The spleen of return (by Gilbert Buecher)

Santiago! Santiago! This name carries(wears) us such an objective to achieve all along the way. He(it) gives us wings, during the descent of Horsemanship doh Gozo. We glance through this bridge(deck) in the entrance(entry) of the city without taking time almost to photograph the signpost indicating us our arrival to the purpose. We cross suburbs at a run and slalom in the maze of alleys to appear finally on the Plaza del Obradoiro, in the shade of this cathedral so sublimated. Finally we put our feet on the zero border and so mark the end of our trip. Everything ends here! Emptied us collapse in tears. Dulled, we sit down on a low wall or on walking(stairs) of the cathedral. Immovable, the wild glance, watered down by the sun and the rain, we observe people who move around us. We recognize here and there known faces, faces which we had not seen any more for three days, one week or more than a month. We greet each other, we embrace each other, we kiss(embrace) each other. Another small tour(ballot) in the mass of the pilgrims where this magnificent singing(song), accompanied in the organ, underlines the majesty of the ceremony of the botafumério. A last stop(ruling) at Manolo to share an ultimate meal with our brothers and? Urs of moment. Then everything ends, tomorrow it is again necessary to return from there where we come, that is in car, in bus, in train or worse still, in plane. Arrived at home a strange illness we seized, a sort to be badly, an impression(printing) to live in quoted(esteemed) by its pumps who can last some(however) days, some(however) months, maybe some years. It is the spleen of the return that we are going to try to analyze through this article.

That it is him(it) crossed(spent) so that we tried(felt) this melancholy having known so much happiness? One day we left the Volcanic hill, Vézelay, Alsace or moreover without knowing really why. The motivations of the departure are rarely declared, to best some reasons appear to us during the road. But an indescribable force pushed us on the Road. We left everything, all which connected us with a life which we wished to put between bracket certain time(weather), can be to change it, but at least to suspend her(it) the time(weather) of the reflection. Behind us the safety(security) of the routine, the comfort of the customs, the ease which bring tangible assets, the good to be that we try(feel) in the social environment where we are recognized. We abandon all this to dash into the stranger of a Road which we consider mythical because millions of pilgrims have already borrowed(taken) him(it) before us. The difficulties seem very fast: Light bulbs in feet, muscular pains, obsession of the tendinitis which would stop us on the spot. It is necessary to us to face the cold, the hunger, the fatigue, the whole days of walking(march) in the rain, to cross Aubrac under the snow (for some), to wade in the muddy paths, to get lost on the Road because of a defective beaconing(tagging), to sleep in noisy dormitories, to become used to the permanent crowding. In brief, all these difficulties are going to be overcome, but little by little and without that we notice it because we modify our metabolism, we adapt ourselves to these new unknown biological and sociological rhythms until lors and we adapt to this new environment.

However, all these agonies weigh nothing more with regard to the unlimitedness of the lived happiness. This tried(felt) intense enjoyment when we start in the early hours, when the day brightness hunted(chased away) the darkness and when the big light begins to appear. This euphoria which we invaded during every sunrise, mostly in the morning mist. This pleasure to clean our shoes during our first steps in the dew. This sensation of thoughtlessness renewed every day by the consciousness of the found freedom. This delight offered by the nature which is renewed in spring, colors of the flowers which transform the landscape into masterpiece. The delight got by the singing(song) of the birds which interpret us a concerto with the cuckoo in the heart of wood as soloist. The sensation of rise which we feel by admiring the magnificence of chapels, churches and cathedrals were met on the road. The good to be of a warm shower in the arrival and the euphoria of a flat(dish) of pastas in a brotherly fashion shared in the evening in the shelter. And by top everything, the wealth of the made meetings, those of people who live at the edge of the Road by sharing the same ideal with these pilgrims who scroll(march past) their door and who welcome us as members of their family. As well as these meetings with these other pilgrims so different from us but who walk all, carried(worn) by the Faith, by the Hope of a better world, by the desire of a more brotherly humanity, by the other more personal and more intimate waits(expectations) which belong to them and as we anticipate without knowing them because simply we walked with them.

The Road has something heroic, not that the pilgrim is a hero, but because the road leads(drives) the one who commits to it towards the overtaking of him even. Because he allows the one who ventures there to update in him the archetype of the route(course) of the soul, the human consciousness.

He(It) is religious in the full sense(direction) of the term. Because he(it) restores the man in his(its) nomad's roots. Because he(it) registers him(it) in c? Ur of a universal tradition (that of the pilgrimage) known for all the civilizations, of every time(weather), of all the continents. Because he(it) connects the man with the nature and by her with the Principle. Because on the road, nothing opposes to the passage of the Light. Because it is journey and gratitude(recognition) of the real " opus dei " under the shape of the work of the nature and that of the men(people). Because it is road of solidarity and brotherhood.

He(It) has something of alchimique including in his(its) most elementary demonstrations(appearances). All these days were crossed(spent) under the sun, but should not you cross(spend) the matéria dominated in the melting pot to separate her(it)? Every these last day does not in the rain dense but several times need to proceed to dishwaters to collect the salt? Shoes in the dust or the mud of the earth(ground), the hair in the air(sight) of the wind. Here is the pilgrim in the center of four elements.

