07/10/2025 - I value quality over ease.

I had a hard time falling asleep last night, maybe because of this full moon in Aries. I felt agitated. But at the same time, my mind was spinning around the beginnings of a world-building idea for an adventure/fantasy book I’ve been carrying for years. I need to start writing those ideas down because they’re taking shape in my head, and for them to flourish, I have to give them form. It’s something like multiple lives interconnected through a mystic quest based on a whole new theory of Spacetime. It makes more sense when I explain it out loud, but I don't want to kill the magic by explaining it abruptly here.

I eventually fell asleep and woke up around 6:30am. Got ready, grabbed my coffee and breakfast, and felt ready for the day ahead, even though everyone seemed jittery about the ascent awaiting me today, reputed to be steep and long. And it was, I won’t lie. But it also felt good to be back in my favorite environment: the mountains. I tightened my bag, focused on my breathing, sending oxygen deep into my muscles. Climbed, and climbed again for two long hours, passing through small villages with farms and cheese shops along the way.

I felt proud of my body, my fitness, my resilience, and especially of my mind. Some people told me I made it look easy. It wasn’t easy, but my inner strength carried me. Even in difficulty, my mind remains unshakable in its belief that I can make it, and make it well.

Around 10:30am, I reached the top of the mountain, O Cebreiro, where a famous monastery stands. I celebrated with the view and a second coffee. Met some cyclists from Costa Rica, and we chatted for half an hour before I started walking again. A few kilometers later, I arrived at the big sculpture marking the entrance to Galicia, the land of my ancestors, where my grandfather is from. I took a picture and sat for a while to take it all in.

The end is approaching now, and entering Galicia feels like one of the final thresholds I’d been waiting for. I don’t even know how to feel, a mix of excitement, exhaustion, peace, and this deep joy that I’ve accomplished something grand, something that demanded utter commitment. This journey has been wild, and I’ll remember it until the day I die. Though I’m talking as if it’s already over, there are still 150 kilometers left, so I’ll save the final words for next week.

The rest of the walk went beautifully. After lunch, I faced another choice: to take the main road or the alternative route through the hills. I chose the hills, of course. It meant more climbing, but the quality of the path, the quietness, the beauty, made it all worth it.

That’s when I realized how much I value quality over ease. Both paths reach the same destination, but the extra effort is always worth it to me, just to enjoy a beautiful walk where my senses are fully alive. Maybe it’s because of my sensitivity; the fact that my physical senses are heightened thanks to my embodiment practice.

By incarnating myself fully in my body, in this reality, with less and less escapism, I allow myself to feel everything: emotions, sensations, presence. As a child, I hated it. Feeling everything felt like a curse, and sometimes it still does. But I’ve learned to see it as a gift. It’s not something that only belongs to me; it’s something everyone can develop if they choose to be truly present in their own reality. Easy to say, harder to live.

I enjoyed the rest of my walk through those magical hilltops, where the trees curved around the path as if circling it. And I kept listening to All About Love by bell hooks.

Something has started to marinate inside of myself concerning one of the concepts she brings to the surface within the book; the fact that associating genders is a form of sexism. Ok, hear me out please before starting to roll your eyes outside of your cranium. She basically explains that women, and men, are the same being at birth, but we become who we are because of our conditioning, the external environment, and examples we take on through the years.

Until this we should be kind of agreeing, except if you are a moron. No, just joking, you’re entitled to your own opinions too… Where something clicked is when Bell Kooks explains that one of the reasons patriarchy keeps regenerating is because we continue to believe that men and women are fundamentally different, not only through culture, but through the quiet conviction that those differences are natural. By assigning one gender logic and strength, and the other emotion and sensitivity, we split humanity into two incomplete halves that keep performing for each other instead of meeting as equals.

Even in spiritual spaces, this narrative hides under softer language like “divine feminine” and “sacred masculine.” We think we’re transcending polarity, but often we’re just spiritualizing hierarchy. I see now how I’ve also played into this. How many times have I excused a man’s passivity or lack of emotional depth because I believed he was wired differently? Or waited for him to act while I received, convinced that was my feminine role? Or felt guilty for being assertive, fearing I was too masculine? It’s all such a clever mind game, one that keeps us divided from our wholeness.

She brilliantly reminds us that love can’t exist where domination hides, even in beautiful language. True equality begins when we stop assigning human qualities to gender and start living them freely. Only then can love become what it was always meant to be: mutual, conscious, and whole.

That thought stayed with me until I reached the albergue. I felt genuinely happy about this new perspective, about men, about my relationship to them, and the place they hold in my life now. I think I used to hold them above me without realizing it, making them both the holders of my worth and the enemies to resist. Today, I see them as equals. There’s no power play left inside me.

I found my bed in the dorm and slipped into my routine, which is well set by now and comforting. Funny how routine becomes essential for stability. I took a short nap, then went to the common room, where large windows opened onto a panoramic view of the mountains. Cows in the fields. Wind brushing through the trees. I ordered a glass of red wine and started to write when the same group of French pilgrims from yesterday arrived.

Hervé, the funny one and the only single one, found a guitar and started playing. He invited me to sing. I took it as a sign. I’ve almost never sung in front of people, except close friends, even though I love it. On the Camino, I’ve occasionally sung out loud for the trees and the hills, but never in front of a room full of people sipping wine. At first, my voice shook, afraid of mistakes. But as the songs went on, I relaxed. By the end, I was fully enjoying the jam session, grateful for that moment of fun.

The best part was when he started playing Armstrong by Claude Nougaro, the same song I recorded as a child with my music teacher and a friend named Diane. He had seen us in class and decided our voices were worth recording. We practiced for a week straight, and I was so proud. Singing that same song tonight felt like my 11-year-old self and my present self were meeting in joy and pride.

Now, my wine is finished. I went out for a quick quesadilla, and the others left for dinner, so I have the room to myself. I still need to work and edit my blog article, but I feel good. Bisous, and see you tomorrow again.

With love, Loune.