Dear Caminoheads,

 

Michelle, Phil’s neighbor and friend (and also the one who baptized Phil and Jennifer “Guerrilla Gardeners”, a post a re-posted not long ago) shared with us in the comments some words that Phil recited. I thought to post them here as they indeed summarize how we arrived to Santiago…

 

keep moving, changing pace and approach,
but not direction
“every step an arrival”

Denise Levertov, Overland to the Islands

 

Related to this, there are some words that Tesia wrote in two comments that I would like to share with you all, in case you did not read them. Tesia was talking about this blog:

 

I think it must take a lot of effort, to tend attend to it, or to tend to it as you do, like a garden…a little every day.

Dad, you who tended the garden of the blog every day from the beginning, I have cherished every insight you have shared. It has been a huge gift to have this window into your lovely mind.

 

Phil and I talked about Tesia’s words in our last talk. We also talked about “modern times” which are characterized by a huge square an-aesthetic project done quick, compared with “Michelangelo times” where a project such as painting the ceiling of a church could take 4 years working 12 hours a day, and many days would be just looking and seeing where the painting would need a bit more of blue, or white. Phil laughed at my analogy that these days are “highway life”, and we are designed for “walking life”. Phil said he just loved Tesia’s analogy as life as a garden… a garden that in order to thrive, needs water, but not too much water, sun, but not all of if needs sun, cleaning with care, separating the trash from the green, etc…

 

In any case, we are talking about keeping the destination in mind. And we are all talking about being gentle, attentive to the needs of our journey, our pilgrimage, and feeding it with whatever it needs to be nicer for us and the ones who  come with us and will come later too.

 

Beautiful loves,

Cris