I am back to the ferry dock after a doctor visit. I got the windows down and the sun is streaming in and I’m actually hot. The sky is half clouds and half blue.

Seattle was even emptier today than yesterday. People are staying home. Saw on FaceBook this morning that our local schools are shutting down tomorrow til April 16th. All Masses are cancelled in The Seattle Archdiocese, that just came in. Also Father David just cancelled all church activities at our local parish.

I am going to make a management decision here today and close down all activities on Phil’s Camino (walks, tapas and work parties) through March. We can see how April looks in a few weeks. Rather than having everyone calling and emailing to ask are we open we will lay low for the rest of the month.

We will so feel like opening again, whenever that may be. But for now this will protect us and protect you. Love you as always.

So sad loves, Felipé.

Well not exactly empty but the traffic this morning looked like traffic on a holiday. I’m at the Institute to see Dr Gold my oncologist. The hospital is pretty empty maybe a third to half the amount of the normal crowd on a normal Wednesday.

Everything and everyone has a strange feel or strange cast about them. Things seem slightly off at best. But the hospital itself is running along just fine. Right now I am waiting for my “numbers” to come back so I can be OK’ed for another three weeks of treatment. Then I am gone to catch a ferry.

But here I am in the maw of it all and might as well report. Cris our CSABC had a great comment today about this outbreak being a great opportunity for us. I haven’t heard that idea before. I’m still chewing on that. I think what she is saying is that it is a time for service. It is a time to be helpful to those that need it rather than going into the bunker to wait things out.

This has merit of course and makes me think of the situations of outbreaks of other diseases in other times. People in general are ignorant or uncertain about how to proceed so they generally withdraw for safety sake. But there have always been those that have gotten out beyond that to be helpful. The battle between self preservation and calling has been around for a while.

I was talking with my research nurse David. He was expressing the idea that it is an opportunity to study people and how they are reacting. He talks about the panic buying.

Well, time to go. Things are getting wrapped up for my release.

Strange uncertainty loves, Felipé.

It seems that we are all at least a little preoccupied with the virus of the year. If we could think back to Christmas and New Years time it would be hard to imagine where we are today. Things move rapidly these days.

Karen our Bureau Chief in Cambridge, England expressed some fear this morning in her post. Well, yes we are all a little unhinged as I put it. So, I thought that I would keep her in mind as I write today to give my thoughts some direction. I will be writing mainly to her there on another continent across the Atlantic.

It seems to me that the main culprit in these times is uncertainty. The stock market hates it and it shows. We all hate it, some more than others. It really messes with our standard everyday mind that appreciates the statis quo that likes the trains to run on time.

But consider two things Karen, two reminders. One is that most all of us that are reading this have spent enough days on the Camino to understand the idea of the Camino provides. Yes? We know how that works. And we know that is with us today right here, right now still. Just a reminder that we have to remain trusting that things will work out for the best.

And two, for characters like us who have been dealing with cancer or other serious maladies we know about uncertainty to the max. Right, we already have our doctorate in this one. Remember what works for you. Maybe, quelling panic. Maybe navigating to avoid getting overwhelmed. Maybe, doing a good job at one thing at a time. Maybe, celebrating our small victories. At least those are my tricks.

And of course we have to buoy each other up in our walk. There is no substitute for this. It just is important. And as a foundation to all this is a belief that God loves us and walks with us in whatever “valley of the shadow of death” we happen to find ourselves.

This is us, we are the tough ones. This is our secret that is no big secret. This is the Way.

with you loves, Felipé.

Every morning I go out the back door and under the cherry tree to dump yesterday’s ashes from the wood stove. It was darker than I was used to because of the time change adding an additional hour to the other end of the day. It was frosty out because of the clear sky. The moon full or nearly so was taking it’s leave in the west. But what is that racket? It took a moment to focus on the sound of a pack of coyotes yodeling to the north. What a time they were having!