He(It) also has something initiatory. Because it lights(enlightens) the being on its limits (but there are limits only those whom we accept or whom we impose upon one even), on the attitudes which he(it) has face to face of the world which surrounds him(it). Because he invites him(it) to renew and to widen the perception(collection) which he(it) cultivates. Because he(it) puts back(hands) the man to the contact of the natural elements and their radical principles. Because it is learning, that of the road, trade guilds, that of the meetings. Because this road, which makes of a tourist a pilgrim, led(driven) towards the control(master's degree) by obliging the man to find in him even the sources(springs) of his(her,its) spirituality, its Light. Because there are age-old one road of Wisdom. Because he(it) protests and breathes of force. Because he testifies of the beauty of? Uvres of the nature and the work of the men(people).

Most of the mythologies speak to us about an essential fall. Indeed, the man before having acquired his shape in the material(subject) lived with God (Gen. 1,26-27). He(it) is still conscious of it in the heart of him and, so, feels his(its) existence on earth(ground) as an exile in a world which is not his. By trying(feeling) the nostalgia for his(her) state essential édénique it will have respite to go back up(to raise) towards the Principle where from it arises. But we do not pass of the world of the material(subject), that of the unrefined demonstration(appearance), to the world of the Spirit, that of the not shown, without a transition in an intermediate world, that of the soul. It is a mediating world between the material world and the eternal world. He(it) escapes the spatialité and the temporality ground. He(it) is situated between heaven and earth and it is at the same moment the place of the possible and the place of the realizations where meet the subtle beings. The place where can take place the relation between the soul and the Divine. This intermediate world is that where the sensitive forms immatérialisent and where the pure secret relations take a spiritual corporéité.

So, as while operating a detachment of all which we judged as necessities and a renunciation of all that we think the main part that the Road realizes our indispensable perusal and we made penetrate into this intermediate world which gets us this sensation to live here one " before taste of the Paradise ". Indeed, arrived on the Plaza del Obradoiro we lost all which is useless: our illusions, the taste of the comfort, our customs and also some kilos too. But we gained(won) the purity which confers the ascèse, the certainty that the Light exists and the knowledge of the happiness felt in the Amur. Because, as said it Ibn' Arabî: " if you love a being or the nature for its beauty, you love nobody else than God, because it is Etre-Beau. So, under all its aspects, the object of the Amur is only a God. "

The magic of the Road is in fact a grace(favour) which He(It) makes us, a magnificent present which He(It) offers us. Let us call back(remind) we what had written Guénon, " the various initiatory stages(stadiums) are often described as the stages of a journey... " To be in journey, along the way, is thus synonymic of this state of search(research), wandering, which is intermediate and probationary state necessary for the individual as for the peoples, as well as give us the example the Hebrew " roaming during forty years in the desert before reaching(affecting) the promised Earth ". The Road which is other one than the "Milky Way" aiming at to join the field of stars, that is "Compostelle" in its real sense(direction). The ground Pilgrimage is thus, at the same time, a heavenly journey made by the " noble traveler " the one who learns about the mysteries of the hermetism. Finally, while crossing(going through) this Road, by making the sacred Pilgrimage come to light the " Small Mysteries ", the knowledge of the cosmic laws of the domain says "intermediary" and that we get closer to the Center.

That is what the Road, by its abandonment of everything represents: it is an intervention in the intermediate world. As progress towards his internal being, he gets the sensation of the link(coming together) with the Principle and of return to the state essential adamique. The doors of the Eden are between opened and the cherubs, armed with their two-edged sword invite us on the way back. It is this paradisiac perception(collection), lived the time(weather) of a bracket in our life which offers us this impression(printing) " of front taste of the Paradise ".

He(It) is not surprising, while the bracket closes, while we feel the return in the material(subject) of the every day life(daily paper) as the second fall. One not it is the same reported step as this one was scheduled(programmed) from Cebreiro, where from leave the borders which every five hundred metres make it the countdown. All which was familiar to us before our departure becomes suddenly strange. We become maladjusted persons in the life which was nevertheless ours. We live here, but we are somewhere else. This gap between our existence and our real gasoline(essence) breathes this nostalgia which we called(mentioned) the spleen of return.

Then, there are remedies? Naturally! And they are numerous. The most evident, but also the most difficult to put it? Uvre is to try to prolong the Road in the daily life. To pass on to all those that we like our flame, our need of the Amur and what it is necessary so that they feel, too, the envy(urge) to leave in turn. Another remedy consists in meeting itself between pilgrims within an Association, because the pilgrim is gregarious. To introduce the candidates at first and to exchange with the former(ancient) only for the happiness of the evocation of magnificent common memories(souvenirs). There are certainly some more the other remedies. But the best among them still is to leave(restart), to replace on the Road whatever it is (internal road or road of dust and pebbles), it is not necessary that it succeeds in Santiago. We all understood him(it), it is not Santiago which is important, it is the Road. After all, the zero border of the Plaza del Obradoiro marks rather the beginning than the end. Then, Brother pilgrim, put back(hand) your shoes, resume(take back) your bag and your stick and walking(march). You will see!

ULTREÏA and SUSEÏA

Gilbert Buecher gilbert.buecher@wanadoo.fr
A summary of my trip here (under construction...)