While on the Camino, I heard that my good friend Annette V’s young son had been diagnosed with a serious illness. This stone travelled in my pocket for 350 km to be laid at the Cruz de Ferro for him. Ultreia was the old Latin greeting for pilgrims and means among other things “keep going”. Ultreia, Christopher. You will beat this!
My dear brother (in law) Garry passed away unexpectedly almost 2 years ago. Even in my last moments with him, he talked about the chestnut I had given him when I was 7 and he first started dating my sister. So when this chestnut fell from the tree beside me, I knew it was a gift as well and needed to be carried to the Cruz de Ferro. Buen Camino, Uncle Scare-Bear!
La Cruz de Ferro. The Iron Cross. An iconic symbol of the Camino. Historians feel the cross (on a 5 meter pole) was a way marker for travellers in winter as it sits at the highest point on the Camino. Centuries old tradition holds that pilgrims carry a stone from their home to lay at the foot of the cross – the stone can represent many things to the pilgrim: atonement, a prayer, the laying down of a life’s burden, hope, family. I did not bring a stone from home. Instead I have soil from my grandmother’s grave in Predajna, Slovakia which I will put into the ocean to represent my parents’ exodus from Slovakia to Canada when the communists took over in 1948. However, they say the Camino provides and the Camino will give you purpose. And so I carried two items that I picked up along the Camino and laid them at the cross.
Terry and Ken's Camino Pilgrimage Adventure