Dear Caminoheads,

 

Writing today’s post is being very difficult, my whole body is vibrating trying to tell me something, but sometimes, there are no words to name what we experience. My mind is full of scattered thoughts. And my heart probably is the only one focused on one single thing: love.

 

Some of us (and I wish it could have been the whole world) had the privilege today to sit in a zoom call organized by Annie (O’Neil) where Phil and Rebecca were present. At a moment there were 94 people in the reunion (even one facetiming through the screen of another because couldn’t make the zoom link work). The folks were covering all the time zones and hemispheres: all North American region from West Coast, midlands and East Coast from Baja to Canada; European “midnighters” in England and Spain; folks already living on Sunday morning joining from Australia and New Zealand; me here, in the south of South America, and a very special guest in “space”. The age group went from 8 to 80 years old.

 

 

Some “things” don’t have an explanation, they just happen. And all we have to do is to let them in, take them in, absorbe them in all the biological ways: through the skin and mind, let them act changing our hormones and physiology, and let the healing happen. The healing could be called “a miracle”, but to me, the “miracle” is having been lucky enough to be invited to “that thing”, whichever has been the way we got the invitation, and decide to play an active role towards it. 

 

 

As I wrote the other day, David Whyte has put the perfect words to “what means” “this thing” that we have been invited to:

 

“… the ultimate touchstone (of friendship) is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.” Excerpt of “Friendship” by David Whyte, from “Consolations book”.

 

Today, we incarnated these words in a “snail” (or spiral or pastries with cinnamon and raisins) that have Phil and Rebecca at its center, and then evolves as chain of connections with each of the people who were in the zoom, who have watched Annie’s movies, who have walked the Camino, who read this blog, who are a neighbor to the Caminoheads neighborhood, and expands to our daily lives.

 

My whole body continues vibrating trying to tell me something. My mind continues full of scattered thoughts. But my heart continues focused on one single thing: love.

And this “stay in line” with an immense appreciation to Annie (O’Neil) -and “her village”- who made “Phil’s Camino” movie and through it, allowing most of us to have Phil and Rebecca as companions “on this journey impossible to accomplish alone”.

 

Cris