I had a half hour to meditate this AM. Don’t know if I got very far. So much going on lately that I don’t feel all that centered or calm or present maybe as I should be but still… It’s OK, I’m confident, I’m feeling lighter. Somehow I am knowing that my day will be simpler if I am not defensive and embroiled. It is going to be fine.

Nice blog’s as usual by Terry Hershey at Sabbath Moments and Richard Rohr on his Daily Mediation. These guys are a little like Radio Free Europe broadcasting the good news over the Iron Curtain. You have to have been alive during the Cold War to appreciate that fully but the Free World kept the hopes alive in the hearts of the populations held by Communist governments in Eastern Europe and Asia by broadcasting encouraging Western cultural programming. It wasn’t fancy but sure was effective.

And us now we get to hustle and bustle through our days bumping into others who are hustling and bustling through their lives. And we are bumping and bumping and cursing at this and that and so forth. A never ending merry go round. But there are souls like Terry and Richard that call to us over the backyard fence to come over for a minute and sit with them. And they say stuff like, Felipe look at this flower will ya, no really look at it. Forget all that other stuff for a moment and just experience this flower, this one right here. It wasn’t this pretty yesterday and who knows about tomorrow. In a very simple few words that’s what they say and it is very helpful.

I am walking this AM and then off to work afterward. I like this crew of guys that I am with. They are down to earth guys, get the job done guys. Ah, and then back to treatment on Wednesday. I’ll have to pick more berries for the nurses, can’t forget.

OK, here we go on our Monday. The best to you. Oh, and pray for Patty and Sister Joyce both healing. We love you both, get well. Love you too, Felipe.x

Summertime schedule:

Monday 0900-1000
Tuesday 1600-1700
Thursday 0900
Sunday 1600-1700

Yup, get down here, Felipe.x

Our Catherine y Dana invited us to a wonderful dinner tonight. It was thrown by the Vashon Island Growers Association, the local farmers. All the food was grown here and fixed by us locals. Pretty fun and I think I got two new archery student there. All good.

So, Sunday so there was Mass this morning with Catherine. The new Padre knows us by name and is hot to talk Camino. OK, you know we could talk that all night, no problem. It’s what we do.

Just saw that Phil’s Camino won an award from the Rhode Island Film Festival. Yea, International Humanitarian Award. Yea, OK, keep the buzz going! Pretty amazing this documentary of ours. Seems to be barreling down the tracks right now.

Wow, I sitting outside in the dark at the tapas table and the coyotes are howling. Now all the dogs are barking. Man, Wild Kingdom all over again.
We’ve had a rash of cougar sights lately in various places around the Island leading folks to wonder if we got three of them now. I guess word got out that we have an all you can eat deer buffet going.

Well, that’s it for Sunday. Lots happening, summertime, people coming and going. Alperfect as those Caminoheads say, coyote love, Felipe.x

There is a blog that I read yesterday, Walking Woman – Walking With Kate. In it I learned something new. And it was the notion that your Camino starts with your initial intention. I know that we could say St John Pied de Port or we could say that our Camino starts when we reach the Cathedral in Santiago. Yes, and each gives us a certain way to look at it.

If you say that I started in SJPdP you are saying it simply, basically, this is were my boots first hit the ground. When I watch Phil’s Camino the film I am always moved by the scene of Kelly and myself on our first day. “OK, boys and girls, up an over the Pyrenees.” Yea, we all have a survival story about the first day. And that gives us a way to look at the Camino. To me that was mostly about conquering or overcoming.

And if I think about my Camino starting when I got to St James with all that conquering and overcoming it is different. And when I got that far it was the Camino that actually conquered me, that overcame me. And it was acknowledging that fact and now the question of what do I do with that? That was the beginning of the whole reentry phase which was a difinite journey. And I am still on that journey.

But what happens when I think as Kate does that it started with my intention to walk. I don’t remember an exact moment on that. But maybe three things were in place. One, I had seen “The Way” and that was fermenting in there somewhere. Two, I was already walking some as I said my daily rosary. Three, I needed an exercise program that I could live with for my cancer rehab. And that had requirements of being compatible with my rehab program, being outdoors, being close by and having no machines. Somewhere in there was the intention.

But it was more at that point than “just wanting to exercise” as I said I in the film. There I think I was answering the question, “Did you think that this was training for going to Spain?” Obviously, there was more going on here at Phil’s Camino the trail than exercise. I was out to try and capture the experience somehow or at least to taste it.

Yup, that’s the way it seems. I like all three of those ways of looking at it. It all encourages some thinking and soul searching.

OK, here I go to get on with Saturday. Always good to be with you, Camino loves, Felipe.x

I always wondered how big those meteors are. Are they like the size of Rhode Island or Skittles? Where is Mr Wizard when you need him?

