Pilgrim Beatitude #4 as written in our Phil’s Camino Passport: “Blessed are you pilgrim because you have discovered that, the authentic Camino begins when it is contemplated.”

And then the same number as written in my September 14, 2014 blog post: Blessed are you pilgrim because you have discovered that, the authentic Camino begins when it is completed.”

Contemplated or completed, I would have to attack the archives to find the original which isn’t going to happen in the here and now. But in the meantime a whole new door has been opened maybe unintentionally but interestingly. Back in the early days of the blog I covered the Beatitudes pretty heavily as well as this notion that the Camino starts when you finish in Santiago. As a matter of fact that idea fueled this blog for years. It kept the blog alive in the sense that writing about life after the Camino in Spain made complete sense.

So we covered that heavily and after much writing and much commenting and much thinking the whole caboodle made sense to me if I said that the Camino in Spain, the Way of St James was basically a training ground. That is what I boiled it down too anyway. But now when that one word is changed we have something a little different maybe. And to me it doesn’t matter which one is right, it matters that we have another way of looking at it.

whole caboodle loves, Felipé.

I just looked at the number four Beatitude because I thought of moving ahead but then thought better of it. I need to mull that one over before starting to write about it. Forget when the last time I reviewed these was but I had written extensively on them over the years. But they seem new and fresh as I uncover them here in 2021. That’s a good thing, right?

So maybe we will stick with the names and dawns theme of number three. Here are some dawns that I remember just as examples of what goes on and how we learn. This was the first night that we were together in the first albergue. I remember Kelly my walking partner and Todd of the film crew being involved. I had the new IPad Mini with me to write the blog on and I volunteered to work the alarm to wake us up in the morning. Of course I screwed things up and jumped up at something like 2:30 and was cramming stuff in my pack and getting my guys up. Some bright individual did double check the time and found the flaw. Needless to say I was relieved of that duty. So, we were quickly discovering each other’s weak and strong points and learning how to forgive and move on.

Another early morn I remember waking at an albergue and noticing that my pack had fallen over and my gear had spilled out. Not only that but a lot of early risers had walked out past me in the dark and had spread stuff out the door and down the hall. Yike, my sacred stuff. Right? But after a while stuff becomes less and less sacred because you are giving it away and other people are giving you what you need when you need it.

Lastly a Kelly in the dawn story. Somehow we were outside the place where we had slept and we were loading our packs on a bench in the semi light. Maybe we had brought our stuff out in an armload to pack where we could see. Anyway Kelly can think out load a lot at times. And he was doing that and I being a little hard of hearing was spending too much energy trying to listen to him because I thought well it is all something important. I was getting steamed and he was just jabbering away with himself. But his debate was over his fleece. Now that we were out of the mountains should he keep carrying it? But he may need it and it would be so welcome. But his pack was feeling so heavy. But maybe there was something else he could throw away. But oh, he might need that sometime too. On and on and I had to listen to it. Sound familiar? Of course, we all had this same debate.

Walking in a minute. Tomorrow I have a dental appointment in the afternoon in Seattle so the regular scheduled walk at 3:30 is canceled. This happens occasionally, sorry.

snow in the mountains loves, Felipé.

We all were taking those pics of our shadows all stretched out on the road ahead with the sun rising behind us in the east. Those dawns when we were up early and grumpy and stiff. The Ibuprofen was just starting to find some body parts to help, there were so many screaming. The air was fresh, the birds chirped.

Thinking of Cris right now. What would she write if she were doing this? Of course she would write of possibilities. That the new dawn equates with new possibilities. It’s usually takes a cafe con leche or two to appreciate that notion for me anyway. But it was true. We had a new view, a new ever changing panorama to enjoy. New pilgrims would seem to pop up just when we needed them to help us laugh or cry. It was all sort of wide open.

What about that phrase that we us all the time, “It dawned on me.” How does that work? We recognize or realize. We all of a sudden get something, like an understanding of a concept or answer to a problem. Maybe that kind of thing was happening also. That we would be connecting the dots in some of the uncharted areas of our lives. We were figuring things as we moved along.

Well, you know what today is here in the States, it’s Super Bowl Sunday. The most important football game of the year, the mother lode of sports is happening. Even Amanda Gorman will be in on it with her exquisite poetry.

OK, time to go walk with Catherine. Not a bad morning, a little chilly.

exquisite poetry loves, Felipé.

Number 3: When you contemplate the Camino and discover it is full of names and dawns.

Sometimes these ten truths seem so transparent and sometimes they are so mysterious. This one uses the word “contemplate” and it lays a certain mysterious tone over it from the get go. Just in general when do we here in the twenty first century contemplate anything. We are way too busy and our time too valuable to do that kind of old fashioned stuff. But this is the Camino we are taking about and we have already “slowed down” physically at least for a time and we have seen the benefits of “slowing down” in our philosophy, in our being.

We can do this. We can contemplate the Camino. The names seem to be to me anyway mostly the names of towns and cities. And maybe places that for one reason or another stick out like Cruz de Ferro. Some of those names on the map are towns or were towns at some point. A certain amount were semi piles of stones with an elderly lady selling some berries she had picked or produce she had grown.

Then the dawns. Ah, so many of those. They were like the curtain opening on a play. Each day a new play. Each day a new try, a new facet to see, new questions to ask and answer. Just one job to concentrate on, this one play, not yesterday’s and not tomorrow’s.

today’s loves, Felipé.

I so love these Pilgrim Beatitudes. So glad that they were handed to me. It was just a half sheet of paper with them printed on both sides. I Googled PB yesterday and found a few folks that found them also and brought them back. I will have to follow up on that.