And yes, yesterday the time changed and Phil’s Camino changed to it’s summer schedule. Afternoon walks start at 1600 now. And we had our first work party which was attended by Tim and Cathy, two of my all time favorite people. A lot of cleanup got accomplished in the south pasture along the trail there. These work parties will be every Sunday through the summer season in good weather starting an hour before the walk.

And yes, people responded also to my plea for donations to support the trail. Tim and Cathy showed up with a bag of sunflower seeds for the birdies. And the Marauders sent in a check from California. This is all very heart warming for this guy.

So, life at the ranch goes on. Folks are letting us know that they will be here for the Veranda in August. As far as I know we will be collecting RSVP’s again at [email protected] . Rho is manning that.
Those dates are August 21-24.

Monday morning walk here shortly. Frosty out there, the ground is white.

we continue on loves, Felipé.

I’m finding these life and times during the outbreak to be quite sobering. This is not what I normally equate with fun. I’m trying to find a stance or posture to work from. Trying to smile but that doesn’t quite seem right either.

Father David came out with a whole list of rules and regs about how church was going to run for the foreseeable future. Yikes, seventeen items about stopping the spread of the problem in the life of the church from stem to stern. This is all very sobering and disconcerting but apparently necessary as we are suddenly all enlisted in helping with this process.

To be fair four of those seventeen items were about showing care for each other and our Island neighbors. This did somewhat balance all the hygiene information. It shows us that we have to be on the lookout for those not doing as well as we are. Some folks are going to need extra help.

And how does all this effect us the pilgrims? We have got to be the huggyist kissyist subset of folks going anywhere. It will be tough to comply with these new emergency protocols but they will become habits pretty darn quickly I predict. This is all looking very serious and seriouser by the minute.

So anyway, sorrow about all the doom and gloom. We have a walk today and our first work party beforehand. I will have to brighten up.

thanks for being here loves, Felipé.

Oh, the strides we made in balancing our diets when we found out that wine was a vegetable. Do you remember? Well, where that came from there is more good news! It turns out that not only Ibuprofen but Tylenol and Aspirin count as vegetables. Yea, our worries are over.

You know in this time of perpetual bad news 24 hours a day I took the artistic freedom to come up with something a little funny, well at least a little goofy. I just had to break the spell that seems to be hanging over the whole place, the whole country, the whole world if only for a minute.

Ryck our CPSBC had a piece that he wrote on FaceBook writing about how these days so reminded him of the days after 9/11. It was a good piece and timely. I guess we both felt the need to say something. And Cris CSABC had a piece with video on Yo Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble. We seem to be feeling the need.

Time to go for me. Stuff to do.

the need to be goofy loves, Felipé.

This is it, the arrival of the long awaited for Summer Walking Schedule! This Sunday morning, the 8th, we will be on Daylight Savings Time and this signals the beginning of our new schedule.

Also we are implementing two changes to the situation while we are changing things. At the rockpile here at Phil’s Camino will be a donation can to help with general expenses of the trail. We ask you to donate a little to keep things going in a safe and satisfactory way. Also one hour is being set aside on Sundays for a work party. This is nothing heavy duty just mostly clean up. So, wear your jeans and bring gloves if you will be here for that. And that is only in good weather.

Monday walk 0900-1000
Tuesday walk 1600-1700, tapas 1700-1800
Thursday walk 0900-1000
Sunday work party 1500-1600, walk 1600-1700, tapas 1700-1800.

(Here is our beloved William with his warm thoughts from the frozen North. I am so happy with this arrangement of our Bureau Chiefs putting their material in once a week. Thank you all!)

Awakening The Joy In Your Heart

I liked the following……..

These words are from “the speaking tree” by Thich Nhat Hanh.

(I have modified the wording slightly as I saw fit.)

Everyone who is human has a spiritual dimension. Without a spiritual dimension it is difficult for us to deal with challenges. If you have a good spiritual practice, you are no longer afraid, because you know how to deal with difficulties and can meet any situation with calm and peace.