Am off to work in a moment, installing Windows (no capital) remember. Short on time with you. But it is TGIF so that counts for a lot.

This is our big day today to be present. Maybe to prevent someone from suicide. Maybe encourage the kid who will be the next Mr Wizard. Or maybe a day to just work on our smile. See you soon, love, Felipe.x

On a small crew of guys installing windows (iPad keeps wanting to write Windows – that’s funny). No these are real windows as it were. Feels like I am throughly home in my element, nails and hammers.

I was thinking about the film festivals and wanted to give a report on my impressions of those so far. Somehow I think that it is all winding down for me, at least the major traveling although I see that it will be traveling overseas. Australia might be fun for old Felipe.

To start we premiered at South By South West in Austin Texas back in Feburary. The local Camino people there were great and welcomed us with open arms. That is a very prestigious festival and it was advantageous for us to have been admitted. But the festival itself was big and unwieldy, lots and lots of people converge on Austin. But thank you SBSW you got us started.

Next I went to Dubuque Iowa for their festival, the Julien Dubuque Film Festival. It was so friendly and local, it seemed like everyone knew me. About the opposite of Austin although they are only in their fifth year of operation and it will grow I am sure. Loved the folks there.

Third we went to DocFest in San Francisco. We stayed with Father Tom at Old St Mary’s Cathedral on the edge of Chinatown. And in the urban setting with so much going on the festival got lost in all that. It was a great opportunity for us but somehow I missed the festival part of it.

And our last trip (My Rebecca went with me as she did for Austin) was to LA and that wasn’t a festival per se it was our extended showing. And it was great for us to meet many people that were involved with our film that we hadn’t met before. LA is the center of gravity for film and Annie’s world so naturally that is were we were in the middle of things.

But all good, four different views of things. The Port Townsend Film Festival is September 23rd to the 25th so come with us. People coming from LA and Seattle to be there. Contact me via Comments on this blog if you want to get in on the accommodations at Fort Warden where we will be staying, but you have to hurry. Once again, it should be fun!

Make the most of it, love, Felipe.x

Twenty seven years ago Mom went away for a three day weekend to a retreat or workshop, can’t remember which. Tesia, a nine year old and Dad were here tending to things. We had a great idea to build a picnic table to surprise Mom on her return. We got out the drawing board that I used at forestry school with the T-square and pencils and stuff and drew up a plan. It was going to to be big and solid, no dinky tippy thing.

And off we went to the lumber yard to pick out the Western Red Cedar planks, a hundred dollars worth. And we built it, just her and me, daughter and father, no distractions. And it looked exactly just like the plan, thirty inches tall with the seats eighteen and a generous ten feet long. Yes, there it is!

And now twenty seven years later, after being out all those winters in the rain and all those summers in the sun the table needs help. It needs its relay partner to take the baton. So, this time Wiley and I got to build the table with the same plans that somehow I still had. Wiley got to participate this time when last time he was busy growing inside Mom and gone for the weekend.

Yea, the story of the tapas table, somehow not two tables but always one. Not old and new but one taking over for the other. Not just death and birth but a certain continuation. The idea of the tapas table with connectivity at its heart being one thing going on into the future.

Yea, and yesterday Patty was here to walk and after to have tapas and wine on the new Western Red Cedar planks. Tapas go on. She is such a dear and a great new friend for us here at Phil’s Camino. We were celebrating life yesterday in the warmth of the afternoon knowing that she was to be off to cancer surgery today. We are grateful for our times of lightness in all this. If the table was built for this one event then it would have been worth it. We laughed, we cried, we found out we talked the same language.

She sent this email:

We’ll have fun together. Glad we finally made the connection.
Patty

“What if our lives were precious only up to a point? What if we held them loosely and understood that there were no guarantees? So that when you got sick you weren’t a stage, but were in a process? And cancer, just like having your heart broken, or getting a new job, or going to school, were a teacher? What if, rather than being cast out and defined by some terminal category, you were instead identified as someone in the middle of a transformation that could deepen your soul, open your heart, and all the while – even if and particularly when you were dying-you would be supported by and be part of a community? And what if each of these things were what we were waiting for, moments of opening, of the deepening and the awakening of everyone around us? What if this were the point of our being here rather than acquiring and competing and consuming and writing each other off as stage IV or 5.2B?”
Eve Ensler
In the Body of the World

OK then. You are all beautiful, love, Felipe.x

Sometimes when I write this blog things are clear and other times I need several starts to make it happen. Today we have a little shaky start but let’s see what happens. It would be nice if we had it all figured out all the time.

Early this morning I was doing my mediation, my brand of it. At one point I was visualizing a warm toasty sweet spirituality seeping into my body cell by cell like my all too well known chemotherapy. I was being saturated by the good stuff in a way that I couldn’t ignore. It wasn’t just a intellectual knowing it was a inside out knowing, an every cell knowing.

