Well, here we are the day of the wedding. It is late morning and things are happening and noisy so this post will be short. But we are all intent on making it a excellent day for the bride and groom.

I have to run off in a moment and drive to town for one more thing. Yea, the one more thing thing. I will get back to you with pix of the wedding tomorrow but for now, anon.

Please prayers for the new couple and their success with their endeavor. Always thinking of you, love, Felipe.

Just when we were so engrossed with our talk of illness and wellness who should show up but Lauren Lane Powell author of Holy Shift!  Everything Is A Gift – A Spirit –  Lead Journey through Illness to Wellness.  She came to walk Phil’s Camino yesterday.   My Rebecca met her at the national gathering of the Threshhold Choir this summer.

She had a lot to say and it felt like her visit was way too short.  But I will read her book soon and we will talk about it.  She is an extremely positive individual that has this very fun filled response to her cancer journey.  In other words she is having fun with it.

Back to the wedding topic, today is the last day before the event.  All the rental stuff, tents and chairs, are showing up today so we will be playing with that.   So, this is all on my mind leaving little left over for much else.  So the blog is going to be a little thin here for a while.

Yup, so I hope every little thing is well where you are.  Here we go!  Love, Felipe.

I’m back reading Radical Remission, well when I can.  Started on the Releasing Suppressed Emotions chapter and the author starts with this paragraph:

”Suprisingly, only two of the nine most frequent factors of Radical Remission in this book are physical (diet change and herbs/supplements); the rest are emotional or spiritual in nature.  When I first started this research, I fully expected the most common things people would report doing for their healing to be physical in nature…  Therefore no one was more surprised than I was when I kept hearing, in interview after interview, so much discussion about mental, emotional and spiritual healing factors.”

Maybe we are all suprised by that.  I think generally we are conditioned to spending a lot of time and effort concentrating on the physical as a people.   So, it seems to do otherwise is sort of a minority effort or the effort of a minority.  The folks that “achieve” radical remission are definately a minority of the affected population that is for sure.

This finding is very interesting to me as I explore this area.  Another interesting thing that pops up to me at the moment is the absence of exercise in the book.  Obviously, exercise has been important to me.  We have more to talk about tomorrow I see.

Yes, I have to go.  There is a walk in a moment, speaking of exercise.  The sky is overcast and it is cool with a little hint of rain.  Perfect for a walk on the Meseta.   Supposedly have some new folks coming too so that is always interesting.

Minority type loves, Felipe.

Watching My Rebecca play with her granddaughter as I was sitting here wondering what to blog about.  She is so in heaven, Rebecca is, don’t really know about Freya.  Right now she’s developed the hiccups, too much excitement I guess.

I am about to bust into action on my list for the day.   Of course that all revolves around wedding stuff.  Well, maybe a little corn stuff here and there.

Alperfect really loves, Felipe.

It’s all happening here right now, family and friends gravitating in for Wiley and Henna’s wedding.  I don’t know if I will be able to write much of a post today as I am needed for this and that here starting at this early hour.  Maybe I will make it out to the tapas table with my coffee cup.  Ah, quieter out here and amazingly chilly.

I am just trying to “sing” along over the increasing frenzy.  Sing seems like an apt word.  I suppose I am not used to this many moving parts in my life.  Maybe it would seem simple to juggle all this stuff to others.  But one’s own challenges always seem harder somehow.  Anyway, I am a half hour away from making noise.  I always try and keep things quiet after nine at night and before nine in the morning, stuff like mowing and running woodworking equipment.  I have to go in a few minutes and mow the pasture that we are using for parking first thing.

Pilgrims are coming and going too.  I am doing my best to keep Phil’s Camino running during this period.  So if you were thinking about coming still come, we are working around all the preparation commotion.

It is all part of our bigger Camino, right?  I talked with Rho yesterday and were talking Camino and how all the parts of our lives fit into it.   The walk always continues or is it the “walk” always continues or is it the Walk always continues?  Maybe all three at once.

So, we will continue tomorrow.  Please pray for me and my family during this period.  The best to you.  Joyful preparation loves, Felipe.x

The list of commonalities from the Radical Remissions book is intriguing isn’t it?  It flits through my mind all day long.  I haven’t been this excited about a list since the Pilgrim Beatitudes hit town four years ago.  Of course, I haven’t finished reading the book yet, not even half way through it so more to come.

Maybe we could explore those items in more detail and one at a time as time goes on.  As I look at it right now the majority of them have some  connection with this blog.  In some way they are walking with us.   Such as the idea of “Embracing Social Support”.  That would be a biggie and it is the first to jump out at me.  The blog is bringing my personal situation to light so that somehow that is support for others in a similar situation.  And in that process I get supported by a whole gaggle of folks, you guys.  Thank you by the way.

I can see “Increasing Positive Emotions” being involved as a sort of byproduct.  There is a tendency when one is writing about oneself to put a good spin on it or to say things in positive ways.  I think that is natural.  So that leads to learning how to do that as a sort of habit , a sort of muscle memory.  It is not the same as hiding things but it is a sort of seeing the silver lining in everything and learning how to dwell there.

“Deepening Your Spiritual Connection” has been close at hand with me writing this blog.  Doing that is one thing and a good thing but having to write and talk about it has lead to a certain clarity for me.  I guess if I have to explain a point to someone else it becomes clear to me in the process.  That makes sense.

