Dear Caminoheads,

Continuing with the topic of questions, here is another majestic post by Ryck, our Bureau Chief. Pour a glass of wine, or Scotch, and just enjoy…

At what point do we realize the true value of time? I am not referring to the value of time regarding working on a job, or how long you are awake or asleep, I mean the value of time as if it were sand in an hourglass and you can visualize the micro-grains of sand funneling non-stop from the top of the glass to the bottom. When you realized that the grains can never flow from the bottom to the top again, what remains at the top of the glass is what is left, and none of us truly knows how many grains are left. Only an estimation at best.

-How old were you when you realized this?

-Did it change any aspect of your life?

-Did you prioritize your personal grains of sand as they continued to flow towards the bottom, or was it irrelevant? Although, I think, everything is relevant. I almost think the word “irrelevant” is, well, IRRELEVANT…an oxymoron because one thing affects another.

-If I could change anything in my past, would I place less emphasis on those things that would matter not at all in the end? Oh, and then, what is the end? Or is there an end?

I have so many questions, but I know that no one can answer them for me, only the hourglass itself will reveal the answers when it determines.

Now, for a goal, I do know how that works…whatever the goal. I imagine it as I am hiking up a mountain with my big walking stick. At the beginning of hiking the mountain, I look up at it. “Damn that’s far” I will say to myself. Then I will look down at my feet as they slowly move one foot after the other. I can see the earth under my feet moving at the same pace and hear the crunch of the shoes as they hit each step, you know, the best sounds on the Camino as you crunch along, step by step by step…..”crunch…crunch…crunch”…..

As I continue to look at my feet, then around the fields or path, occasionally I will look back up to the mountain and the mountain gets ever so slightly smaller. Then I look down again, crunch, crunch…. then occasionally up at the mountain, the goal becomes within my reach, and suddenly it is possible. As I get closer to the mountain top I think of how many others had quit

or veered off onto another, simpler path with a smaller peak. Maybe these are people from my life, some that left me too early, some that I left not soon enough….some that lost their way.

Finally, I reach that damn mountain top and I look over the valley and the valley is big.

There are many people down in that valley and they are looking up at the mountain top I am now on and they are thinking, “Damn, that is a big mountain”. Some veer off, some will leave too soon, a few will keep looking at their feet as they crunch along, earth moving beneath their feet, occasionally looking up at the mountain top.

At the top of the mountain top there very well may be an hourglass, and the hourglass may now be either completely empty as we have reached the goal, or perhaps, it is completely full again…….But, we will not know until we reach that mountain top.

Maybe, even, at the top of that mountain, everyone throughout our whole life is there, and they say, “We watched you walking from all of the way down in that valley. We watched you almost veer off the path, then you got back on track, but now, you are here with us”.

Cheers:

Ryck

Dear Caminoheads,

It is easy to think we don´t need to reinvent the wheel once more, right? Why do we just settle for what is familiar…? I asked myself this question a few times today…

The truth is that the obvious is not so obvious, and what has been in front of us or has been part of our “always”, often is seen as just a birth mark that cannot be changed, has nothing to provide other than what already did and hence we will walk with it until the last breath, un-questioned.

Once, I listened to David Whyte (English Poet) explaining his poem “Working Together”. We can fly in planes because what existed since always: air and shapes, were seen with new eyes, were studied, and engaged in a conversation that had never happened before, despite they had been there since “always”.

Like the rounded shape and the ground.
Or the stone and the friction.

Which are the parts of me that need to talk to each other? Which are the conversations that are yet to happen? What will I see if I let the familiarity go? …

Working Together

We shape our self
to fit this world

and by the world
are shaped again.

The visible
and the invisible

working together
in common cause,

to produce
the miraculous.

I am thinking of the way
the intangible air

passed at speed
round a shaped wing

easily
holds our weight.

So may we, in this life
trust

to those elements
we have yet to see

or imagine,
and look for the true

shape of our own self,
by forming it well

to the great
intangibles about us.

-David Whyte

Bewildered loves,

Cris

Dear Caminoheads,

That phrase (or something like that) if I am not recalling wrongly, is from the writer William Faulkner. I once read that it was one of the phrases that had the most interpretations. Once says that we cannot run away from the past or our ancestry, not just because of genetics, but also because there is something larger than it that you can call it epigenetic or influence, or culture if you would like.

To exemplify, let me use a personal fact: I mentioned already that I have had “3” fathers. One of them is my blood father (yes, I don’t come from a cabbage, it seems!) and while I lived with my blood father only until I was 5 and afterwards spent only occasional moments with him at the time your parent’s influence you, somehow I inherited not only his passion for music and literature, but also his same choices…

Yesterday, with the ancestry and historical research that Richard provided to us, we could somehow confirm that “the past (the ancestry)” of Phil Volker “is not the past”, because at the present time, he couldn’t run away from it anymore and accept that he is a General himself, recreating his own ancestry… He may have tried to convince us that “this is all in my head” but the reality is that it is not… It is in his genes and his epigenetic too… You may think that I am “making up” all if this, just because one of yesterday’s paintings shown a Volker General wearing a red baseball cap like the one our Phil Volker wears, but it is not… It seems that since Phil “acknowledged his past”, he has started mastering strategies, exactly as his ancestors in the WWII… all in the same Volker’s way… somehow old-fashion, all handwritten, but most importantly very practical. Look again at the picture… it doesn’t allow me to lie.

