So, short on time today so we will cover Annie’s Day 14 quote and call it good. Details conspired and I was over taken so we will streamline the blog today. Tonight is my talk about the trip to Lourdes in 2014 at St. john Vianney’s out here on Vashon. The time 6:30 PM.
Just what I needed today is a quote from Yogi Berra: “It ain’t the heat, it’s the humility.”
The topic of humility is a tough one for us in general. But it is on all our lists of things to learn. The ability to be humble and ask for help is something that goes counter to our worldly training but apparently a skill that we must have in the end. And on the Camino we all had our moments of defeat and amazement when an angel just showed up for us at that point. Showing gratitude and showing humility are two of the biggies for us.
Walking in a few minutes. The weather here has been gorgeous and temps record breaking. This morning continues in that vein. How lovely!
Here we go bouncing into Spring at Phil’s Camino at Raven Ranch. The trail is dry and passable with a mild dusting of winter debris. We are working to get everything slicked up for the season. So no real need for the rain gear and rubber boots for now.
The trail through the woods here at Phil’s Camino.
Yea, I’m an offical lab rat now. I got all the paperwork and counciling done and am officially in a clinical trial. Took my second pill this morning, it’s a one a day pill. I guess I am doing my part for the greater good on this one and hoping for some “activity” for my own sake in the process. It’s all dreadfully scientific mostly. Lots of monitoring and record keeping making sure Test Pilot Phil comes out of the other side in one piece.
So, this changes my schedule greatly. Instead of coming in two days every two weeks I will be coming in once every three weeks. And then there are some scans thrown occasionally. So less time on the road in Seattle which is more time at the ranch. And not sure how long this will last. It all depends on the performance as monitored by the scans and my ability to tolerate the agent. So, right now it is a So Far So Good thing.
The way I see it this will not change the walking schedule at all. That should just continue along as usual. On that account more visitors are showing up with the warmth of Spring. Alperfect.
Annie’s quote for Day 13 is “My search is over, and I rest in Thee.” from Rickie Byers and Michael Beckwith. I think if I am not mistaken that these are lyrics from a gospel song that these two wrote. It shows a certain maturity to finally reach a resting place like this. We might not understand everything but we have arrived to a sense of calm and trust. Alperfect.
Well, have to go. I am giving a talk tomorrow at 6:30 in the evening on my pilgrimage to Lourdes with the Order of Malta and need to prepare. That is at St. John Vianney’s on Vashon.
Enjoy the day. Something interesting will happen I am sure. Warm sunshine loves, Felipé.
I think that I missed doing our daily Lenten thought from Annie’s book yesterday. So maybe we will try and do two here and do the catch-up. So let’s start with Day 11:
“God is also substance, the essence from which all things come.” William Earle Cameron.
Yes, I can see that. And He can be what he wants to be on top of everything else of course. That sounds like kind of a glib answer but it’s not really. Personally I have given up trying to think about what God is or isn’t. I have to come to the conclusion that I don’t have the capacity to get to first base on that and that trust is actually the key component that is most important. I trust that my Camino will be just the right one for me.
In the morning sun
And two we have this quote for Day 12:
“Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand.”
Henry David Thoreau
Yes, here is one that we can chew on for sure. This is so much something to learn on our pilgrimage. Take what you need and leave the rest. Yes, yes. We want to take the cure for any and every problem that might arise. But we have to pare down to the essentials and learn to trust, there is that word again, that we will be taken care of by one angel or another.
Well, and that goes for “affairs” too. To keep things easy and uncomplicated as possible with people too. There is no need for most of the drama that passes for relations these days. We can make things a lot smoother without much effort. Or sometimes effort is required but it will be well spent.
Yes, and with me, I am off and running with my clinical trial that turns up as my next course of treatment. It is pill form this time and I just took my very first one. So we hope and pray for the very best for the Phil/Felipé team. Will keep you posted.
OK, time to head off and get down the road. A short visit to the hospital today.
The weather lately has been so gorgeous. One side of that is that I am worn out trying to be out in it getting things done but the other side is it’s great for walking Phil’s Camino. No puddles, no mud and that sun has warmth! And we have had tapas out on the tapas table on the deck for two afternoon walks in a row. Yea, that is what I want to tell you.
