Yea, just when you think you’re way smarter than some of God’s other creatures you get reminded differently.  Did you see the story about the four escaping baboons in Texas?  I remember when man was defined as the tool using animal.  These guys were stacking 55 gallon drums up to make it up and over the wall.  I like it, bet it was the event of a lifetime.

I am not guite sure what that has to do with anything but it was on my mind.  Maybe we should get going stacking stuff up for our up and over.  Who’s in?  Maybe I am not talking a physical escape but a spiritual escape.  Up and over that particular wall.

Wish I had the video of the baboons figuring that out.  That might be helpful writing a poem or some tribute to the event.  So many details unexplained at this point.

Well, let’s put that on our “to do” list for the wintertime.  Watch videos of baboons and write poetry about it.  Those are the kind of notes to self that I discover six months down the road and wonder what the heck I was thinking about on that day.

But it is spring here, almost anyway, time for outdoor stuff.  Mowing and beating back the jungle is calling me.  Have to get out on the driveway with the chainsaw.  If it overgrows anymore the UPS guy will never attempt a run at it.

Boy, there is a blog post that we haven’t seen the likes of in a while.  No time to look back now, the jungle grows, see ya, love, Felipe.

Wow, so that’s what sunshine looks like!  Here we all feel like we are crawling out from under some rock.  Man, that was a soggy stretch for even us webfoot people.  Anyway, have the California girls coming up this weekend and need things looking reasonable for them.

Yea, Annie and Esther will be here to do a showing and some filming.  Our event is at St Michael’s Catholic Church in Olympia, WA on Saturday afternoon, 1-4 o’clock.  This is the downtown St Michael’s Church.  Apparently there are two in the Olympia area.  Looking forward to this, have to shine my tie and iron my shoes.

This may be a shorty today here at Caminoheads as I am so drawn to get out in the sunshine.  I am still working everyday on pushing my cabinet job forward so I can get them installed before Lourdes, so there is that.  Then the grass is all growing.

Alperfect, once again, sunny loves, Felipe.

Somehow I have been trudging along writing Caminoheads for almost four years and have failed to notice something possibly important.  There has been a shift, a change over time.  One way to look at it is that I have not kept up with certain important people in my world, in the Caminoheads’ world.

It has dawned on me recently that my whole readership has changed.  If I may back up slightly to fill in some history, the original idea for this blog came from my nurses at the oncology treatment center.  This was just before running off to Spain with the newly hired film crew.  So originally there were the nurses reading and then there were pilgrims reading that I walked with in Spain reading Caminoheads later in 2014.  And although I still have some of these “old timers” on board almost all of the current readership are folks that have joined since then.

This phenomenon in one way I feel guilty about in the sense that I have neglected precious readers possibly.  Or perhaps this shift sort of proves that The Camino does live on in a very vital way.  It lives on with people all over and it can be kept and shared.  What I am saying is that we here are inspiring each other, or buoying each other up when we had no physical connection through the Camino de Santiago proper.  It is enough to be a “graduate”.

I must send out emails to my Camino buddies to reconnect.  We need each other’s energy and direction always.  Please forgive me you guys for this lapse.   This is what happens when you make stuff up as you go along, my favorite method.

OK, have a walk momentarily.  A gray soggy morning here.  There is standing water on the trail again and Raven Creek is flowing just like real wintertime although it is April.  Time for things to dry out.  The California girls, Annie and Esther, are showing up here on Friday evening so we need some last minute springtime for them, please.

Lapsed loves, Felipe.

It’s Father David’s fiftith birthday today, that’s pretty exciting.  He is such a sweet guy, we hope that he has many more.  Little Helena who usually sits in front of us at Mass, Catherine calls her the Ambassador of Joy, produced a handmade card for the occasion. He was so happy.

In other good news I am going to wrap up our fundraiser for the fourth grade class at St Joseph’s School in California.  I had a donation can out on Phil’s Camino and people responded and we raised, ready, $166 for the class.  I envisioned that they would have a little year end party for themselves since they worked so hard this year.  This all had it’s start a few weeks ago when some mysterious person or group sent a “Random Act of Kindness” card with some funds to us.  So, the kindness is ricocheting outward.

