We have a walk later today and we are on the last few kilometers of your trek across Spain.  It’s been a long walk but we are still smiling.  It’s soggy winter but we are still joking.  It is unsettled times in the news but we have a certain stability.  We have no money but the Camino provides.  We buoy each other up when we need it.  We walk maybe when we don’t feel like it and it always ends up good.  We invite people to come and very few do but that’s OK, I know they are thinking about us.  We tell stories that need telling.  We ask questions that need asking.

So, here we are with nothing else to do but be together.  It’s not a holiday we don’t have to get prepared or have to cook a big meal.  It’s not snowing or raining heavily, nothing to worry about from the weather.  The Super Bowl nor the Stanley Cup nor the World Series are happening.  If there is a meteor shower coming it will probably be cloudy and go unseen.  Nothing much is going on right now anywhere near here in time or space to distract us.

Alone we might feel lonely.  Together we will fill our time together no problem and pledge to meet again.  We will walk and not notice the discomforts.   Miles and kilometers will fly by like a brisk wind.  We won’t have time for the small stuff and life will seem good.

Come walk, love, Felipe.

Well the water is receding but still around in various puddles.  Rubber boots are a must this time of year and might want to keep raingear handy.   Please come and be with us, just because it’s winter is no excuse.  Here is our schedule till daylight savings time change in March.

Monday 0900-1000

Tuesday 1530-1630

Thursday 0900-1000

Sunday 1530-1630

All good all the time, Felipe.x

I don’t know what that has to do with anything here at Caminoheads, on the surface anyway.  It’s a line from an old rock and roll tune that I heard this morning.  I like the feel of it.

Nice pic there of Maryka who walked with me on the last part of the Camino de Santiago.  She was here home on Vashon for a short break from her job in New York City.  Anyway she wanted to get over here to Raven Ranch to sling some arrows.  That’s her follow through there on the pic after the arrow is down range, striking pose.  We have been working on the longbow for years now off and on.  She has a nice strong natural style, kind of a hotrod Ford and a two dollar bill way of getting it done.

My Rebecca and I have been terming it the summit meeting and that happened yesterday afternoon in Seattle.  One of my doctors, David, Dr Zucker, we use the call sign “Danger Zone” for him, wanted us to meet with both our spiritual advisors.  And we did that with one more person present, a friend.  This was at Sister Joyce’s office, she being my spiritual advisor, a Roman Catholic sister.  DZ pracitices Buddhism and had his advisor along, a Buddhist nun, a lovely woman named Dhammadina.

Great conversation ensued for or hour and we agreed to meet again soon.  Maybe I can get everyone out here to walk the trail.  And maybe we could meet at the Buddhist  Center another time.  We didn’t really have any trouble finding common ground, I will say that to very briefly describe our meeting.

Yea so, all interesting stuff.  Weather continues to be an issue here and down into California with all the rain.  We have landslides here and there which aren’t fun.  Well Spring can’t come to early for this guy, I’m totally ready.

If you haven’t checked out Suzanne’s video from yesterday’s post please please watch it on this winter day.  This is such a much needed facility for our region.  Can’t even imagine that Lady Bug House doesn’t already exist but yes this is the case.

OK, ever onward, love you immensely, Felipe.

Suzanne is one of my nurses at Swedish Cancer Institute.   Here is a short video giving you an introduction to her project.  Please check it out.  Felipe.x

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SB37NizEl3U

Being each other’s cheerleader is the same as the job of buoying each other up.  It is maybe just another way of saying it.   Sometimes we need other ways of saying things just to tweek our minds.  Or maybe we need to hear things more than once to get started.  Or maybe we need to hear them from different sources, surround sound.

Anyway, just thinking of a person that I admire for her vision, courage and commitment.  I am going to make a consistent effort to encourage her on her path.  I can tell that it is not easy for her,  she has ups and downs and she doesn’t get enough sleep.  She just works too darn hard.  So look out Suzanne, I’m turning the heat up.

But people in general need encouragement.  It all starts for us with making a little room for others and recognizing them.  Maybe that is just a hi.  We just have to be a little less in such a darn hurry as we travel and a little less shy.  Maybe this is coming from my new read that talks about recognition as being the first step in conversation.

A friend stopped by yesterday who I haven’t seen in ages mostly because he has been living in Eastern Washington for a good while.  It is hard to get from one side to the other in this state.   Anyway he is trying with his wife to move back over to the Island. As friends we seem to pump each other up so I am looking forward to this prospect.  He actually walked out of here with my walking sticks yesterday just on loan.  That’s how much I trust him.

OK, Thursday today, need to make some progress in the shop on my cabinet job.  Also still cleaning up after the storm.  Lots of debris down on the ground.  I got caught up in a bunch of rose branchs this morning as I tried to grab some firewood in my jammies.  That got pretty stupid.

Don’t get stupid, love ya, Felipe.

Sometimes I have a hard time thinking of a title for the day’s post.  How does one put a title on stream of consciousness where you are never quite sure where you will end up.  Am at the hospital today and just sitting quietly waiting  for an idea to come and one of the nurses walking by said something about dangerous barrettes.  Wow, that has got to be it right there!

