History's Trace
This September, Deep Peace is leading another pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago, a walking path in Spain that has been frequented by pilgrims for centuries. The Camino is a beautiful trail, one drenched in history and infused with a sense of community, a camaraderie born out of a shared goal. Much of it is pristine, unchanged over the centuries.
Thinking about walking trails and traveling routes, I am reminded of an ancient fixture that stretches through the American South: the Natchez Trace. The Trace isn’t like the Camino. There’s no grand spiritual purpose to it, no ultimate destination like the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela that caps off the Camino. It starts in Mississippi, meanders in a northeasterly direction, and ends somewhere around Nashville, Tennessee.
What makes the Natchez Trace so interesting is its age. There’s evidence that the first trails of the Trace were beaten out of the prehistoric foliage by the feet of dinosaurs, and it’s been in use ever since. Creatures of the Ice Age used it, as did early humans and their descendants, all the way forward to the Native Americans, and even the European colonists when they came
over. It’s a jaw droppingly old trail, a record not just of human history but of the history of life on earth. Today, most of it has been paved over and turned into a highway.
When I first learned that I felt indignant-- All those millions of years of humans and animals beating down the brush into a single, lasting path, only for it to be paved over with asphalt. But the more I thought about it the more fitting it seemed. We have a tendency to museumify history, to draw a line between the present and the past, as if patterns of change that have happened for millennia will somehow stop happening just for us, and the best thing for us to do is to preserve relics of the past so that we can look at them, detached from their purpose, and engage with them through imagination instead of experience. That way of thinking may seem comforting, but the world moves forward regardless. The Natchez Trace has been a place of travel for ages, and it still is, and it likely will be for ages to come, no matter how travel changes. At its beginning the Trace was battered down by the feet of dinosaurs, now it’s battered down by the wheels of cars. History is alive all around us, if we only let ourselves see.
It’s alive on the Camino, too. If you’re interested in joining us this fall, click here to learn more.
Copyright 2022 George P. Murray
George Murray is a writer living in Los Angeles, California. You can read more of his writing on Vocal.com, or listen to his comedy podcast ‘The Content Button’ on Spotify or Apple Music.