Tie-Back Loves,

Cris

*Tie-Back is a way to end a story, where the ending connects to some odd or offbeat element earlier in the story (according to Poynter Institute).

~~~~ TODAY PICTURES ARE AT YOUR OWN RESPONSIBILY…

POSTED AT THE END DUE TO SHOCKING CONTENT~~~~

Dear Caminoheads,

Don’t you feel in another reality when you read Ryck’s posts (our Bureau Chief from the Puget Sound, now moved to Washington DC)? I do. And I love the title of the post from yesterday… it is all about perspective, binoculars as The Boss once said, cosmic-rightsizing as I often use too… (If you haven’t read it, please go). And also, please appreciate the picture… and how this picture got to him… definitely, the world and humans are amazing…

Also, please get ready for a series of CORN BLOGPOSTS… I have been getting some messages from my messenger-swallows that there is a competition at the moment for “THE BEST CORN” with Mr. Pilgrim Farmer John in the midlands of Iowa, and Mr. Gral. Phil Volker in the West of the Pacific Coast. The swallows have eaten both, and they are still to decide… it seems there will be white smoke signals broadcasting worldwide if a decision is made, otherwise, both will be declared Gold Medals, as the Jumpers from Italy and Qatar in the Olympics.

But today, before I ramble too much, the post is about Ancestry. We have a collaborator who did research and provided some unthought, unexpected, unknown, undisclosed, not divulged, secret ingredient, as yet undiscovered, unattributed, ancestry from General Phil Volker. We know about some legacy he got, we know that his mother was from Poland, and his father a medic in the army, so I believe, having been so opened about all of this we either have to think that Phil himself didn’t know about this, or he decided to keep it secret for us all not to feel under the pressure of the British Tabloids… he is like our Prince Harry!!!!!!!!

Check yourself… and share your astonishment with the rest of us… the resemblance is just uncanny… and the background as well… (Research and pictures provided by Richard Rogers)

Uncanny loves,

Cris

Dear Caminoheads,

To give a contrast to the posts in the past few days, I thought I could share what happened today… after hours, still is hard to believe. I am doing some paperwork needed for some qualifications at work, and one of the requirements is that my university degree has the “Hague Apostille”. Before the document can have the apostille, there is another prior step that requires a stamp and signature. This signature is given to certify that the previous signatures in the diploma are true and match the public registries, and it is given in the ministry of interior affairs.  I got that signature on a crappy rainy morning of July 2000 when I got my degree.

So today, all confident, after waiting for my appointment taken some days ago, following all the protocol, etc. I take my degree to have the “Hague Apostille” and I see the officer looking at a screen, going to talk to one person, to another person, to another and coming back to the screen, and then says the NO-magic four words: “There is a problem”. And I was like… “what can of problem can be after 21 years?!!!” And the officer continues to explain that the signature of the person who certified that all the other signatures were true and matched the public registry, doesn’t match the public registry. Yes, The One who has to role to check daily that the signatures of others match the signatures registered, did a “short signature” or gave the document to his 5 years old to sign, or to his secretary. The signature in my diploma and the registry aren’t even similar, none, zero similarity…

I don’t know whether to cry or congratulate this man for the audacity… you have to be very bold to do something like that knowing that at some point it might come back… but in this case, this person left the office 6 years after stamping and signing my diploma…

Oh well… Maybe, saying “alperfect” makes the trick for a speedy resolution?! I hope so!!!

Alperfect loves,

Cris

Dear Caminoheads,

Yesterday post, and specially the last paragraph speaking about COVID vaccination brought up lost of comments and while as pilgrims, we appreciate difference, and work daily towards being open-minded and tolerant, and all those good attributes, when it comes to taking care of the others and ourselves, we do not have grey areas: SAFETY IS FIRST.

Steve-O put it in a comment very eloquently, (talking about the Oasis or for what matters, coming to visit Phil or anyone, really):

“In this case, it could be a life and death issue for even vaccinated people who can still contract the Delta variant. People who are elderly or compromised by sickness, including the original Caminohead, are extremely vulnerable. To infect them is to risk their lives, and anybody can be a carrier.”

Phil was very clear himself when he spoke about the Oasis: he and Rebecca drew a line on this matter and asked for vaccinated people only at the Oasis, and it is the responsibility of each of us to make it happen. There is enough going on already in the world and in the ranch to add one more worry. The Oasis is a celebration.

Some of you may know that I have another job in addition to being the Caminoheads South American Bureau Chief. Not that I am complaining about the salaries that The Boss pays, but while I live in a third world country, I still need to have a second job to make my ends meet. My day job is in the area of clinical research, which is the area in medicine dedicated to the development of new treatments. Many of my work colleagues, the most knowledgeable of them, had to stop doing the research they were doing to dedicate their time to study, learn, observe, think and work on COVID research. And many of us had to pick up their projects so they could continue and add it to our full schedule, so as to free their time for them to be dedicated to the virus research. The vaccines are the result of the thousands and thousands and thousands of neurons working for thousands and thousands and thousands of hours. I have never been busier in my whole life. This is nothing to praise, this is what we do for a living and we are lucky enough to be in a position of privilege to contribute to the management of the pandemic.

