Monday 0900-1000

Tuesday 1600-1700

Thursday 0900-1000

Sunday 1600-1700

Felipe.x

Our Women’s Archery Retreat is going great guns or great bows.  The gals are showing up in fifteen minutes so I have just a moment to be with you.  Here is a In Praise odiferous Walking quote:

“There are walks in which we tread in the footsteps of others, walks on which we strike out entirely for ourselves.”  Thomas Clark

Love, Felipe.

Our archery retreat is off to a flying start after a slight glitch yesterday afternoon.  We start shooting this morning after some eye testing and fitting of gear.  I love archery and it is so easy to teach because it just sells itself.

We had a lovely start out dinner last evening out on the deck at the famous tapas table.  Catherine y Dana prepared the whole thing, roast home grown chicken, salads and wine.  We all got to know each other and talked about how the retreat was going to go forward.  We are going to be shooting and conversing all day today and tomorrow and Monday morning.  So everything should be a go.  Looking outside and not a cloud in the old sky so we are golden.

I also want to thank everyone for all the great comments lately with my treatment complications.  Can’t  believe how many lovely people pay attention to my every little thing.  Well, we are finding out that being a pilgrim involves more than just getting down the road.  It also involves paying attention to each other along the way.

“Always, everywhere, people have walked, veining the earth with paths, visible and invisible, symmetrical and meandering.”  Thomas Clark

All good, alperfect, as always, love, Felipe.

I just walked over to the corn to take a pic of progress and turn off the electric fence.  What a glorious morning, summer has finally found us.  And my life does make more sense outside.   Does that make sense?

Today I am back to Seattle and the hospital for more inside stuff.  Then rushing back to the ranch to start the first time ever Women’s Archery Retreat.  I’m so pumped to get this off the ground.  I will keep you informed.

And look at the corn!  It’s eight, nine, ten inches.  Of course the weeds are trying their best to keep up that pace but Felipe puts in an hour or two a day to hoe and hack and pull to hold them back.  Every year there is that saying, “knee high by the Fourth of July,” hanging over my head.  That means for anyone that hasn’t heard that particular pesky phrase, the corn is supposed to be that height by our big American holiday on the 4th.  What’s knee high?  18 inches I’m guessing.  So, let’s see 8 more inches in 11 days.  Seems doable.  But what is really important is when is it going to be ready to eat?  Mid August we usually are starting to sample it.  And it should be ready in mass for our second Woman’s Archery Retreat.  That would be my goal.

Here is some more Thomas Clark with In Praise of Walking.  “Walking is the human way of getting about.”  Somewhere I heard that is the speed that God travels at.

OK, time to go.  Enjoy yourself!  Love, Felipe.

Good Grief Charlie Brown or Back In The Saddle Again.  Really, hopefully, many ways to look at this thing.  This is my first morning with the heavy drugs coursing through my body and brain, brain, let’s not forget that little forgetful unit.  I am so glad that I have gone through this before, the heavy stuff that is.  But it was way back at the beginning and I have worked at blocking it’s memory out.  All I mostly remember is that it is really hairy scary when they hit you with the kitchen sink right off the bat and you have to deal with it as a rookie.   Now I’m the seasoned veteran.  Yea, got the t-shirt.

You know that one of the ways we do things at Caminoheads is look for the 5% goodness in the situation no matter how grim.  You have to work at it hard sometimes but it always seems to be there and many it gets easier to find with practice.  And it’s not a Pollyanna deal.  We are acknowledging that situations can look like dog doo.  Hehe.  But somewhere there is a out, or an answer or a lesson or a chance to experience so that you can help someone else walk through their situation.

Yesterday in all the upheaval at the hospital I had realized that I had forgotten my iPad and left it home.  Fortunately they have loaners and I figured that out and got another great blog on the air.  And with my trusty ear buds I listened to some Pink Martini, the official unofficial music for Caminoheads.  Well not only listened but UTube has great videos of the group.  They are so fun to watch, you know like eat them with a spoon fun.  So, I am going to try and put a hot link in here for Yolanda.  Actually it’s Donde Estas Yolanda?

https://youtu.be/9eZWC5EAxK8

There, easy peasy Caminoheads.  OK, have to go walk and check out this glorious morning.  The best to you in your situation.  Love as always, Felipe.

Perfectest, a totally new word that I thought of this AM.  I was inspired by one of my nurses here.  I am so lucky to have so many good friends here.

