I was hiking deep in the northern part of the valley, down near my humble place of beginning. My eye was drawn to a smooth river rock lying near a jagged limestone outcropping. We have gullies but no rivers in La Mancha. There are no smooth rocks native to this land.
The rock’s story isn’t hard to guess. Imported river rocks line the Camino Dulcinea as a landscaping feature. For a certain kind of person, the temptation to throw these stones into the valley can be overwhelming. I confess both to being that kind of person and to having succumbed to that temptation a number of times. For all I know, this could be a rock I threw.
I didn’t like the way it looked there with the limestone, so I picked it up, intending carry it back up to the Camino. A few feet away I found a golf ball that has been in the valley so long it is covered by lichen and doesn’t look much different from the surrounding rocks. I could take a guess at how it got here, but who knows?
I thought it was interesting that I ran across the two of them so close together.
And then I stumbled into a clearing and found a new shrine that has appeared since the last time I was in this part of the valley.
I am not alone.
I have never seen another person in the valley. I know people go there because I find discarded items occasionally. But this is the only shrine I’ve seen other than the ones I have built. It features yarn and a chunk of amber-colored crystal. Like my rock and golf ball, they come from wholly other worlds with origin stories lost behind a veil of mystery.
I am not alone.
She chose a peaceful spot for the shrine, just south of my cairn in a little soft area with nice shade, the perfect resting place for my golf ball and river rock. I now call this the Shrine to Lost Souls. Fittingly located in the deep northern valley below Our Lady Dulcinea, the shrine is a refuge for those who find themselves out of their place and time. It is somewhere to be when you have nowhere to go.
I don’t know who built this shrine, but I like her style and consider her a friend, though I will probably never meet her. I wonder if she is the one who took my pine cone?
Whoever she is, I hope she returns someday and finds my additions to her shrine to be worthy. Perhaps she will find my cairn and read the message inside it.
I am not alone.
