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Tried to respond to this and have erased several previous attempts. I can think of dozens of better examples to throw out at us to start this discussion without an admonition to ignore everything about Assange. If you are going to put people like this up there as a "heart rendering " example you can't ask us to ignore them in the same breath. How about people in hospices, those with injuries that can't do another camino, those who can't afford it but dream, or perhaps victims of sexual assault who were victimized again by a statute of limitations and may no longer feel safe to do a camino etc etc. People in jail spending time visualizing not being in jail shouldn't be a big revelation.
Obviously have to be careful with this, I'll ask people to steer clear of all of the current affairs aspects of it, but, this part of the story does seem to be quite heartening ...
Assange 'visualising walking the Camino'
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is meditating about walking the Camino pilgrimage trail in Spain to take his mind away from the "vile" conditions he's been held in ahead of his upcoming extradition trial, his father says.www.news.com.au
[Julian] Assange has reportedly been in poor mental health and is reportedly suffering an unnamed condition, which could be revealed in his extradition trial on Monday.
[His father, John] Shipton said the Wikileaks founder is trying to clear his mind by thinking of a brighter future.
"A couple of years ago Julian and I worked out that when he would be released we would go and do the Camino de Santiago, the Way of St James," he said.
He said that each day in his prison cell Assange has started visualising walking another stage of the famous pilgrimage trail across northern Spain.
It is humbling to realise just how much even a simple idea of and hope for the Camino can help those in even the most dire straits of enclosure.
I'm reminded of Jérôme Kerviel's reverse pilgrimage from Rome to Paris in 2014.
About 25 years after my first Camino and two years before I walked it with my son, I spent a week following the Camino on Google Earth and looking at the photos people had attached to the various locations along the route.I have a friend who makes her way through life in a wheelchair, although there are other health problems which preclude even an attempt at the chair-possible part of the Camino. After some discussion, she is trying out a Camino-by-earth-google along with readings and exercises her spiritual adviser has provided. Given that Mr Assange, like many others, might not be able to walk it, there are ways he can obtain some personal benefit, and it's a positive thing that he might be able to do so.
There are several examples of Spanish prisoners walking the Camino and we can hope they achieve redemption. It seems to work for them. While a volunteer in the pilgrim office last October I met a really nice bloke who arranged these walks for the prisoners.
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