July 11. Day 14 Walking.

7 am-ish wake up. Another disturbing dream involving students and my role as a teacher. Three students didn’t show up for a gathering time, so I went out in the forested area, where we were hosting the event, to look for them. As I began, a man with his hand severed at the wrist and carrying a knife or a gun in the other, looked at me and exclaimed, “Looks like I’ll have something fun to hunt,” implying I was the prey. I woke up with my heart racing. Gah.

9 am breakfast and packed our lunch again from the breakfast buffet.

9:50 am start walking.

Lots of downhill through forests and fields to begin. A gorgeous day after yesterday’s rain and fog. I appreciate the sun and vistas so much more today, and feel completely blessed with the weather. Imagine that it poured for one day only and then became sunny again! We are so lucky! There are beautiful fluffy clouds today as well, protecting us from too much sun.

Last night, all I could see of this through the fog were the diagonal bars of the scaffolding but I could figure out what it was.

Lush forest walk today, so green after the rain.

I placed a rock in a tree along the trail…it had been on the road and I moved it to a creek-side view.

Where the sun hit, it was like diamonds sparkling across the forest floor this morning.

I was paying too much attention to the bigger opening, looking for the trail sign here, that I almost missed the small trail sign on the left on the ground. Big picture vs. details. Where’s the balance?

11:30 am 4.8 km short break on a bench beside a “Welcome to Ringebu Kommune.”

This tree growing on the green roof was amazing!

12:25 6.8 km lunch break on a beautiful bench made for pilgrims.

Here, we made a departure from softer trails to secondary highway. I noticed my feet, especially the left one that is slightly downhill walking along the side of the road, felt a bit cramped. Walking on the asphalt is tiring.

I’ve seen ants carrying a lot of what must be heavy things. Is this one bringing home dinner for the community?

I listened to a bit of Entangled Life; How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake. While the book goes into details of plants and fungi that I don’t yet understand, the author is clearly passionate about a vital organism on the planet, mycelium. Mycelium is the fibrous network that works in partnership with plants and the sun to create healthy soil full of the nutrients that the plants we eat and get oxygen from require. It is the organism that mushrooms bloom from. It is life and I want to understand it better. People are making bio plastics from it too. In his book, Sheldrake shares one theory that in 1 tsp of soil, the mycelium could stretch 100m to 10 km, though that is reduced depending on soil health. We disrupt and destroy this human-life-necessary organism when we use chemical and synthetic fertilizers, till the soil, and clear cut forests.

We arrived at 3pm: 14 km and 684m gained, but mostly all gradual over the last half of the walk on the secondary road.

The final approach. Photo credits: Chin-Yu

The house is beautiful! The land has been in the family since the 1500s, the woman hosting us told me. The house we are in was fixed up for pilgrims about ten-twelve years ago. It has three rooms with bunks in each room. And a potato cellar under the beautiful patio I’m sitting on as I write. And chickens running around. To my left are some other structures, one where the salted meat was kept. There is a small house above and behind me where the women could give birth while getting away from the busy-ness of the rest of the house.

We were offered some unprocessed milk from the cows. Their milking season is now done and they will be moved to pasture. The host also cooked me a wonderful veggie quiche for dinner tonight! It was super delicious! I’m a very spoiled and grateful pilgrim.