“Ricocheting outward”, I like it, I am seeing it.  Remember the Disney demonstration of what a chain reaction is, done way back in the 60’s, well maybe not.  They had a gymnasium set up with wall to wall set mousetraps and on each trap they carefully placed a ping pong ball.  Then to start the chain reaction they threw in one innocent lone ping pong ball and all hell broke loose with the whole gym becoming involved with the chaos.

OK, that was pretty exciting.  Well off to lunch and the wood shop.  There is a walk today at 4 PM, maybe the rain will hold off.  Come if you can, ricocheting love, Felipe.

Oh sorry, just saw that I didn’t publish the blog post yesterday.  Too much going on then I guess with me caught in the big city with no money.  But things resolved themselves well.  Somehow I got some financial aid out of the deal from the hospital and American Cancer Society, like help with parking and ferry expenses and a super market gift card.  Just what I need for my weight gain program.  So bad turns into good.

We had Bible Guys this morning and we are working on the first book of the whole shebang, Genesis.  Reading the Old Testament or the Hebrew Bible is not something that we do mostly, or well really but there is a lot there that yields itself with some digging and figuring.  The newest member of our group has some real experience in Holy Land archeological so digging seems appropriate as he lead the group today.

So this is all BC, this reading that we are doing but it can be read as history plus more because it to the believers eyes is loaded with hints and foreshadowing about things far in the future as in AD.  It is one continuous story.  So, we dig and figure.

All this talk about my Bible class is really a lead up to showing you a paragraph from a book I have been reading in conjunction with this study of Genesis and the early Israelites and their relationship with God.  The book is entitled The Compact Guide To The Whole Bible with the keyword being whole.  It points out the continuous story through the Ages as it goes through the whole Bible.

Anyway, there is a paragraph that jumped out at me the other day and I had to search back a dozen pages to find it and look at it again.  It reminds me of something that the blog deals with more than a little.  I am not sure I can put it in a few words but with things Camino mundane things and happenings have a way of turning sacred on us as we walk, as we live.  We have talked about it.

”…God  has no trouble working with and through broken and flawed Israelites.  This capacity on God’s part may be viewed as sacramental.  That is, God has the ability to transform human activity into divine activity, to make the ordinary extraordinary, and to make the mundane sacred.”  Frank Anthony Spina.

This touches on us, we the broken and flawed pilgrims in our wanderings.  Our walking in the mud is more than that.  Yes?

Love, Felipe.

Counting up my assets here right now.  It’s good to have a ferry ticket in hand.   Old Chemobrain Phil ran off Vashon without his wallet.  I’m borrowing twenty dollars from one of the nurses to get out of the hospital parking lot.  Then I think I can make it back to the ranch.

But that is a minor problem on the scale of things just inconvenient and slightly embarrassing.  That’s always good to keep in mind that it is a small thing.  One of my Bible Guys has had an emergency stay at a Seattle hospital.  That sounds a bit more serious.  Prayers for my friend David please.

So, those are local comings and goings.  I video chatted with Cris in Buenos Aires last afternoon.  I called here from the Laundry room next door at Wiley’s where the baby ducks are.  I was trying to show Cris but my IPad scared them so they were always running away.  We were talking about Dr Dan Siegel’s uTube video that I posted here at the blog yesterday or maybe the day before.

What Dr Dan talks about has brought some clarity to us about things Camino.  We find ourselves searching for clarity.  Trying to “figure things out” again as always it seems.  We after all this time are still working on the mysteries of the Way.  Yes, well maybe we never do get to the end of it but it is fun trying.

I think that I will go and read Richard Rohr’s blog post for the day and see what he’s got for us.  And this is Friday the 13th, there is a topic.  Maybe that is why my wallet is gone.

OK, time for a nap.  See you tomorrow, love Felipe.

How are things today?  Ready for another big day?  We have showers here with our continuing spring weather.  Morel mushrooms are popping up in this wet warm environment.  May be lucky enough to find them, they are tricky little guys.

Cris our South American Bureau Chief just came in with a UTube link of a half hour talk by Dr Dan Siegel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zF8nBDKxAQI

I viewed it yesterday and found it quite insightful.  You might want to check it out in conjunction with what Caminoheads has been largely about since Lin asked the pivotal question, “So what have you figured out?”  back along the trail.  We were scrambling to put into words what we had figured out about the Camino Mind.  It was all very rough and tumble but we were able to nail down a few things.

