What a Swiss Pilgrim Taught Me About Why We Walk
The retirement celebration that wasn’t—and why I stopped assuming I knew people’s reasons
I passed him earlier that week without speaking.
Just a smile. Likely a nod. Probably “Bonjour” as we walked in the same direction on the final section of the Le Puy Camino de Santiago route this past June. He looked content. Steady pace. No rush. I was in my zone, walking alone, embracing the silence I’d deliberately sought.
We were both walking. That’s all I knew.
The Table at the End
When I arrived at the restaurant where pilgrims somehow find each other after walking, he was already there.
Mid-seventies. Swiss. Sitting with a table full of pilgrims who’d met along the way—sharing wine, comparing blisters, laughing about the weight of packs and the beauty of the Aubrac far behind us.
He’d walked from Geneva. Not Le Puy, but Geneva. Over 625 miles (1,000 km) already. Still going to Santiago de Compostela. Four months or more of walking, and likely more.
When I asked why, he smiled easily. “Celebrating my retirement.”
I nodded. Made sense. I’ve met many retirement pilgrims over the years—people marking transitions, claiming freedom, starting new chapters, transitioning between roles. He looked exactly like that: content, unhurried, walking at a pace that suggested he wasn’t racing toward anything.
We talked through dinner. The route. The weather. The beauty of certain villages. The usual pilgrim conversation involves comparing notes, sharing favorite moments, and building the easy camaraderie that forms when strangers walk the same ancient path.
What He Actually Carried
Then, as dinner wound down and people started heading back to their lodging, he shared something else. Something quieter. Something that still chokes me up when I recall it.
He was also walking for his daughter. She died ten years earlier. He never came to terms with it.
The retirement celebration was real. Completely true. But underneath that celebration was a weight he’d been carrying for a decade. A grief so heavy that it took 625 miles just to begin speaking it out loud to a stranger at a dinner table in rural France.
I told him it must have been such a heavy burden to carry for so many years. That walking with that weight, letting it shift and settle and maybe—gradually—letting pieces of it go along the way, took remarkable courage.
He nodded. Quiet. Present. Still walking.
What Changed for Me
I’d walked alone that June, deliberately seeking silence and contemplative practice.
I’d even posted in Facebook groups about my intention: walking alone, embracing solitude, making space for quiet awareness. I thought I understood why people walk the Camino. Transformation. Connection with nature. Spiritual seeking. Escape from overwhelm. Finding yourself. Celebrating milestones.
All true. All real. All reasons I’d heard hundreds of times.
But this Swiss man reminded me of something I’d forgotten: we never actually know why someone walks. Not really. Not completely.
People share reasons easily, including retirement, adventure, bucket list, and fitness goals. Those reasons are real. They’re part of the truth.
But often there’s something deeper underneath.
Something that requires silence to process. Something that needs the rhythm of steps and the presence of landscape and the spaciousness of days without an agenda beyond placing one step in front of another. Grief. Loss. Trauma. Questions too large for words. Transitions too complex for simple explanation.
Some of these things are discussed at dinner tables after wine and walking. Many don’t. Many stay held close, processed privately through footsteps and breathing, and a patient attention to trees and stones and paths that have held pilgrims for a thousand years.
Why This Matters for the Retreat
When I talked and answered questions about my 2026 Contemplative Walking Retreat yesterday, this is what I was remembering.
People will register for reasons they can articulate. Wanting contemplative practice. Needing a break from digital overwhelm. Seeking nature connection. Celebrating something. Preparing for something.
All true. All real. All completely welcome.
But some will be carrying weights I’ll never know about.
Processing things that can’t be spoken about in group sharing or explained in registration forms. Working through losses that happened last year or ten years ago and still need walking, still need silence, still need the holding presence of ancient paths.
That’s why the retreat structure allows you to walk on your own. Share as much or as little as feels right. Speak when called to speak. Stay silent when silence serves better.
No pressure to participate. No requirement to “be on.” No expectation that you’ll perform gratitude or transformation or any particular emotional state.
Just walk. Just be held by the path. Just let your body carry what it needs to carry. Let the rhythm of steps and the patience of earth do what words cannot.
When we walk and connect with the natural world around us, we are always held without judgment and in kinship.
What We Don’t Know
When you pass someone on the Camino, or when someone passes you, you never know their whole story.
The person walking slowly with a slight limp might be recovering from surgery or processing divorce or celebrating survival or grieving someone who should have been walking beside them. The person walking fast and focused might be running from something or running toward something or simply needing to move their body hard enough that thinking becomes impossible for a few blessed hours.
The person stopping frequently to photograph wildflowers might be documenting beauty or delaying arrival or practicing presence or remembering someone who loved flowers.
We don’t know. We can’t say. We shouldn’t assume.
What we can do: smile, nod, hold space, and wish them well on their walk. That is what is encapsulated in the French “Bon courage !” which means good luck when we know it can be done, yet it is still tough.
Let people walk at their own pace. For their own reasons. Carrying whatever they need to carry or let go of along the way.
Still Walking
That Swiss man has likely made it to Santiago. Still carrying his daughter somehow.
Still letting the path hold him while he figures out how to hold grief without it crushing him. I think about him and send him good energies from a distance. I hope the Camino is teaching him what it taught me: that some weights need walking, not explaining. That healing happens through presence, not performance.
That the path holds us when we can’t hold ourselves.
That’s what contemplative walking offers. Not answers. Not solutions. Just presence. Just patience.
The Earth receives whatever weight you bring, one step at a time.
Walk With Me
If this resonates, I invite you to subscribe to Where Insight Meets Earth. Each week I share reflections on contemplative walking, ecospirituality, and deepening kinship with the more-than-human world—for seekers moving from digital overwhelm to grounded presence.
Hit reply anytime. I read and respond to every message. Your stories—the ones you share and the ones you hold close—shape what I write next.
Walking beside you,
Jeffrey