comes, there will be no blog to read, but I hope that you will still see fit to applaud me, clapping with one hand.

Eucalyptus forests.

Final stretch.

Finisterre.

The Cape - the end of the ancient world.

THE lesson (in 150 words).

I don't know what I was expecting from this final leg; not exactly fanfares and trumpets, but not far off. The reality has been very different. The stench of manure is ubiquitous in Galicia. Dwellings are astonishingly humble for a modern European country. The descent into Santiago was singularly disappointing. But THE lesson has been reinforced: this journey has been made worthwhile by the encounters, experiences and occasional moments of clarity along the way, not by the destination. Fixating on a destination is the same as fixating on the future - a pointless exercise. The future is a mental construct; we never experience it directly, and when it becomes the present, it is never how we imagined it. 'Our time is here, is now'; if we can't be happy in the present, we will never be happy. I still slip up most of the time, but at least I have become more aware of it.

Galician shepherd.

Descent into Santiago de Compostela.

The cathedral, mostly hidden by scaffolding.

Main entrance to the cathedral.

Human geography.

Between Salzburg and St. Jean Pied-de-Port (the French-Spanish border), I only met 5 other people walking to (or back from) Santiago. In Spain itself, that has changed considerably. I must confess that my heart does not leap for joy when I meet other pilgrims; I'd prefer to meet local people, but the locals often seem jaded. The vast majority of pilgrims here are, bizarrely, Korean. But I have recently been walking with a brilliant, though also rather fragile, Spanish-Iranian girl. I met her outside León, an incongruous figure in electric blue skiwear framed by an ocean of mud.

Physical geography.

From Castrojeríz I climbed up onto the meseta of Castile. On a beautiful frosty morning, on towards León, whose cathedral is immensely impressive. The outskirts, however, are another story. The village of Valverde, whose name appears in Unamuno's lyrical novella 'San Manuel Bueno, Mártir', could scarcely have been more disappointing. For two days, the Camino runs alongside the N-120 highway, with its thundering trucks. Then a climb up through hill country to the foggy, snow-covered villages either side of the Monte Irago pass. Down again, then up over O Cebreiro, and down once more into the rolling hills of Galicia. 

Climbing onto the meseta.

Frosty morning in Castile.

León cathedral.

Valverde - Miguel de Unamuno would turn in his grave.

The village of Foncebadón.

Pilgrim descending into Galicia.

The rain in Spain...

...does indeed fall mainly on the plain, currently in the form of stinging droplets driven by gale force winds. I have crossed La Rioja, which may bring to mind the cheerful wines of the sun-drenched south. But I found it very depressing - a poor, desolate and wind-swept region whose fields, reeking of nitrate fertilisers, alternate with strips of industrial wasteland. I passed through Cirueña, a ghost town of luxury apartments that have never been lived in, haunting reminders of the housing boom and the crisis. It felt truly post-apocalyptic - one of the saddest places I have ever been.

A boarded-up brothel beside the Camino.

Fields and industrial parks.