In the year 2010, my mother Betty turned 82. She had always wanted to walk the Camino de Santiago in Spain. Brian had walked this famous and ancient pilgrimage twice before. One of the traditions is that once you have walked the Camino, you need to lead others. So Brian said to Betty, "Well, it's kind of now or never!" And the three of us went to Spain, following in the footsteps of thousands of people for thousands of years before us. Many believe that people were making this pilgrimage long before Christianity. We believe the desire to make pilgrimages goes well beyond any one religion. Human beings feel the need to strip down to essentials and face ourselves as we put one foot in front of another with a goal towards becoming more whole.
I began writing this while we were walking, following the guidance of the scallop symbols on the path and on posts. Mom carried her own pack! The first day it was a terrible storm, and we came to our first Refugio wet and exhausted. But quickly we warmed up by the fire with the other pilgrims and a delicious simple Spanish soup.
It was a tough time for me emotionally and physically--and as usual, I put my feelings and thoughts into song. I wrote the main verses of this song while walking, and then the middle bridges were written after I was home and had begun putting the music to the Hammond organ. We were there in October, so the bridges were written the winter solstice of that year.
Image from Wikipedia Creative Commons, by Rosser1954
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en
Image is cropped to fit into Bandcamp's specs.
"A gravestone with a scallop shell symbol, St Maur's Glencairn Churchyard, Ayrshire, Scotland. The scallop shell was adopted as an emblem by pilgrims. It became associated with pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela."
from
The Light Inside You,
released May 19, 2019
Elizabeth: vocals, Hammond organ
Brian: wavy horn sound, humming, bass drum, sound textures
Jon Green: bass
Tyrrell Sweetman: cello