Book Review: The Way of the Wind
The Way of the Wind: Embracing Life While Walking the Camino de Santiago
by John W. Pearson
Independently published, 2021
216 pages (paperback and Kindle editions)
Reviewed by Jerald Stroebele | Anchorage, AK
Oh, Joy! Another excellent Camino memoir. In 2015, the author, a geologist from New Mexico, walked the Camino Francés from St. Jean Pied de Port to Santiago de Compostela. He carried his backpack and considerable grief, which he does not reveal until later in his story. Five years later, he wrote this memoir. On the Camino he struggled to write a few paragraphs each evening for his family blog. He had very little time for that by his accounts of his many delightful, communal evening dinners with fellow pilgrims. He seems to be a sociable fellow.
This is another self-published book that is well organized and edited. (I spotted a single typo, in a Spanish name.) It is easy to read and hard to stop reading. It is well illustrated with crisp black-and-white photographs. I would have preferred to see the distances of Pearson’s daily walks described in kilometers instead of miles, but he wrote the book, I didn’t.
Evidently, geologists must be well-trained to observe and describe all they see and encounter when afield. The author didn’t miss much about the human, natural, religious, cultural, and historical environment he observed, and he describes those aspects with humility and a touch of humor. His story was especially poignant for me because I read it just weeks after walking the Camino Francés. I could still see, in my mind’s eye, where he was walking each day and shared his enjoyment of walking with pilgrims of all ages and many origins. For anyone planning to walk this Camino, his story will give an accurate description of what they are about to experience.
Pearson shares his grief with his readers when he visits the Cruz de Ferro and leaves an inscribed tile on the pile of rocks at the base. The tile conveys the memory of the head-on car collision that killed his wife and the driver of the car that crossed the freeway median. It seriously injured his two children and left his mangled body at the edge of death. His physical recovery took months. His mental recovery was finally completed at the Cruz de Ferro. This brought him peace with the memory of his wife.
Enjoy this inspiring story.
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