And gosh, we are close to the Spring Equinox. We are making progress on this springtime. The sun is streaming in the east window right now as I write. And walking in a few minutes and I will take my camera to show you what it looks like.
And the idea of Phil’s Camino being a salon holds as spring unfolds. Interesting people doing interesting things from interesting places show up to share themselves. This all really starts to bloom in this time of warmer conditions when more folks show up. Not that we don’t love our hardy winter time walkers and they keep it alive for those fallow months. But this time here is the springtime of ideas too and of sharing and creativity. Exciting, no?
Those pics of the color in the hills of California are really exciting too. Rho SWCBC has been putting them up on FB. Maybe she can give us a key to what different plants show up as all those different colors. I got that the orange is the California poppy but what else is in there? It is a total riot of color!
So, maybe that is what we are hoping for at our get together this August a total riot! Maybe I could work that into the name: Caminoheads’ Total Riot or Felipé’s Total Riot! Yeaaa.
Ah, St Paddy’s Day in the neighborhood and elsewhere. A beautiful morning shaping up here. Back from Mass and tailgating at Thriftway. Catherine is back after three weeks away so I had supervision.
I see we missed our Day 10 with Everyday Camino with Annie so we will catch up today. This is an excellent quote from Rev. Michael Bernard Beckwith: “We are living in a high tech low-touch society.” The Rev put it well and succinctly. We here in our lives can get the idea that our existance on FaceBook and other such networks, for instance is somehow real existance. Maybe we say I have so many friends on FB, so look how popular I am. Maybe we neglect real people next to us for our virtual people.
This thing that we have substituted for real life just isn’t real life. It’s fun and maybe satisfying on a lonely day but it is hardly the same and it is dangerous to think that it is. The Camino for that brief period of time gave us the chance to be with our fellow man directly and unhindered. Sometimes it was a bit much but it was the real thing that we experienced.
So the point is how can we get closer to that here in our everyday lives with all it’s stresses and distractions.
We have a walk this afternoon at 4 in the afternoon. Should be a good one. I have some of my nurses from the mainland threatening to come along with probablies from some of my fav locals. So, we will work on maintaining our Camino skills in the here and now at Phil’s Camino.
Time to make it happen. The best to you wherever you are today. Thanks for stopping by. Sunday loves, Felipé.
Remember to mark on your calendar August 23 through the 26th for Felipé’s Festival right here at Raven Ranch.
My friend Roy was telling me that he had gone to the Eagles Club last evening for their St Paddy’s Day Dinner. He said that there were generous portions of corned beef and cabbage. Yea, generous portions, I haven’t heard that phrase in a long time but it is a good one.
I just got back from my bible class and we were discussing the story about Jesus saying that it was harder for the rich man to get into the Kingdom than to get a camel through the eye of the needle. And I hope that we the trusty pilgrims that we are realize how lucky we are generally and that generous portions are available to us. We can do quite well in this life without getting obsessed with the accumulation of things and wealth. Going down the trail with our “light backpack” and gratitude in our hearts is still the way that we see to best navigate the world.
We are lucky that we have been exposed to the lessons that we have. Of course we think that the whole world would be better off if we all went on pilgrimage for a bit in our lives. It is fortunate for us that we had the chance when we did.
Time to go. The beautiful sun is out and I still have plenty of clean up to do outside. Later y’all loves, Felipé.
I seem terribly unfocused today but maybe that is a good thing. Let’s start with Annie’s quote for Day 9 of the Everyday Camino with Annie:
“Rational mind may cancel the first thought; intuitive mind lives on the first thought. The rational mind judges itself; the intuitive amazes itself. The rational is filled by thoughts; the intuitive is filled by Spirit.” Maggie Lynch.
Maybe this quote is for me today as I sit here with my “terribly unfocused” self. Seems to fit, yes? This is the place to operate from today apparently.
Story time, I don’t know if I have talked about this but maybe and anyway probably a sufficiently long time ago. Just saw a shot on the TV of Joe Biden looking presidential in this time when he is supposedly thinking about running next year. If we go back to 1965-66 Joe was a graduate student at Syracuse University in Upstate New York. He and another older student named Roger were riding herd on a bunch of freshman and sophomores in Watson West Dormitory. I was there with my neighborhood buddy Mel occupying Room 322. Little did we know, right? Guess I could have got him to autograph my slide rule or my transistor radio. It was a while ago.