You can contribute too.  Getting the vaccine at this point is the best way to contribute. If you have questions or doubts and have not had the chance to discuss them with anyone, feel free to email me at [email protected] and I will do my best to provide you with reliable information. (I even attended a class this past Thursday to learn more about the delta variant and reply with more knowledge to one of you who emailed me specifically asking “how do I know it is safe?”)

As said, there are no grey areas here: The attendance to the “face to face” Oasis will be for COVID FULL VACCINATED people.

Scientific Loves,

Cris

Dear Caminoheads,

August has started! Isn’t that crazy? The OASIS is coming soon and lots is being prepared. If you would see the “behind the scenes”, you wouldn’t believe what human beings can be capable of…

As for the plans, we mentioned already that there are a number of great ideas: there will be walking Phil’s Camino, CORN, hanging out at the ranch, maybe weeding the corn (ha!), activities on the island proposed by the locals, campfires with a glass of wine and storytelling, and as previously advertised,  this year there will SIESTAS in the schedule!!!

The plans for having online Oasis Activities continues in the schedule, and we will let you know as we get closer.

There has been lots of RSVP already done, which is very much appreciated. If you are planning to come and have not yet let us know, please please please do! It is of tremendous help to know who is coming and how and when, as we are already connecting pilgrims for lifts and transportation, but also organizing meals and other stuff that is “per Caminohead”.

Remember: You don’t need to have gone to the Camino, speak Spanish or even walk to come to the Oasis. You just need to be a pilgrim, a pilgrim in the make, have the wish to be a pilgrim, have the thought that some day you might consider being a pilgrim, have the thought that you would have loved to be a pilgrim, be a neighbor/friend/son/partner/cousin/aunt/uncle, etc of a pilgrim, be a Caminohead, be a islander, or be yourself to come. So, please come! (and RSVP!!!)

Bottom line: RSVP to [email protected]

Add in your email when you are planning to arrive and to leave, how many of you are coming (families are more than welcome!!), where you are staying (or planning to stay), if you will have a car and can offer a lift or if you need a lift; also let us know if you are coming online and if you need any help. All of this can be fine-tuned later as your plans get more solid, but share with us what you know right now. 

Oh? Have I mentioned that Phil has for us Oasis 2021 bandanas ready?!!!!!!! All is waiting for you (and us)! Please come! (and RSVP!!!)

Oasis Loves,

Cris on behalf of Phil/Felipe/The boss/The General and His Rebecca

Recommendation from Dr. Cris: Vaccination is important to save the others’s lives (in addition to ours). If you come to the Oasis, you are coming to be with Phil, Rebecca and other pilgrims, and by being vaccinated, you are taking care of all of them! Thank You!!!!  (Note, this thought is my own responsibility)

We are the Camino!  There is nothing more important for us to understand!

Recently a Camino character, Samantha Wilson, wrote something that shook my world although I had been living it since 2014.  And we here at Caminoheads have been living it also unknowingly.   I have been thinking all along that the center of Camino spirit is back at the Camino itself.  But she wrote that the center of Camino spirit is in the Pilgrims themselves who reside all over the world.  And we at Caminoheads are a hotbed!  Do you see that?  I celebrate!!!!  Let us see this!!!!

Felipe.x

Posted by Cris on behalf of Felipé (a.k.a Phil, The Boss, Colonel A., The General -to quote a few-)

Dear Caminoheads,

It seems that the recent promotion to General that The Boss got, has intimidated more than one. Or maybe, as a Colonel, he had already imparted this sentiment of fellowship, respect and obedience within his followers… to the point, that when I inquired the respectful professor Mary McKinley -who you may know was the lucky one to meet Phil and Kelly in the Camino in Spain- about what happened the night that these three pilgrims (Phil, Kelly and Mary) along the rest of their Camino family were told that they were “louder than the Italians”, this is what she replied:

       “What happens in Terradillos de los Templarios stays in Terradillos de los Templarios!”

Upon further interrogations, all I got from that night was that:

“On the very long and hot walk there, Kelly kept saying, ‘It’s only another 3 km!’ but he said it every 30 minutes or so until we knew he was lying.”

       “The Italian reference is because they all tended to be bikers, not walkers, so they were more ready to party and stay up very late than we who had trudged every step. So it was a special night when we realized that they wished they were having as much fun as we were.”

I guess, it will remain a mystery to the rest of us what Phil, Kelly, Mary, and the rest of their Camino family were experiencing (to put it mildly!) that night… but if there is anything any of us can asseverate is that we are now jealous that we weren’t there!!!!!!!!!!

Loud LOUD LOUD Loves,

Cris