Many describe God in terms of Love but French writer, Andre Gidé, describes God as Happiness. As God is available 24 hours a day, then it should be possible to get in touch with Happiness at any time of the day. But how to get in touch with Happiness.

If we breath in mindfully and be aware of our in-breath, you bring the mind home to your body and when your mind is with the body, you are truly there, living fully in the here and now. In ordinary life, very often, our body is there, but our mind is elsewhere. We are caught in sorrow or regret of the past or we are caught in the fear and uncertainty concerning the future. We are caught in our projects. Our mind is not there with our body.We are not truly there.

The practice of mindful breathing, recommended by the Buddha, helps us to bring our mind home to our body. When our mind is with our body, we are back in the here and now, fully present and alive. We can get in touch with the wonders of life that are available in the here and now. Remembering that the past is already gone and the future is not yet here. There is only one moment when you can be fully alive and that is the present moment. The present moment has all the wonders of life in it.

The practice of mindful breathing and walking are not too difficult. They allow us to go back to the here and now in order to live deeply for every moment given to us to live. When you breath in or breath out mindfully, or when you walk mindfully, with every step, you generate the energy of mindfulness.

William Hayes, Caminoheads Canada Bureau Chief

You know if you have been reading this blog for any time that I am big on the research of Dr Kelly Turner as written up in her book Radical Remission. Let me review this for any newcomers. Dr Turner is an integrative oncologist and not an MD first of all. Her original idea that she came up with long ago was, I’m paraphrasing, “If you want to win the war on cancer you have to talk with the winners.” So she took ten years and interviewed a thousand former cancer patients that had the designation of spontaneous remission. This is what medical doctors call the complete unexplainable absence of the malady. One day a patient’s cancer just disappears and that is what the doc writes in, spontaneous remission. Dr Turner changed the term for her book to radical remission because she felt that that was more accurate.

Anyway, she identified ten topics that were talked about a lot in the interviews. These she identified as important and I am with her on this. These topics we have talked about and kicked around a lot for a long time on Caminoheads blog. Of course some more than others. So, I was very excited to read her writings a couple of years ago when the book fell into my hands. As I remember it was a gift of a walker here at Phil’s Camino which in itself is telling.

So, the news today is that Dr Turner is coming out with a docuseries on these ten topics which you can sign up for. It is starting on March 16th. Each topic will be available for 24 hours before the next one comes up. If you are interested Google Radical Remission Docuseries and you should find something to work with, some way to sign up.

And why should you be interested? True we don’t all have cancer, fortunately. But we all know someone who does though. And way beyond that these are great topics for anyone to consider. Look them up and you will see. These together make for a healthy life I would say.

I will be tuning in to this because I have tons to learn. Just wanted to let you know that there are things happening out there. Dr Turner is also coming out with a new book in April called Radical Hope. It’s all very Camino to me, that is why I am excited and excited to tell you.

trying to simplify our loves, Felipé.

There should be a Super Wednesday, right, After the Super Tuesday. For the benefit of someone reading this text five hundred years from now Super Tuesday is a important day in the American political process of presidential race when one of the parties has numerous primary elections on the same day. See we cover all the bases here at Caminoheads.

And on this particular Super Wednesday it appears that Joe Biden pulled off a miracle yesterday to be the front runner for the Dems. It was pretty impressive watching the coverage on the Tube. I feel honored to have been around him way back when in the 1960’s when we were both starting out. I wrote about that back on the February 23rd blog if you missed it.

Personally I think politics is a strange animal and I have as little as possible to do with it anymore. The Camino was the turning point for me. Other things seem way more important. Not that I don’t appreciate voting and all the struggles that our ancestors went through to give us what we have today. I am deeply grateful. But there are other things that need attention too.

With that I am going to bail out today. The sun is out and chores call.

Supers Loves everyday, Felipé.