We were talking about arriving together yesterday from the second Beatitude. There is that power of togetherness that develops there and one would have to be an absolute grinch to not get involved with it. There have to be folks that are more or less distracted because they are grieving or angry or something similar that would be less susceptible but maybe not. Maybe it could be a place of big breakthroughs.

Hundreds of Camino people have walked here with us at Phil’s Camino over the seven years that we have been open and I will say with certainty that the glue is still sticky. That’s the glue that we were speaking of yesterday. Once you have been inoculated it is with you. I feel this bond with all sorts of folks that I didn’t physically walk with but that doesn’t seem to matter!

We have been trained by St James and that’s it, no muss no fuss, got the t-shirt. We can’t help ourselves as Annie says. The only way that we know how to arrive anymore is together.

working on my taxes loves, Felipé.

“Blessed are you pilgrim if what concerns you most is not to arrive, as to arrive with others.”

There is a kind of glue that binds pilgrims together even if you have only met a person twenty minutes before. And you walking together. It isn’t anything serious or is it? It seems totally natural and random. But was that person put there to meet me at that give time and place? Was this all sort of choreographed? You may loose track of that person in the few following hours and then you meet again and it is the best thing ever.

And you are continuing arriving, to that first cup of coffee, to the top of the rise, to a stunning view, to lunch, to working on each other’s feet, to the shade, to the albergue. And it’s fun because you have this companionship. And there are two of you, or four or six. And you want to keep up with the pace. You dread getting hurt and having to stay behind, the glue wants to hold.

This glue starts to seem like the best substance ever. You wonder about it. Or maybe you don’t think about it at all because it all seems so natural. It just is. And then one day shortly afterward you find yourself on a plane surrounded by people who think more of their devices than each other. And you feel neglected and mad.

Where is that glue? What happened? How do I reconnect? Was I mistaken? Was it all a dream? Nobody seems to understand here.

more tomorrow loves, Felipé.

Last night my pillow started talking to me and it totally freaked me out. I had to peel myself off the ceiling. This is about the unseen. The pedestrian explanation or as close to an explanation that I can come up with is that somehow I got my pillow and head over on top of the bedside table and accidentally pushed some button on my newfangled radio clock alarm. It’s either that or the Pillow Guy is sending me a weird new narrative hoping to sway The Caminoheads story. Anyway, I couldn’t sleep after that and I stumbled out to sit with My Rebecca who was watching a late show and guess who was a guest, Father James Martin! Maybe I was just supposed to be there.

When I forest encountered this Beatitude I interpreted it to mean that if we slow down to a walking pace we will see oh so much. And that is true, yes? We miss so much in our hustle and bustle. We miss so much with our fast cars and jet planes. To walk day after day put us in a new space that had a lot going on in it. It wasn’t boring or drab or unpopulated or empty. It gave us a window a way of seeing.

I’m at the Institute today. Seeing all my people here. Now I Am just finishing up and the day is still young.

slow down loves, Felipé.

“Blessed are you pilgrim if you discover that, the Camino opens your eyes to what is not seen.“ Here we are on the second of February and off and running on talking about the first of the Pilgrim Beatitudes.
Robbi one of our local Caminoheads brought this quote by Marcel Proust: “My destination is no longer a place, rather a new way of seeing.” How about that?

That is what comes to mind to me for starters. We think we are walking to Santiago and we did but we also achieved something else or discovered something else. We were off to do the Camino and the Camino did us, I’ve heard it expressed.

I for now find myself out of time today and must leave for my day which is proceeding more rapidly than expected. Forgive me. But we don’t need to be in a rush with this topic.

only 24 hours in a day loves, Felipé.

Do you think it shows a lack of moral fiber? Well, it was no lack of fiber anyway this popcorn for dinner. It just seemed odd really, a departure. I don’t think that it would have occurred to us if we weren’t lounging around with the Covid gnawing on the windows. But underneath it all I do cherish the dinner table and the act of everyone sitting down at it to spend some time together. But we are out of shape with real live dinning and entertainment.

It’s February first, St Bridget’s Day. She is the feminine counterpart of St Patrick of Ireland’s misty past. And it is half way to Spring! That sounds like a definite good thing to me. I just noticed some new flower shoots coming up.

So, I thought that it is time to review again the Pilgrim Beatitudes that I brought back from Spain in 2014. This might be the high point of my life’s work reviving and popularizing these ten curious and beautiful truths. So, maybe if we are lucky we can explore these for the whole month. They deserve it. We deserve it. We deserve it as we slowly rejoin each other this new year as the Covid wans.

Think about the first one: “If you discover that the Camino opens your eyes to what is not seen.” All the Beatitudes start with “Blessed are you pilgrim…” So it is “Blessed are you pilgrim if you discover that the Camino opens your eyes to what is not seen.“ Think of the different levels of that.

OK, walk time, maybe swim time, wet out. The birds will be hungry though.

popcorny loves, Felipé.

Here we are coming up on a year of hiding out. I can remember seeing the news report of the first 500 people killed by the Covid and thinking that we’ll get a handle on this soon. That didn’t happen in the easy way I envisioned. It has been messy and hard and it is still messy and hard and it has been long.

Yes, messy, hard and long like the Meseta. Yes, hard and long and yes messy. By that time on the Camino I had lost all my underwear as well as one leg of my zip together pants. And I was losing so much weight that said pants kept slipping down continuously. I was sunburned and windblown and every other compound word. Oh and plus limping. That’s how we showed up at Sarria to greet all the new shiny people. Yea, we were messy.

But we survived and the flesh wounds healed up. Now we are messy in other ways. I really don’t know what that means but I feel it is true. We have been through a lot and there is more to come but we all sense the light at the end of the tunnel. I just want to sit in a lawn chair in the August sun with you and just take it in. Nothing needs to be said.

Catherine coming, birds need to be fed and rosaries said.

morning loves, Felipé.