(so you don’t have to walk later)
There is a detail that is almost never mentioned when reading the Divine Comedy: Purgatory is, essentially, a massive uphill walk. A slow, ritual, patient climb, made up of small stations and deep breaths. It is a mountain that is not traversed in a celestial chariot nor on floating clouds. No: it is climbed on foot, just like any of us when we decide—whether grudgingly or enthusiastically—to go out for a walk in our daily lives.
In my just-completed novel (1), Dante and Cervantes move forward together up that mountain. And, curiously, they do not do so by flying, nor by meditating in perfect posture, nor mounted on fantastic horses. They do it just as they did in life: step by step, conversing, reflecting, stopping at the resting spots, and moving forward even when the memories—or the legs of the soul—ache.
And here arises the central question of this Post:
Why wait to walk in Purgatory… if we can do it now, while we are still alive?
Because, let’s be honest: if there is a place where everyone walks, without exception, it is in Purgatory. And not because it is a spiritual trend, but because there is no other way to ascend. There is no mystical elevator, nor angelic escalators. You go up on foot. You go up walking. You go up living each step as if it were a lesson.
Climbing Mount Purgatory…
Cervantes walked to invent. Dante walked to understand.
In this novel, both authors discover something that perhaps they did not fully suspect in life: their works were born of movement, not stillness.
Cervantes walked through Sicily, through Rome, through Algiers in chains; he walked in Spain chasing impossible jobs; he walked the dusty roads that his Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance would later travel. His literature contains real dust, real weariness, real horizons.
Dante, for his part, composed a work that is, literally, the chronicle of a walker. The Comedy is a map of footsteps, a geography of the soul’s displacement. Without the walk, not a single verse would exist.
Both knew it without knowing it: writing is walking inward.
And walking is writing outward.
Isn’t it worth imitating them before reaching the afterlife?
Purgatory as a spiritual… and physical gym
If one looks closely, Purgatory functions like that big park where people run, jog, climb stairs, and strive to improve their condition… only with fewer running shoes and more metaphysical light.
Each cornice of Mount Purgatory is a station of effort.
Not very different from the emotional effort required to go out for a walk when one is reluctant.
—“I don’t feel like it”.
—“It’s too hot”.
—“I’ll start tomorrow”.
—“After all, in Purgatory they’ll surely make me walk…”
Right there lies the perfect analogy that this novel gifts us:
If we don’t walk today, we will walk later.
And over there, you cannot choose the route or the pace.
Here you can.
Here you can move forward at your own step, with your own air.
Over there, you climb because it is part of the soul’s destiny.
So… why not practice starting now?
A gentle reminder for the reluctant
Imagine, just for an instant, that someday—hopefully still very far off—you arrive at Purgatory. They receive you with respect, point out the path, and tell you:
“Welcome. The way up is this way. It involves walking”.
You, who avoided walking your whole life, turn around surprised:
—What do you mean, walking?
—“Yes. Everyone does it. Dante did it. Cervantes too. They even walked together”.
And in that instant, resigned, you think:
—Darn… I should have practiced beforehand.
This Post is an invitation to avoid that fictional future and to opt for a real present:
walk now, to enjoy life and to prevent your soul’s first serious hike from being in Purgatory.
You don’t need to climb sacred mountains or imitate medieval pilgrims.
It is enough to:
– go out for a walk for 20-30 minutes,
– open your mind,
– let your legs think for you.
Because walking is, in essence, a light but daily purgatory:
one where you expiate tensions, release tiny guilts, let go of worries, and return a little freer than when you left.
Walking as a preview of the other world… and as an improvement of this one
Dante and Cervantes teach us, in the novel, that one is not purified by heroic acts, but by constant steps.
That understanding life requires moving forward.
That no soul finds clarity if it does not move.
Perhaps it is time to do the same without waiting for the geography of the beyond.
Walk today.
For health, for pleasure, for mental clarity.
For the sheer joy of it.
Or simply as training for the day when—let’s hope in a very long time—you have to walk a mountain that begins where the world ends.
If every writer walks to write, and every walker writes their own destiny, then you already have the first chapter of your own novel in your feet.
And the best part: it doesn’t need Purgatory.
Just a couple of steps.
(1) Loya Lopategui, Carlos, Cervantes y Dante en el Purgatorio, EMULISA, México, 2025. Available on Amazon, Kindle Edition, Spanish versión: https://www.amazon.es/dp/B0G4T24Y9C