As slow as possible

In 1985 an American composer John Cage wrote a musical piece for the piano or organ called As slow as possible. Since then, many artists have competed for the slowest time. Francesco Pio Gennarelli is the current world record holder for longest live performance of a single musical piece performed by a human. He stayed up for 25 hours and his performance was recorded. You can watch him moving around, drinking coffee, playing with his phone and occasionally striking a note. How do I know? I fast forwarded the video. It’s possible to go slower than 25 hours. There is a church in Germany, in Halberstadt, where the musical piece is playing on a custom-made organ. It started in 2000 and it is scheduled to finish in 2639. The note changes every two years and there is always a big artistic fuss about it. In the world hyperfocused on time efficiency, what can we learn from the completely opposite approach?

Let’s take a little trip back in time, and into an extraordinary place called Plum village. Plum village is the largest Buddhist monastery in Europe, nestled between vineyards near Bordeaux, France.

This is where I met Maria back in July 2018 during a 2-week meditation retreat. It was not the best time of my life – I felt emotionally unstable, exhausted and confused about my life choices. I had not cured my burnout properly, in my opinion „I calmed down and moved on“, which was far from the reality. This meditation retreat was slightly forced on me by my PhD supervisor, who had attended it before. I came with an attitude „I doubt that this can help, but it probably can’t hurt“. Plum village is a little oasis of tranquility. Imagine a couple of houses surrounded by a little pond, forests and meadows. In every speech, every lecture, nuns reminded us to slow down and be mindful. I found my own way to unwind and spent the first week of my retreat sleeping on every possible occasion. The majority of retreat activities were voluntary and I chose to lay on the grass in the shade. It felt nice to listen to my body, something that I had never learnt before.

There were some activities that I really struggled with, especially the lazy day. The goal was to spend your day with as minimal effort as possible, limit any distraction and just be.

During my honest evaluation at the end of the day, I had to admit to myself that I completely failed this task. Instead, I discovered new paths through vineyards, new books to read, befriended a cat, … I’d do anything to escape my painful emotions. So I finally sat down and stopped running away. Years later, I am still struggling with the concept of the lazy day. Especially when I know that I could discover the world instead! I’m not using it as a distraction and I’m not avoiding my feelings anymore, but sitting still is much more difficult than moving in any direction. Walking helps me move further in life. I’m not running away from something, I am walking towards something better.

Walking is my meditation. Usually.

Eight walking days had passed since the start of this Camino in Porto and the time had come to take a half-way break. I planned to spend it on the largest of the Cíes islands with friends, Maria wanted to decide her day program spontaneously. I picked up some empanadas for lunch on my way to the city center. It wasn’t as busy as yesterday, I survived 😀 I met Kathy and Diane in their hotel and we had a great breakfast together. It must have been around 10 am when a certain restlessness shook my body: “How come that you are not walking already?” Once you create it, the pilgrimage routine is not easy to break.

We walked to the port and prepared ourselves for the beach day – a bottle of sangria, a cheese platter, fruits, etc. Kathy made a video for her YouTube channel while we were enjoying the boat trip. The boat left us in front of a restaurant and a marvelous white sand beach started right at the peer.

While Kathy and Diane were excited about spending all day at the beach, my feet were itching to do some walking beforehand. I promised to join them later after I explore the island first.

Looking at the map, there are actually two main islands connected by the beach. The island Illa do Faro offered beautiful hiking routes and two lighthouses in medium distance. My idea of the rest day was choosing an easier route without hills, around 10 km round trip. I rushed my way to the lighthouse, super excited to see a new stunning bay around each corner. Once I reached the lighthouse, I called my family and my partner Focus to brag about the beauty of this island. I was enjoying the scenery until I was interrupted by a loud Spanish couple. They asked me to move out of my shade so they could take photos. Their impolite tone irritated me and I just wanted to finish my call, so I moved anyway. Still agitated and hot, I suddenly felt like something was not going well today. That’s why I decided to sit and meditate, slow the day down. When I opened my eyes after a couple of minutes, something felt different. The air was full of colorful butterflies landing on colorful flowers and I observed them for a while. Then I walked back to the main beach as slowly as possible, noticing trees, fish and seagulls.

Cíes islands are a national park with rich biodiversity and I totally missed it chasing my lighthouse!

Plum village, the monastery from the intro of this article, popped up in my thoughts again. Another retreat activity that irritated me was called walking meditation. Imagine a large crowd silently following monks and nuns on a forest path, walking so slowly, that they often stop walking completely. This was, in my opinion back then, the most pointless exercise of all.  Six years later, I think that finally understood what it was about. The Camino issued a gentle reminder that life is a journey, not a destination. It’s a simple life lesson that needs to be repeated to me once in a while. Keep walking, but take your time.

I couldn’t find Kathy and Diane at the beach, so I sat down under the peer for lunch. I found them a bit later and joined the glorious beach picnic. It was sunny, 30° with a very pleasant breeze. The water looked crystal clean and very inviting. There was just one problem – it was cold AF! 😀 I had swum in the Atlantic Ocean before; it needs courage and a slow systematic approach. We competed to see how much we can dive in. I proudly won this one because I even managed to take a short swim! No matter how far we reached, each one of us came out of water like a warrior.

As I found out on this beach, Diane was a real-life warrior. Not only did she help many people during her doctor’s career, but she’s also a cancer survivor. I’m so glad to have a chance to meet her! The rest of the afternoon passed quickly, fueled by sangria and tarta de Santiago (a sweet reminder of our goal). Kathy fed the leftovers to greedy seagulls and we headed back to Vigo.

We had one more mission to complete – get a passport stamp from the cathedral. Kathy heard from another pilgrim that you need to ask a priest, who takes you to a small room used for ceremonies. What a fun experience!

The cathedral looks like a completely ordinary church from the outside, but its huge, detailed mosaics blew our minds.

I found Maria in our hotel. The rest of her Camino was scheduled now: she would walk the same stage as me on the following day, then skip one stage by taking a bus. She would sleep in less-known albergues outside of the main recommended stages of the Central Camino. We promised to reunite in Santiago after her day trip to Finisterre. The rest day was coming to an end and we were both looking forward to a new chapter in our journey. Maria also enjoyed it very much – she did a free walking tour in Vigo and took a trip to a small town across the bay. Since she wasn’t convinced about her new shoes, using the old ones created new blisters.

Remember when I described a pilgrimage as an extremely addictive sport? Both Maria and I were definitely hooked – we couldn’t stop walking on our lazy day.