On rebirth

It's been 27 years and several months since I came to this world, so that makes me 27 years old in the ordinary sense. However, having to start a new life in a different country/culture at the age of 13, when my family migrated from Taiwan to NZ, meaning that I am only a 14 years old member of this society.
Moreover, at the age of 20, I went through a process of spiritual rebirth, so in that sense I'm only 7 years old as a spiritual being in awakening.

The spiritual rebirth was a confusing process for me, of course being born in the first place could have been an equally if not more confusing experience, but hardly anyone remembered much of it, and we really didn't have much to do back then other than slept & being fed.
Whereas in my case, I had to continue functioning as an adult on the outside, dealing with university studies and social interactions, while inwardly experiencing all kinds of calamity (but dressed with a sprinkle of rare occasional blissful moments of enlightment).

Since then, nothing in the world had been the same for me. Like an infant, I had to pretty much relearn everything about who I am, all of my beliefs were questioned and examined from several different perspectives. And that's not the end of the story, as the whole thing end up becoming a continuing process.

It's because of this process, that in 2003 I took the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain (a.k.a. camino de Santiago, the camino).

One of the optional finishing point of the camino is Finisterre, the westernmost point of Spain, known as the edge of the world during medieval times. Today many modern pilgrims still practice a traditional ritual, they burnt some of their personal belongings (eg. cloth) at Finisterre, symbolizing rebirth, the end of the old and the beginning of a new life.
A rather fitting ending to (approximately) 800km of on-foot pilgrimage I have to say, even though I didn't go through with the burning ritual at Finesterre (because I was unaware of it until my fellow pilgrims told me aabout it after we arrived there), and I finished my pilgrimage at the city of Santiago and took a day trip to Finesterre by bus instead, the visit was still quite an interesting experience.

The spiritual rebirth/awakening had been an interesting ongoing process, even though I intend to write a story based on my experiences someday, at the moment many things are yet to happen, and the ending is all but unknown, so for now all I'll just reflect what comes to mind by writing here.

Photos below:
1)Finisterre, the end of the then known world.
2)Me at Finesterre, it was raining and with the help of my fellow pilgrims I ended up wearing an improvised raincoat made out of a rubbish bag.
3) A fellow German pilgrim burning her cloth at Finesterre.