Yup, you never know about the future loves, Felipé.
We didn’t have very many owls around this winter but one made an appearance this morning. Well, it was an audio appearance. I walked outside to check out what was going on in the dark and he greeted me with his call. Sometimes you can hear an answer in the distance but I couldn’t. Life in the boonies.
One night when there was a lot of owls around they were making so much noise that they woke up the ravens roosting close by. And the darn ravens started mimicking the owl calls and all hell broke loose in the woods. I still don’t think that they have forgiven each other to this day.
Buddy Danna put up a poem on FB this morning and one of the lines in it was “untroubled by oblivion”. OK, there is something not quite OK about taking lines out of poems because they really belong at home in their context but I can’t help it. It is in a piece by Jan Zwicky entitled Recovery.
Well, why don’t I just copy and paste it right here for you.
RECOVERY } by Jan Zwicky
And when at last grief has dried you out, nearly
weightless, like a little bone, one day,
no reason in particular, the world decides to tug:
twinge under the breastbone, the sudden thought
you might stand up, walk to the door and
keep on going… And in the seconds following,
like the silence following the boom under the river ice, it all
seems possible, the egg-smooth clarity of the new-awakened,
rising, to stand, and walk… But already
at the edges of the crack, sorrow
starts to ooze, the brown stain spreading
and you think: there is no end to it.
But in the breaking, something else is given—not
that glittering jumble, shrieking and churning in the blind
centre of the afternoon,
but something else—a scent,
like a door flung open, a sudden downpour
through which you can still see the sun, derelict
in the neighbour’s field, the wren’s bright eye in the thicket.
As though on that day in August, or even July,
when you were first thinking of autumn, you remembered also
the last day of spring, which had passed
without your noticing. Something that easy, let go
without a thought, untroubled by oblivion,
a bird, a smile.
OK, so there, the whole thing. We will celebrate a poem and a poet right here right now. Well, walking in a few minutes and then a big long day. Time to get rolling.
Oh, forgot to mention Annie’s quote for the day. No time to comment but here is is: “My eyes are on the mountaintop, Tell you my feet straight ahead. For I hunger, I hunger after righteousness, Surely gonna be fed.” from Eyes on the Mountaintop by Rickie Byers & Michael Beckwith.
Sorry that I am really late today with posting. It was a busy day at the hospital but I am here now. Just to report on the goings on, I read a lot of papers and signed this and that. And there was this test and that test. So not really going to start on any treatment til next Tuesday.
Yesterday we talked about Annie’s 6th day quote and Cris wrote some great stuff on the Comments. I copied and pasted a paragraph from that for you here:
“The Camino opened me to the experience of feeling “a part of this all”, funny enough I never felt a part of the creation before. Almost contemporaneously, I read John O’Donohue, and he wrote: that it is not a random act that we are here… as from the million of combinations that could have occurred at conception, “we” were made… It was not that we were “waiting” in an incarnation lobby ready to get a phone call and show up… and that was because there is something we have to do here that cannot be done by anyone else (otherwise that other being would be here and not us). For me, seeing this in this way was revealing… it makes me feel responsible for this life of mine, for making sure I contribute to make this world a better, kinder and healthier place, because I have some privileges others don’t have, and being “a part” of this, I must take over my place fully… I don’t have the “right” to not show up…”
Cris SACBC
So, here we are at the seventh day of Lent. Let’s see what Annie has for her 7th day quote:
“Whether one believes in a religion or not, and whether one believes in rebirth or not, there isn’t anyone who doesn’t appreciate kindness and compassion.” The Dalai Lama
It feels odd to try and follow or improve on the Dalai Lama to me here at the moment. Seems like he is getting down to the basics here. And it seems that we got pretty basic on the Camino and we learned these kind of lessons from folks around us even though we might not have been speaking the same language.
I have to check out, exhausted. Tomorrow is another day. See you here. Dalai Lama loves, Felipé.
