Wyrd, Fate and the Camino de Santiago: Learning to Trust the Unexpected

THAT SOUNDS A LITTLE WYRD

Are you familiar with the centuries-old concept of wyrd?

It refers to an unseen force which shapes our destiny - similar but not quite the same as what you might call fate.

Wyrd suggests a person's choices matter in the web of cause and consequence which make up our lives. But while the choices are our own, we can never control the outcome.

Fate leans more into the idea that every choice we make and action we take is predetermined.

Sounds kinda weird right? Well for those etymologically minded, the English word weird actually stems from its ancient cousin wyrd. You might call it destiny…but I digress.

How much control do you have over the future of your own lives? Let's try a practical example.

When you book a holiday, what does that actually involve? When heading off overseas:

• Dates are usually predetermined if you're opting for air travel.

• Most of us favour having all of their accommodation booked before leaving Australia. That decides where you will be on any given night, and also ensures you have a bed to sleep in.

• Then we can break down our travel itineraries further. Are all of your activities pre-organised before your trip, or do you prefer arriving first and then figuring it out.

• What about your food? Are you planning to eat out for lunch and dinner each day, and if so, where are you going?

Everyone is different and travels in their own way. Some people like to land and figure it out from there. Others have every 30-minute block of every day pre-programmed to precision.

But here's the thing with travel. It never goes exactly as you'd envisaged. Plans change for reasons completely out of our control, and learning to accept that and adapt quickly is a genuine skill when away from home.

My partner Yanina and I met in her homeland of Argentina in 2024 to visit some family and friends. Within half an hour of her and her uncle picking me up from the airport, we'd been robbed. I might go into that story a little more in the coming weeks.

The point I'm making is plans can change in an instant. And that might just be wyrd at play.

So where does the Camino fit into all of this?

The Camino forces us to tap into wyrd.

At a macro level we plan our route and choose where we'd like to stay each night. But what happens in between is almost impossible to account for ahead of time. We simply walk.

We might meet a stranger and spend two hours with them in deep conversation. We might decide on a whim to stop at a coffee shop in the middle of the Meseta because its shady patio is irresistibly inviting.

An unexpected church might appear and we spend 20 minutes of quiet reflection inside. Time becomes far less relevant while trust and faith in the universe becomes our new comfort zone.

Ultimately, we learn the future is impossible to tame.

The challenge is finding an environment in which this becomes apparent to us.