Chemotherapy seems like such a cruel and unusual place. It is always so hard to relate to it. Yes, it is keeping me alive. Yes, it is the state of the art. Yes and yes and yes but what a beast. What a strange bed partner. Hopefully twenty years from now we can throw it all away for something better and more humane. But for now we are stuck with it, with him with her. I need you but baby you are sooo weird!

Ah. But this morning I was using the idea of chemo in a new and unusual way to bring me some other good, some additional good. So, that’s a good thing right? But also what occurs to me with this conversation about internalizing the Spirit is that really it has two parts. One, is so extremely basic that I miss it and that is that it is already there. No matter what my consciousness believes or is aware of the Spirit already saturates everything everywhere at everytime no problem. Two, it is really the awareness of the Spirit that I had saturating every one of my cells this morning. They are two different things but related.

Well, ever onward down the road we go. The Camino, the Soul Train is bound for glory, love you, Felipe.x

Movie Monday News for Caminoheads!
Okay folks, lots of news today. First of all, thank you not only to all the folks who came out to the LA screenings but to Phil and Rebecca for coming down and being present for so many of them! Having them there made the screenings even more special, and I never cease to be amazed at how lucky I am to hang out with such wonderful people. Of course, that includes Carol, Esther, Maggie & Bill, Denise, Doug, Nadine, Ann-Marie, Nanciann, Bill, and all other members of Team Phil’s Camino as well as all the wonderful folks who showed up!

It is time to get serious about who wants to stay with us at the Ft. Worden barracks/retreat center while we are at Port Townsend Film Festival. There is a flat fee of $125 for the entire weekend, not per night, and if you are interested, you must let us know ASAP. I did a rough count and there are only 6 rooms remaining. Each room has a twin bed only, and I believe it is dormitory like conditions, ie. shared bathroom. There is also a restaurant on the site, which is about 3 miles from the center of town. There will be a lot of Team Phil’s Camino staying there so it will be fun! I hear that there are lovely walking trails, and that it is a beautiful place.

The film festival is one of the best around, so we are happy that so many of our team members will be coming to this one: meet Executive Producers Doug Blush, Maggie and Bill Lynch and CO Producer Denise Williamson, as well as Carol Sorvig and Esther Hobbs. Here is some info about the film festival: Port Townsend, 60 miles north of Seattle, is a favorite resort destination town. We’re a well educated, articulate bunch and we’ve loved and supported independent film here for 16 years.

We’re at the end of a stunning little peninsula that juts into Puget Sound, adjacent to Olympic National Park and we’re surrounded by some of the highest mountain peaks in the United States. Our three-day Film Festival is in the completely walkable National Historic District on the waterfront.

Sounds nice, doesn’t it!!!??!

OK, I am off to Rhode Island for the Rhode Island Film Festival. PHIL’S CAMINO screens on Thursday at 2:45. Drop by and catch the film and Q&A if you are in the area!

Love love love-
A

Time is scootching by isn’t it? Seems like yesterday that we started this blog way back before Spain. This whole thing has been like a college education for me. Obviously a lot of writing has taken place but also reading other’s material and thinking and communicating. It has been really valuable for me and hopefully for you.

Over the weekend we got in touch with the energetic Grace Bower in New Zealand. She is seventy one years old, a fiber artist, FaceBook expert and general high voltage curcuit. She knitted the lovely prayer shawl that I received through Terry Hershey. It is next to me here draped over the couch. My Rebecca and myself talked to her for over an hour on the phone.

Where does this bring us? Basically what I have been mulling over is something Erica from Austin brought in here. She said, “We are the average of the five people that we hang out with the most.” Paraphrase maybe but get the idea? We exist in a group. We share ideas, feelings and beliefs. We tend maybe to block out a lot of stuff that tries to come in from the outside, perhaps. I therefore am the average of what my group is.

Hmm, yes, I can see how that works. My thought at the moment is what if some of those were people that I have never met, we’ll never met in person. Now with our modern communications distance is not a factor as in talking with Grace from New Zealand for an hour. I am supposing that some of our people could be people that we faithful read their blogs for instance. Maybe some of my people are Terry Hershey who I don’t see every week or month. Maybe they are Richard Rohr and Joyce Rupp? Man, I am name dropping now!

Those three people are folks that I read faithfully and I feel like I am in touch with them. Makes me happy that perhaps we share mathematics. They contribute to my thinking and well being. I have my “real” people that inhabit my physical environment but also I have my “far away” friends.

And maybe I am part of your group there were you are and that would be an honor for me. Well, just some thoughts for a Monday on the 900th post. You are the best, love, Felipe.x