A600AASS Day 6 - Villar de Mazarife - Hospital de Òrbigo
19.10.22
15 Km
For a few years now, I’ve been conscious of the impact, both positive and negative, that the internet has had on my ability to be in this world. It’s been an incredible tool for connecting me to people, ways of thinking, and ways of seeing that I otherwise might never have discovered. I’ve also watched it alienate and polarise the people I love, have felt it weaken my capacity to think for myself, and undermine my confidence in sharing what thoughts I do have with the wider world.
I imagined that my Camino would be a monastic experience, an opportunity to disconnect from the digital world and, for a few weeks, keep it at arm’s length. But I’d also committed to sharing more of my work, in whatever standard I could produce it, through this little newsletter. That, of course, requires me to be somewhat online. And so, as someone who’s been predisposed to all-or-nothing thinking for much of my life, I’m reminded of the power of compromise.
Although we only walked 15 kilometres today, it was a trying experience. Yesterday, my right IT band started to ache, unused to the combination of a heavy pack and uneven ground. I hoped that a night of rest would see me good this morning, but a scant kilometre in to the walk, I knew I’d be struggling by the time we ambled in to Hospital de Òrbigo. In fact, when I asked my knee to carry me down a set of stairs, it steadfastly refused and I slunk down sideways.
We checked in to Albergue Verde, a place that Chris had heard about via a forward party over WhatsApp. Reputed to be run by an Australian woman, we were enticed by stories of vegetarian food, fresh vegetables not being a staple of your typical pilgrim meal, and yoga classes. Albergue Verde has turned out to be so much more.
Founded 11 years ago by a chap called Mincho, it was his gift to pilgrims after spending years wandering in India and completing his first Camino. First he built the main house behind his mother’s. It contains the dormitory, kitchen, living room, and bathrooms. Then he built another complex called the Green House, and then, in 2016, he started building a yoga hall. With thick walls constructed of hay bales and with a cedar wood floor, it’s a warm, mothering space. It invites you sink in to the ground and reconnect with breath and body. The floor was only laid in May last year, a few months before Mincho died of a melanoma on his face.
He left this remarkable place, full of heart and healing, to an association of the volunteers, people who have stayed and worked here over the years. The Australian woman of the WhatApp foretelling — her name is Ashley and she’s from Busselton, south of Perth — is just one of those that welcomed us here and cared for my knee today.
During an afternoon of rest, I read an article that introduced me to the concept of The Devil’s Drift, created by author Napoleon Hill, of Think and Grow Rich fame. Tom Morgan of wealth management practice The KCP Group, describes the drift like this:
Hill’s belief is that “the devil’s” primary purpose is to make us “drift.” He fills our head with opinions that aren’t our own and distracts us from following our own interests. If the purpose of life is to follow our bliss toward our own unique unfolding, the devil thwarts us by simply wasting our time. Time and attention are the only two things we have. So the devil takes them both by distracting us with unreal things that don’t matter.
Hill conceived of The Devil’s Drift in 1938, but it’s an accurate reflection of what’s been happening in my own life over the course of a decade and a bit. The past couple of years have seen me slowly wake up to my misdirections, wonder how the fuck I got here, and start the painful work of trying to work out where I now want to go.
For those wondering how they might start to address their own drift, Tom offers a tool credited to Jed McKenna, called spiritual autolysis. Autolysis, for those as uninitiated as I was, is the destruction of cells or tissues by their own enzymes. To enact autolysis on you beliefs, and work out what you really know is true, Tom suggests:
… taking a pen and paper and writing down what you think you know to be definitely true. For something so simple, it’s a remarkably clarifying exercise. When I did it myself, I realized I had to lean on direct personal experience, love for my family and the relatively few recurrent wisdom patterns my work has revealed me. It was a short list.
Something for me to reflect on over the days ahead.