1.
ARRIVING AT FINISTERRE
Cape Finisterre is often the final destination of Il Camino, the famous pilgrimage to the shrine of the apostle St James the Great in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Pilgrims walk a further 90km to reach the Cape, framed by steep cliffs dropping down to the Atlantic, also known in the Middle Ages as “Mare Tenebrosum,” or the dark sea. The beautiful, spectacular peninsula is aptly named “finis terrae,” Latin for “the end of the world.”
Finisterre is the edge of the known – the familiar – and the edge is a mysterious place. It separates our current reality, what we are comfortable with, from what is strange, unexplained, undiscovered and perhaps even undiscoverable. Behind us we have solid ground, the knowledge that got us so far. Ahead of us we have the unknown, the mysterious sea, unpredictable and uncontrollable. The fog is starting to settle and it is hard to see around us; the landscape is no longer familiar and there are no road signs or maps to show us the way.
In Roman times, when the map of the world was still being drawn, blank areas represented the unexplored vastness and contained the words “here be dragons,” to warn explorers of the potential risks and dangers. Greek philosopher Plutarch described this space eloquently in The Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans in the first century:
“As geographers ... crowd into the edges of their maps parts of the world which they do not know about, adding notes in the margin to the effect, that beyond this lies nothing but sandy deserts full of wild beasts, unapproachable bogs, Scythian ice, or a frozen sea, so, in this work of mine, ... I might very well say of those that are farther off, beyond this there is nothing but prodigies and fictions, the only inhabitants are the poets and inventors of fables.”
Just like those areas, what lies beyond the edge is waiting to be discovered. For some, this may be a sandy desert, for others muddy bogs or a frozen sea. The metaphor, the mental image that is conjured for each one of us will depend on our own story and experience at the edge. It may be a stark and wild place, an unfamiliar territory evoking strong sensations and reactions, or it may be a place for which we have a certain amount of excitement.
Finisterre is not just a one-time experience. We move through many edges, in a dynamic process that brings us face to face with both our limits and our possibilities. There are many situations that bring us to the edge: a loved one being diagnosed with a terminal illness, falling in love, starting a new job, tackling a complex challenge, or leading an organization into a new market. It could be present in the form of a disruption, a crisis, a sudden change, making a mistake or failing at something important.
In spite of being in this situation many times before, we are never fully prepared for the moment when we arrive. Every edge is a new experience. Outside of our comfort zone, we experience a range of complex and conflicting emotions: from hesitation to avoidance and flight, excitement to terror, fear to boldness, and shame to vulnerability. We often fail to react well to standing at the edge. Our crafty brains play every trick in the book to keep us on dry land. We spend all our time trying to clamber back up the path, and we miss out on the learning that can only happen at Finisterre.
How we react at the edge – whether we choose to stay there or turn our backs and run – will determine whether our relationship with the unknown might be full of dread or full of potential. The edge is the crucial point where the future of our relationship with the unknown hangs in the balance.
Elitsa Dermendzhiskya, a young Bulgarian economist and social entrepreneur, travelled the Camino from France to Spain in the summer of 2012, walking for nearly a month with little more than a backpack.
“What brought me to the path that day in early June was a sin I needed to atone for – the sin of knowledge. As a mathematician and economist by training, I readily subscribed to the notion of a universe that could be measured, predicted and controlled. Not only was it so neatly elegant, that notion, but it also perpetuated the false sense of security that by applying the right theory one could aspire to possess the Truth.
“Trouble was, I had taken the scientific credo to heart so much that I tried to apply it in my personal life, substituting cost-benefit analysis for intuition and crushing pleasure and spontaneity with utility theory. My life turned into a sterile, mechanistic, perfectly planned routine, the naivete of which didn’t quite register until after my college graduation. Over time, my scientific facade was stripped away, and I realized there was no absolute Truth to be found; there was only my personal truth to be lived.
“To make the Camino experience as authentic as possible, I embraced a minimalist travelling style: no guidebook, no fancy GPS mobile apps, no emergency equipment of any sort. Morning frost or blistering sun, in the frequent drizzle and the occasional storm, I’d be plodding along clad in shorts and a T-shirt. Some days I’d trudge on for 50km of barren land, my feet blistered inside my woollen socks.
“Besides the very literal uncertainty of walking the Camino, there was another more personal level to it. People talked of visions and divine revelations, of finding themselves – all claims that would have me wincing before. I still had trouble imagining the skies opening up to speak to me, but the power of intense silence and walking to focus the mind’s eye and to heighten one’s self-awareness hadn’t eluded me. I found myself both curious and scared of what would transpire. My fear was that deep down I was, in fact, a bad person.
“Halfway on the Camino I arrived in the village of Molinaseca one sweltering hot day in July. At its far end, two small tourist inns stood close by, and as I approached with the dozen or so other pilgrims, it was clear where everybody would set up camp for the night. New and shiny, made from smooth polished wood, the first inn was a far cry from the other – a dingy building whose owner might as well have come out of a horror movie set. Dishevelled hair, wild eyes, one missing leg, the unmistakable smell of spirits about him, the ominous screeching noises his cat made – those could only portend trouble. And yet I was drawn to that second inn on a gut level even though I ‘knew’ the danger.
“My feeling overriding my reason, I stayed – the only guest and scared beyond description but not wavering for a second. The inn keeper, perhaps out of gratefulness, went into his room and fished out a bottle of olive oil, which he handed to me with the words “only for special guests." Then we sat outside at the flimsy table and he told me his life story – a story of love and a happy marriage, a crippling accident in his mid-twenties, the ensuing treachery of the wife, the heartbreak, the denial, the anger at God and finally, the pilgrimage and the finding of God again. The man’s name was Elisande. I had barely uttered a word the whole time, but when he finished his story, he told me, “You are a good person, Ellie.”
“When people ask me what I found on the Camino, I always feel tempted to say, ‘That I’m a good person’. I never say it, of course. I went out searching for my truth and I think this scary man brought me closer to it.”