Well, I am quickly running out of time.  Walking in a few minutes.  It is a beautiful cool morning.  I have been missing some of my laps on the afternoon walks with the heat these days.  But right now it is delicious.

So, thanks for being here.  Hope that your day goes well.  I know that some of you have health challenges and  some have wildfires close by.  Be brave.  Be brave loves, Felipe.

We are still doing it despite the heat and the wedding preparations.

Monday 0900-1000

Tuesday 1600-1700

Thursday 0900-1000

Sunday 1600-1700.

Stop by, Felipe.x

Not long ago I started reading Radical Remission subtitled Surviving Cancer Against All Odds.  It was given to me by a couple that were here walking Phil’s Camino.   I joke and say that I get two books a day by well wishers, although maybe not literally true it still feels like it sometimes.  I am such a slow reader and I don’t devote the time to it that it deserves but never the less I try and my stack is tall but I started this one.

A brief summary of the book would start with the author who is “a researcher and psychotherapist who specializes in intregative oncology”.   She spent ten years interviewing and studying people that had reversals in their cancer situations.  In other words these people somehow figured out or lucked upon cures to their maladies, improbable as that seems.  It is pretty phenomenal news when this happens and she was intrigued by it.  So, in the end she discovered nine traits that this group had in common.  Not that each had all of these but that these items kept showing up time and again.

Well, now that I have gotten this far I see that I will have to type up the list from the table of contents because I have piqued your interest:

Radically Changing Your Diet

Taking Control of Your Health

Following Your Intuition

Using Herbs and Suppliments

Releasing Suppressed Emotions

Increasing Positive Emotions

Embracing Social Support

Deepening Your Spiritual Connection

Having Strong Reasons for Living

Yea, nine, a good round number like 909 laps on Phil’s Camino equals one Camino Frances.  That is all sufficiently untidy to be real.  Anyway, I am so relating to most of these topics and it is the kind of stuff that we talk about here frequently on the blog.   As I read down this list right now I would say that six of those are very important to me already.  And maybe three I don’t understand or that I haven’t dealt with sufficiently.  And perhaps those three hold the biggest potential for me.

This is so highly personal and at the same time universal.  The book talks about the idea that the tumors are messengers.  I had thought this also although I had never cracked their code.  It is suggested that they bring the message that my life as I have been living it is out of balance.  Ahh.  Yes, I see that now although that may always be hard for the individual to grasp at first.  Like isn’t my life perfect?  Isn’t it just exactly what it is supposed to be?  Doesn’t it fit exactly the set of situations that it occurred in?

Well,  the tumors at the door of your conscience is somewhat like Genghis Khan being at your door.  He doesn’t really have to say, “ Yes, I am here to rape and kill you and yours.”   But that isn’t the end of the story, there is more to it.

Yup, as always, love you, Felipe.

It was nice and cool an hour age with an overcast sky.  That disappeared quickly and the sun is here again.  More mowing and trimming for me today getting the grounds ready for the upcoming wedding and party.  Everyday I bake myself to a nice golden brown in the peocess.

Well, St James celebrated with us yesterday.  He’s a great guy.  I just thought that I would say that.  Wouldn’t it be great if a worthy actor could portray him in a one man show, sort of putting a face on him.   Hey, maybe there is something like that out there.  We could get him to talk about us modern day pilgrims and the latter day popularity of pilgrimage.  Just a thought.

I am getting a chemo vacation next week to celebrate the wedding.  So, I will have a month free just like I had in Spain.  Dr Gold suggested it, the guy.  I am just getting half way normal from treatment last Wednesday, over a week ago now.

Well, I need to get a move on it.  Got fuel and sharp blades for the mower so look out world!  Catch you guys tomorrow.  Summer loves, Felipe.

Diego, a  sturdy Caminohead from Lake Arrowhead, CA sent a vital idea in to us this morning in the comments:

“¡Hola Felipe!
Three years ago I walked the Portuguese Way of Saint James.  At the end of one of the next to last stages, in the town of Padrón  I visited a very small chapel, up on a hill, built in the year 40 by none other than our Saint James! To this day I am haunted by my own imagination of what it must’ve been like to bring the Gospel and the Way of his friend Jesus to the Iberian Peninsula…and that place in particular.  What a blessing he was to those people then and today. Beautiful and graceful things happen during and after the Way.  So, on my feast day I was given a Camino Rosary by one of my best peregrina  friends who just completed her second Camino. Saint James is alive and well these days and we know him through each other!
A todos nosotros los Caminoheads….
¡Sigamos el Buen Camino!
Su Peregrino Compañero Diego”

OK, there is the whole thing.  How can we go wrong with contributions like that.  Thank you Diego, put so well.  And I just sat down to do the post today with no idea about what or how or anything and this arrives.  See, writing a blog just isn’t that hard when you have prompts like this.

I love the idea of the chapel built by SJ.  I had never heard of that before.  Not that that means anything.  As far as I know none of this is mentioned in the Bible, that SJ had this  foray into the Iberian Peninsula much less building structures.  Me hanging out with my Protestant Bible Guys concentrate on what “is actually in the Bible”.  But there is a gap in time between Christ’s command to his apostles to go out into the world and SJ’s demise in Jerusalem, a pregnant blank spot.

But really the best thing to me here this morning in Diego’s comment is, “ Saint James is alive and well these days and we know him through each other! “  That is so intimate and fitting here at Caminoheads.  I have never thought of it is that particular way before.  That certainly fits.  Thanks Diego.  Saint James loves, Felipe.