Dr Dan explains how our Mind is more than a product of our personal brain activity.  It is partially that but it is also made up of each other’s Mind.  Our mind are not isolated containers belong exclusively to Me but it is also We.  Cris came up with togethernessing for this.  Dr Dan came up with the word WME, see it?  I am Me but I am more like We so he combined them, brilliant.  So much in a small package.

Lin was here February 18th, so after that our quest started if you want to look back in the archives.  Yea, there you have it for today.  I am walking in a few moments, visitors coming.  Thanks for being here,  WME love, Felipe.

Am getting things checked off my to do list.  This is my last treatment day, then back on Friday to the hospital to get disconnected and I am done with this  for a while.  Dr Gold gave me my next treatment off and wished me a good trip so I feel blessed.

Cloudy out now looking out the window.  It was so beautiful out yesterday at the ranch along the trail.  It was that day that everything looks so beautiful that you finally call it spring!  A little regression in the weather today but we’ll bounce back.

I am trying not to think too much about The pilgrimage to Lourdes at the moment.  I have this cabinet job to get installed before I go so that has my attention.  When that gets completed I can relax and change modes.  Not that I wouldn’t like to get “prepared”.

So fortunate to have this chance at another pilgrimage.  This is so timely for me and Caminoheads blog.  Will be reporting from there daily.  Padre Tomas will be by my side to help me interpret the happenings.  Hopefully wifi will be in good supply.  So as long as I have energy and wifi we will be broadcasting.  Blogging like we mean it, right?

You one thing that I haven’t given enough time to lately is the new flock of ducks happening next door at Wiley and Henna’s.  They got four baby ducks that are pretty dang cute.

Yup, that’s the way it is today.  Time for lunch.  Ducky loves, Felipe. x

Well, it hasn’t been total rain, we had a break yesterday and we even got some mowing in after a little sunshine.  But it is coming down now with maybe sunbreaks this afternoon.  This is spring weather here in Seattle.  Half a dozen times a day the weather could change.  But that is perfect if you are a little seed in the soil, a little moisture, a little sun.  That is just the right thing to make a lightly buried seed prosper.

All the deciduous bushes and undergrowth around are greening up.  It is such a radical change in the way the woods looks.  Phil’s Camino is getting crowded in by the greenery of the “jungle”.  Even along the roadways the look is changing.  Seems like in a few days the area appears differently.  Is this the same place?

Well, we finally ran out of sunflower seed for the bird feeders along the trail here.  It is time for the birds to transition over to the warm weather smorgasbord.  Just realizing that I never got the hummingbird feeder up for the winter, too late now.

The clouds are scudding by as I look out of the window to the West.  Things are dynamic with these weather systems coming in off the Pacific.  But I have things to do this morning while it rains itself out.  Weekly shopping needs doing.  And more finish needs to go on the new cabinets in the shop.

Just about 9 AM here, time to rally.  Hey, have a good one where you are.  Make the most of it, love, Felipe.

Salmon berry blooms.

We have been used to carloads of people showing up to walk Phil’s Camino, especially on Sunday.  That is our most popular walk.  But it has been raining for days until yesterday afternoon so I didn’t expect a lot of traffic.  I make it seem like we are on the verge of a parking problem but no not yet anyway.

But yesterday a lady, Beth, was supposed to come from Seattle. A visitor to the area from California, I was a little worried about her navigating the ferry and island geography.  But not to worry she did fine.   I actually ran into her on the road in front of the ranch as she had figured out the bus service and walked up the hill from the main highway.   Little did I know that I was about to meet the consummate pilgrim traveler.

We had a great afternoon and evening gabbing about things Camino and walking and doing tapas with My Rebecca.  Once again when we as pilgrims meet we are able to flip into the old pilgrim groove in a nanosecond.  We are so well trained that we are nimble like that and we hardly recognize it.  Just the easy pilgrim way of getting along that just comes out.

Well, off to a new week.  I am looking forward to my treatment days this week and making more progress on my cabinet job.  The rain lately is keeping me in the shop mostly and away from all the distractions that the ranch can offer with a little sunshine on it.  The days are getting longer and longer and the soil is warming.  You can see the birds carrying twigs to their construction sites.  The salmonberries and skunk cabbage are blooming.  Spring definitely has a foothold.

Off to walk momentarily.  See you soon somewhere down the trail, love Felipe.