In Camino terms perfectest would mean what?  It would mean that one is moving forward, experiencing things so to speak.  Or if not moving forward at least healing up or regrouping so one could get going soon, just a temporary state.  Perfect is another word for whatever comes up on the trail next.  Deal with it gracefully and that’s it, we have bigger fish to fry down the road.

In terms of perfectest in the ordinary world, it would mean something else.  The ordinary world is the world governed by ordinary thinking.  It is full of right and wrong and them and us and super full of expectations.  We feel like all sorts of things are due us.  We expect things to happen in a certain way, in a certain perfect way.

Ironically (I know that’s not a real word either but it’s fun also), today I got the news from my scan that happened yesterday.  In layman’s terms it didn’t look great.  My little guys were rowdy and have grown more than the usual pace.  Yea, and the result of that is my oncologist, code named Nugget, put me on a stronger chemo that I am not looking forward to.  We have always known that I would probably need to do this and all of a sudden the time is now.  Yea, stronger chemo means stronger side effects and that is the worry.

So, do you see the ironical?  This is far from the perfectest news or this is not what I expected today.  But in terms of Caminothink (oh, is THAT a new word) I am supposed to deal with it gracefully and move on, right?  And that is what I am going to do to the best of my ability.  I’ve got bigger fish to fry down the road might be the key to the whole deal.

I am sure glad that you guys let me make up stuff as I go along.  I am blessed.  And you know that no matter what happens with my rowdy friends in my lungs the blog will go on.  This is a description of the trail this blog is.  So if the trail gets rougher it doesn’t mean that the blog will end.  There are more new words that need making so I’ll be here.

OK, time to order some lunch here at the treatment center.  Caminothinking about you, love, Felipe.

Off to Seattle and the hospital to get my scan.  Hopefully my tumors, my little friends, have been behaving themselves and not gotten too rowdy in the last four months.  It just  takes a few hours to get this completed today.  Then I am off to pick up my Father’s Day gift.  I am really excited about my new shop vac that Wiley has bought for me at Home Depot.   It is just sitting there waiting for me.

So when I get back here to the ranch later today I will be scurrying around trying to put on the finishing touches on our event happening this weekend.  This is our first Women’s Archery Retreat.  I’m so excited.  I have be working with kids and teens for years and now I get to work with the ladies.  There has been more of a call for it in the last few years so we are accommodating.  Not to many other things that are more fun than shooting arrows.

OK, I am going to do our daily Thomas Clark and get out of here, have to catch the nine o’clock.

“That something exists outside ourselves and our preoccupations, so near, so readily available, is our greatest blessing.”  Thomas Clark

Walk for me today as I won’t get a chance.  Love, Felipe.

Man, I am hunkered down under my Camino sleeping bag and on the red leather couch trying to stay warm.  It’s a couple of days from the solstice and it still feels like soggy spring around here.  Are you complaining Felipe?  Hmm, I suppose so.

Yes, I am going to walk in a few minutes.  I need to look around out ther for the summer mojo.  It must be huddled out there under a tree somewhere sheltering itself like I am.

“It is quite possible to refuse all coercion, violence, property, triviality, to simply walk away.”  Thomas Clark.

Yup, buen camino, love, Felipe.

We are marching on through the wind and the rain and Father’s Day.  And also through the first Women’s Archery Retreat next weekend.  Activities then are happening around our walking schedule.

Monday 0900-1000

Tuesday 1600-1700

Thursday 0900-1000

Sunday 1600-1700

Hope to see you soon. Felipe.x

A friend gave me a couple of printed pages of thoughts on walking from Thomas Clark.  I wanted to know more about him so I Googled his name.  Well, there have been a lot of guys with that name that have done all sorts of amazing things.  Seems like I will need a private detective to figure out which one of those guys wrote that.  So maybe it doesn’t matter.

His thoughts are so timeless and without flourish.  It makes it hard to place them in a specific century even.  But whatever, they stand on their own.   So I thought that I would include one a day with the blog posts for our enjoyment.  Well how about one right now to start things out Felipe?

“Early one morning, any morning, we can set out, with the least possible baggage, and discover the world.”  TC

Well, I am going to run off today.  Way too many irons in the fire, as they say.  Happy Father’s Day to Dads out there.  Thanks for everything, love, Felipe.