Sweat dripped from my brow and shoulders—baptising my body in musky mildew. The air was dry…arid…stifling…as dry as my throat. Part of me wished that sweat were drinkable, that i could lick it up like some cat cleaning itself copiously. 

The hour was well into the afternoon, and the sun beamed me down, threatening to melt me into the dry earth beneath. I felt like Dorothy’s wicked witch—afraid of the dousing, although in this case from heat and not water. Afraid to melt. 

Dusty trail kicked up around my heels, galloping around my shins and clouding my ankles. Sometimes, it floated up into my nostrils and sent me into a coughing fit—permeating everything it touched and settling into a thin film on whatever surface it chose as prey. I thought my throat had peaked its dryness. Think again, the dust snorted, once again sending me into a coughing fit.

I found myself in Las Mesetas, a long stretch of fields between Burgos and León smack dab center on the French route of the Camino de Santiago, spanning over 220 km (137 miles). Most commonly known as the heart of the Camino, its lack of shade and services provide ample time and space for inner reflection. It’s a synonym for solitude.  

The date was floating somewhere between July and August, the time—somewhere between 12 and 5 pm. My tired brain didn’t care to check. I was sweating buckets, fresh out of water and still an hour or so away from the closest albergue (hostel for pilgrims on the Camino). Blisters bubbled angrily, clustering together in protest, rearing their angry heads and desperately hoping i would stop walking to give them much needed respite.  

I saluted them with a haiku quickly composed on the spot as a last ditch effort to distract myself from the stifling heat. 

Blisters, blisters—ow. 

Pockets of painful liquid

Floating on bubbles. 

I laughed at my own silliness, and for a moment was able to rise above the swelter, but was quickly lasered into submission by the sun’s rays, smacking my head down in agony. Ugh. What torment. The heat brought out the drama queen in me, the part that wanted instant comfort and glorious relief from the prevailing dolor, grumbling until she got what she wanted. Oh hush, Leticia. That was what I called her, the dramatic one within me. I was verging on desperate. Thirst and heat brought out a childish pettiness in me that, at that moment, i was finding difficult to overcome. 

Las Mesetas has a character as flat as some women’s chests and dry as a Brit’s humour. Most people skip it because they’re told it’s tedious and ugly, passing by many Spanish highways. ‘Nothing to see here’, they scoff before jumping on the bus or taxi that takes them far away to the next stage in León. 

I had read somewhere—on the Camino itself, in fact—that sin mesetas, no hay camino, which is to say, ‘without Las Mesetas, there’s no way’. Cursing myself for being the diehard that i am, i found myself on the dreaded Mesetas themselves. Struggling. Dragging. Breathing slow, shallow breaths. Steady now, girl. I pretended i was stranded in a desert to add to the drama, exaggerating the situation. 

‘With no water! And no more food!’ the drama queen gasped. 

‘Ay Leticia, you don’t stop, do you?’ i muttered back. 

A distinguishing feature of Las Mesetas is that there’s hardly any shade to be found along the way. Endless fields of grain and sunflowers—stretching as far as the eye can see until they kiss the vast heavens—are what lie in store. I stopped a minute to retie my shoelace and was forced to admit how strangely beautiful it all was. There was not another soul in sight. I didn’t feel alone, though, as the hot wind brushed my hair gently, playfully tousling it back and forth, as if the Camino spirit was guiding me along, urging me onwards. Forward march. The air, although hot, was quiet. All was remarkably still. 

Sometimes, life seems like it’s rushing by in spurts and blurs and you ask it to slow down so you can catch up. Here was different. It was as if time herself stood still, waiting, waiting, waiting—an invitation to stop. Somewhere in that pause, in that space, in that slowing down, my own physical discomfort seemed to dissipate and I discovered a strength within me that I suppose had been there all along, but like a brand new keg of ale, was untapped. Funny how I was out of water, with no food, no shade—quite frankly, out of my depth—and yet I found I had all I needed. 

Sensing a shift within the very fiber of my being, I looked down and noticed something. The only shade to be found in this entire stretch—my shadow. 

The funny thing about las mesetas—well, more like the annoying thing, because it’s almost never desired when it’s most needed—is that you are forced to confront your shadow, to confront yourself: the parts of yourself you’re ashamed of, the parts you don’t like. The parts you’re insecure about, the ones you hide away, hoping that no one finds out how scared you are, how desperately you want to be loved, how tired you are of endless responsibility, how much you crave warm embraces and the nagging feeling that you feel you constantly fall short…

Still yet are the parts that whisper in our ears that we’re not good enough or not worthy of love. These are the voices that lurk in our shadow. They tell us that we must work to be loved rather than be loved to work. These are the parts of ourselves—the shadow side—that, at some point, we are confronted with: sometimes in spurts, and sometimes all at once, full on. 

The shadow parts are what, all too often, we’re scared of and, as such, avoid. There’s something about the darkness that is threatening—maybe because it’s unclear what lies within, what lurks about. It’s unknown. I wonder why it scares us so. Maybe because, as children, we’re afraid of the dark, and that fear carries on into adulthood. Maybe because there could be truth behind some of our shadow parts, and we can’t face it. It’s too painful. 

The thing about the dark, though, is that if you stay in it for long enough—despite the discomfort, despite the fear—your eyes begin to adjust. As you shed light on your shadow parts by looking at them with curiosity, not judgement; interest, not fear, you realise they’re not so frightening after all. They begin to take shape and become clearer—less vague, less mysterious. By looking at them and spending time with them, those parts that have been left in the cold with no sun for so long start to become integrated. 

Instead of wishing them away, I sat down next to them. 

‘i’m not good enough’, one said. 

‘You’re getting better’, I told it. 

‘i’m not worthy of love’, another cried. 

‘You’re worthy because you are loved already’, I challenged back. 

This went on for a while—the back-and-forth—the playful banter. By then, I’d made more sense of my shadow. It took on shape; I had a clearer semblance of the amount of space it occupied. I struck a fire and warmed my hands. The shadow blanketed me, covering but not engulfing. After all, there was also the light part of me. 

It wasn’t so daunting after all. My shadow was my human self. I started to dance around the fire, embracing the darkness and the warmth—simultaneously. I whooped and hollered, smiled and guffawed.

It seemed that I was composed of both shadow and light. Both lovable; both, a part of me. It seemed that to run from one was to live an incomplete life.

Suddenly, I was back in las mesetas, yet somehow transformed— mysteriously and inexplicably. The heat continued to swelter and scorch me, yet I was above it. 

‘It’s unbearable’, complained Leticia. 

‘I know, chica—we can get through it together’, I told her soothingly. 

I placed my headphones in my ears, turned on some tunes, and, like Peter Pan, sought out my shadow this time—no longer uneasy. I had gone into it and held its hand, I knew what it was made of. I was no longer afraid of what it represented. I had journeyed within and spent time with the shadow self, and now looked at it with appreciation and understanding. It was part of me. I had accepted that.

The song that began to play started off soft, and then slowly ramped up, the beat taking flight. Suddenly, I was no longer walking. My long legs leapt and picked up speed. Suddenly, I was dancing there in the dry plain, not a soul in sight. I glanced at my darkness in front of me and smiled, then laughed and continued to dance and sway, swinging my arms and twirling my hands in the air. I created different poses and forms there on the dry plain, and before I knew it, I was playing with my dear shadow. 

My shadow is cast. 

It grows, shrinks, dances and leaps.

Formed and shaped by light.