Chemin be this?

Have I seen all this before? Or have I only thought this before?

Looking at anything is dependant on some prior knowledge. Otherwise it is not in focus, has no prospective. These shapes would mean nothing.

Who am I? This is as deep a question as it is possible to ask one self?

My feelings of loathing or loving are only mine. They are not anything beyond. Hearing a voice. It means nothing unless in give it my attention and some "meaning". This means I really have a choice. It's always a choice. I think I finally understand.

This voice inside. The one dictating to the page. Hello. Who is in control of that hello? Why do I need a word of greeting to me? Beyond my simple self I am sure I need no words. Words are abstract labels. I think that's the correct term. That chair is not simply a chair. At it's core it is mostly empty space. Physics holds it as seeming substantial matter. And this physical world seems so inescapably real. But only from my limited knowledge.

I am reading back these words. For security. Then I forget how to spell security. How does one spell anything. Why does a word spoken in the mind require a form. I've often been blinded by words. I can't stop them. They jump onto me like a ravenous beast and they won't accept anything other than complete surrender. Reading a foreign word has a similar effect. But instead it's a subtle assault without the terror of those words I do comprehend. Yet all letters are signals of sounds to be produced. So just produce the sounds.

Who am I thinking these things? Why am I thinking these things. It's still not me is it?

Four hours until departure to Limoges. Yes I am off away to find my "self" - a being beyond the I - again. I can't go to find. It's so obvious that I must be capable of this anywhere and everywhere. As the core, my soul, the light of truth, is always within. It's perpetual and ready. Willing and eager. Everything here is a means of distraction. I allow the presence of others and other things to prevent me knowing the truth entirely. Can I go somewhere to uncover this reality, other than during meditation. To know it always and finally?

Is that the thing we're always seeking? These things the 'I' requires to reach sanctuary? Everything is purely a distraction. Like that beautiful woman. Passing by the window, outside of here, heading to work after the long weekend.

Each day is 100% the only moment. Yet we have days put aside to yearn for. Longing for that day to make it all better. Birthdays, Christmases, anniversaries ... The list is overflowing, and meaningless.

The ego is urgent for me to get up and move. To find the answer further along the road. Perhaps the branch in the road is a misperception. There was a road which led nowhere and to turn onto another road is also a mistake. There is no road. Like this there is no tomorrow, no future. Just this current. How to accept here?

So to walk is just to walk; it is not to seek. The path is the destination. Stop looking around the corner. That corner is a trick of the eye.

...

Arrived in Hotel for the evening. A simple but clean abode, just across from the main Gare, Hôtel Saint Exupéry €30. The Sisters had no room. They never received my email. They spoke no English and I feel overwhelmed by French ... Too much German in the last few months is my excuse ... Got some grub from the city Carrefour, including a Lachouffe, enough. Was a long day. Time to unwind. I must away early to get petit déjeuner, a stamp from credencial, etc and hope that the thunderstorms forecast are not so persistent or so intense ... Ha. I will be alright. I didn't go and find a bar near the cathedral so I'm sober. No toothpaste, just a toothbrush and this is very trivial. Teeth are unlikely to last forever and mine currently decline along with everything else. And there isn't anything I can do to prevent this march of time. My hair grows not and what chance have I against the waves?

And the bed I was in was infested with bedbugs. The lady of the hotel was really sorry and moved me. I still was paranoid for a long time, but it was just the one bed.  I have heard about this problem on the Camino before, but never seen one or been bitten. They're large really and hard to miss. For a long time I was trying to work out where the infestation could have come from.

My ankles felt like I was on fire, this can be due to sitting on fire ants and I may have done that in the park, but as the sensation spread on my left and I came across real bites I lifted the sheets up and saw these black beetle things all down the left side of the bed. I was blown away. This is a hotel, not a refuge or gite. Anyway I still slept pretty soundly once my fear receded. How did people cope when this was a normal thing?

It's shafting down. Thunderstorms indeed. The market is being reconstructed so we're in a temporary structure. On top of the hill. I stop to get ready for the rainy day in Place de la Motte.

Long walk break for lunch. The French really do eat as much as is humanly possible between noon and two. So be it!

You get three choices, each one spot on. Can't cater for veggies at all, but their animals have a much better level quality of life. All this space, etc. I can get quite jealous of the French way of life, but I'd swiftly turn into a wine sponge...

Apparently they can cater for Vegetarians, but it's mainly omelette.

Here we are then, a four man chalet in a deserted campsite, after all the holiday makers have gone to prepare for another school year. On the way there was plenty of wind fall plums, apples, pears and the obligatory Mûre, dried out of course.

In the main square of the village two pilgrims wait for me? The gite for tonight is full. So we get a stamp, hurray - my first and pay €10, hurray. Time to shower and look at the sheer number of bites on the left side of my neck and shoulders ... bloody things. This must have been a terrible thing in the old days.

Dinner was wonderful. Uncle Ben's rice, a scattering of seeds, some blinding AOP cheese mopped up with a chunk of stale bread. Then a peach three ways.