Kip Redick

You appear as I round a bend in the trail.

In the Meseta you would have been a speck in the distance, far down the flat, straight and long, dusty road.

But here in the mountains your presence is a surprise.

My thoughts have been focused on the landscape coming to life on the dawning of a new day.

Colors bloom and sunlight dances in the wild scrub.

On distant slopes the purple heather paints the mountains with splashes of lavender and green.

And there you are walking in the same place as I, following the same pathway through this mountain pass and moving toward Santiago.

I wonder if you are really in this place?

Do you have an encounter with the mountain?

Or are you elsewhere? A thousand kilometers away, body walking here but all attention focused toward a distant location.

You pause to let me pass and our eyes lock; we gaze into each other’s soul; we open ourselves one to another.

Perfect strangers instantly and intimately connected, transformed and now campaneros.

You are here in this place, you have the mountain inside.

We share the depth of our souls, knowing each other, lovers who dance, a cosmic ritual performed on the sacred path, on rock and soil;

Scrub and heather watch us, birds sing a holy hymn.

We finally speak a greeting: Buen Camino!


We have shared holy communion.