Part Seven: The Camino Under Covid-19: water backdrops

• by Miranda Gavin
• in blue camino Camino de Santiago Camino del Norte colour cosmos Covid-19 Creative global pandemic Miranda Gavin nature nomad photography pilgrimage space Spain The Way of Saint James travel walking writing
• posted September 5, 2020

“I must be a mermaid, I have no fear of depth and a great fear of shallow living.”

Anais Nin from The Four-Chambered Heart

The backdrop to my Camino travel is varied. Each day’s weather patterns bring a new perspective. I have no control over these factors, only responses. I’m reading the skies intently, judging the direction and force of the wind and the sea, the strength of the sun, and the likelihood of precipitation.

It’s elemental.

I now recall why the sublime was such a major driver of Romanticism in art. I am insignificant when immersed in these landscapes and it is a liberation and a lesson.

I am merely passing through.

For all of you who asked to see the bigger picture, here are some playas, or beaches. However, these photos can never do justice to the fragrance of the sensations imprinted in the souls of my feet.

Gijon, Asturias, Spain

San Vicene de la Barquera, Asturias, Spain

Playa de Gerra, Asturias, Spain

Llanes, Asturias, Spain

Playa de Oyambre, Cantabria, Spain

Playa de Comillas, Cantabria, Spain

“When anxious, uneasy and bad thoughts come, I go to the sea, and the sea drowns them out with its great wide sounds, cleanses me with its noise, and imposes a rhythm upon everything in me that is bewildered and confused.”

Rainer Maria Rilke