I am a history nerd. Folks like us are usually called Buffs, as in History Buff, but I am not a “buff” when it comes to history. A buff is a passive little thing that can be blown away with the breath of a whim. Me and History? Hah! Buff be damned! I’ve read more history books than you’ve had hot dinners. I had my World War II phase in the seventh grade. I own a first edition Oliver Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches with comments by Thomas Carlyle. I have read and annotated the complete eleven volume The Story of Civilization by Will and Ariel Durant—for fun!! I find Toynbee facil, Thucydides a hoot and sincerely believe Antonia Fraser should have a statue built of her in every single history department in the planet.

I do not shout out this bombastic list of hyperbolic claims to impress you, but to impress upon you that my understanding of historical events and patterns, though amateur, are not that of a “Buff.” I have blissfully spent hours, days, years with the lives of the past, the histories of the dead, and I have had the honor of speaking for them, often in their own words, on stage. It is an honor I took very seriously, and I still do. My natural-born biases for nation, states and all frankly all -Isms has been worn to a barely perceptible nub by that bliss. Who you served does not matter to me: how you served them does. The grave does enough judging already.

So when I get to walk the same path that Napoleon’s army took into Spain in 1807, it’s not just a thrill. It is me feeling the cardboard-soled shoes of conscripts pushing on day after day carrying forty pounds of gear, in terrible uniforms, a ridiculous hat and all on hard bread and half rotted meat if they were lucky. It’s also the lice crawling on skin that has not seen soap and water for months. It’s your own teeth falling out and then being replaced by other teeth found in the mouths of dead soldiers, but only the really shiny ones. It’s being trained to fire three rounds a minute and to march straight into enemy musket and canon fire time after time, all while shouting “Vive L’Empereur!” while carrying aloft the 9 foot tall eagle-topped Standard of your Army. It’s being part of a group that has conquered the world, but all you want that day is to steal a bottle of wine from any peasant you can, and to go to sleep on something that isn’t a rock. All while marching to Roncesvalles

Roncesvalles.

And Roland was here, the famous knight that fought a rear guard action under Charlemagne that saved the Christian army from destruction back in 778 CE. Most pilgrims are more into that, but I find the historical provenance of the legend weak at best. Me? I’m marching with the men. I’m marching with Napoleon.

Well, actually, me and Stacy are in a van crammed with seven other pilgrims heading up the exact same path we hiked yesterday, which was surreal. A busy season on the Camino made it necessary for us to spend the night back at St Jean, and then be driven to the spot where we left off hiking to once again continue on foot. As we sped down the road we had just hiked, the only real frame of reference I had was seeing your life flash before your eyes. The memories were so fresh, and so foreign, and then watching through the van window as all the places you were just plodding upon are now whizzing by . . . it was disjointing.

Side note-the third best thing about traveling is you get to use all the words you’ve always wanted to use. Disjointing. Yum.

When the van stopped at the Sarcastic Virgin and we were released into the wild, it was like walking out of a dream of having déjà vu, but Stacy smiled her heart-smile at me, so I knew I still existed, and so we hit the road and continued our Camino. And then the Pyrenees shit on us.

In order to have a Natural Psychedelic Experience there are number of conditions that must be met. First, do not take acid or ‘shrooms; that’s Nature’s job. Next, you must disorient yourself, which means getting lost, getting foreign, getting away from all your stuff, getting away from all the roles you play in life back home. Then you walk straight up a mountain until you are tired as hell. Then, you do a return and rewind trip the next day because straight lines are fascist, and progress is not linear, and you get really tired some more. Another key component is being distance blind. We had no idea how long this walk was going to take. Later we would become experts at knowing when our feet had walked one mile, five miles, ten miles, but early on in the Pyrenees we had no concept of distance. Stacy and I had only hiked flat, long paths during our training, so as the wind kept battering us we had no idea when the end was going to come. And to complete your Natural Psychedelic Experience, put yourself in a place where A Big Fat Dose of all-Natural Mother Nature can whack you in the brainpan.

The weather the day before had been nigh perfect. Cloudy, cool, just a little wind. Today, the ghosts of all the soldiers who had ever shared this trail rose and cried out as one to the God of the Winds. They asked that his sack which holds all the mighty gusts and pernicious zephyrs be opened and emptied upon these ignorant pilgrims, who know nothing of true hardships! And lo, he did. As we walked the winds began to pummel us from all directions, but mostly it seemed, head on. Right at us. Right at my face. If I turned to the left, the wind smacked me there. If I glanced to the right, the wind was waiting for me. Now, being from Chicago I am familiar with the Asshole Gust: that particular type of wind that comes from nowhere and blows your umbrella upside down, or knocks you over when you turn a corner, or blows your hair into your face as you are trying to eat your falafel pita. This was different. It was constant, and strong, and unrelenting. After a period of time longer than an hour and shorter than a year, there was finally enough Nature to kick in my trip, and I began to have an internal . . . mostly . . . conversation with the wind, my dead mother and Oliver Cromwell.

It got complicated, and because I like you—and Buddha won’t let me—I will leave out the Jungian details. But the conversation I had, which descended to the point of me screaming at the wind, can only be called psychedelic as it changed my consciousness. Luckily, the wind drowned out or blew away everything I said aloud, so nobody in our little squad of pilgrims could get freaked out by my utterances. Suffice it to say, I came to the understanding that the wind, like the insanity of my Mother, has nothing to do with me whatsoever; that the suffering they create is not aimed at anyone at all, it just is.

And with that I wish a rousing Selah, to Hunter S Thompson’s ghost.

There’s a tipping point when it comes to arduous activities. You can easily and cheerfully get through a little crappy labor when it’s necessary. But as you are bashing away at your task, if it takes long enough, you will start to question why you are doing this? Does this really need to be done? Does it need to be done like this? Who else knows and cares about this thing? If I set this thing on fire would anybody care? Do I care about any people who do care about me setting this thing on fire? Who made this thing in the first place? And who made that guy who made this thing? Isn’t this thing really God’s responsibility and I should just get out of the way and let entropy and Divine Will rule?

When the arduous activity is a spiritual task, alas, you cannot leave it to God, entropy or even a Lebowski. Because the only point of the whole thing IS the arduous activity, and all that is laid bare by it. Welcome to the Camino de Santiago, pilgrim.

We made it over the mountains without being blown off a cliff, and found our way to the former monastery-now-albergue, the Orreaga-Roncesvalles Pilgrims Hostel, one of the most lauded spots by all the Camino-istas. When we arrived we found out the winds that we fought were the worst in decades, and we gained Mad Props for a week from other pilgrims when they found out we were there. But for now, we could stop for the night at a big old monastery where we already had reservations. But not as many as were were going to…