Well, that’s a start.  St James Cathedral is just a few blocks away from the hospital and I got a window seat here so I can see it.  Two guys in bright orange rain gear are crawling around on  one of the two towers doing some kind of work.  I prayed for their safety.

Starting to get loud in here, need my ear plugs.   Ah, that is better.  That’s one of the improvements they could make here is better ambient noise control.  What would Hildegard say about that?

Turned Don Quixote into the library this morning.  He’s been my buddy for four months.  Got a new book going that I just got last weekend because I roomed with a bookseller and I really tried not to go home with any new books but went home with one.  It was one that he recommended.  It is titled “The 9 Arts of Spiritual Conversations – Walking alongside people who believe differently”.   Sounds like a good one.

I think it is time for a little nap.  Oh, the nurses are here to change medications.  There is always two of them because they double check everything.  This is reassuring.  This is my eighty ninth treatment and no screw ups.

So yesterday we had our usual Tuesday afternoon walk and we had tapas outside on the deck at least for a while.  It started to sprinkle and we had to retreat to the living room.  But hey we got a start on it.  Also some talk about started the afternoon walks later as the day light increase is starting to be noticeable.  I’m for waiting for tthe day that starts daylight savings in March, that way everyone will know.    It will be here before you know it.

So,  still don’t know too much about dangerous barrettes but that is probably OK, some things are better left alone.  Time to call Catalina in Berkeley and catch up, she and her husband just had a new baby named Jack.  Nice!

Bye for now,  That’s  it for another treatment day blog.  Thinking of you, love, Felipe.

Yea today, we get to play for an hour with bows and arrows before we walk the trail this afternoon.  I always look forward to lessons especially in the winter when they are pretty few and far between.  We will be more busy with the on come of warmer weather.   But hard core archers need to master the art of operating while uncomfortable and not being distracted.  But today the weather looks reasonable, chilly but good.

Catherine y Dana are so enthusiastic and ready for anything so they are really fun to coach.  They have been here for a while so they are through with the basics and on to the advanced stuff.  Last session we did moving targets which is always a challenge.  Today I want to do long range shooting and hopefully the wind will cooperate.  All the shooting that we have done so far has been twenty yards and under and today I want to stretch them to thirty and out to sixty.  Sometimes we do things that are really hard so that the normal stuff feels more easy.

I am so glad that this is something that I can teach.  It is really not a chore for me and it means so much to some folks.  Like most things it is not for everyone but it is a type of activity that we need desperately these days when we spend so much time pushing buttons ,  staring at screens and being indoors.   I am so happy to be out in the fresh air shooting arrows or watching other people do it.  It is my Valentine’s Day present.

All good here.  Had a great time over the weekend with my Bible Guys.  Will be back to treatment tomorrow in Seattle.  So today I am solidly here at Raven Ranch, my sanctuary.   Happy St Valentine’s Day to you.  Miss you, love you, Felipe.

PS – Cupid’s arrows will fly today!

The Tranfiguraion is described in at least two places in the Gospels.  It is where Jesus appears to three of the Apostles, Peter, John and James in his heavenly form where “His appearance changed from from inside to out.”

As the days of the week go by and I say my rosary I’ve noticed that I have the easiest time remembering the sorrowful part where Christ carrys the cross  and the hardest time with the luminous part where  Christ is Transfigured.  Thinking on that I realized that I have carried an endless amount of wooden timbers on my back in my day as a carpenter.  I knew exactly what that feels like.   But the opposite was apparently happening with The Transfiguration, the Fourth Luminous Mystery, which seemed like I could never bring forth.   What was going on there?   Could I change that?

So I jumped at an opportunity to give a reflection on the Transfiguration for Mass on one of the Lenten Sundays.  Yes, I will get closer to it somehow and it will be my friend and I will be able to remember it.  So, this last weekend I spent at a retreat with a bunch of bible scholars and I thought perfect,  I’ll corral one of those guys and he will fill me in and that’s all I’ll need.  But there is a flaw in that.  To have one of the scholars fill me in would give me a  better  intellectual understanding maybe but I already had that to some degree and would that help me to remember any better?     See the difference between that and hauling heavy timbers on my back as that relates to carrying the cross.

But fortunately I had a dream one of the nights at the retreat and it was the answer to my problem, it would provide me with the link that I needed.   The gist of the dream was meeting an incredible woman who did ” change her appearance from inside out. ”   I was mesmerized by her personality, her way.   I was  totally “in heaven” traveling and just being with her.  But here is the twist, she had a major injury to her face, the area around her right cheek bone had been at some time badly mangled.  I had never seen anything like it before and there it was to stay.  But  at the same time I had never seen anyone with that mastery of letting their inner light shine so brightly that even that major problem was so amazingly overshadowed.   This light was so overpoweringly that nothing else seemed to matter.

We all get injured in more ways than one as we hang around this life.  We can be so used to thinking that your bodies totally represent who we are or who Christ is but that is not so.  As important as our bodies are to each of us we always have to remind ourselves that it is only a vessel for our spirit, for Christ’s Spirit.  And that is what will conquer our injuries and in the end even our deaths.

Love, Felipe.

Last evening I presented Phil’s Camino to fifty bible study guys at the retreat.  And we had a great question and answer session that left me exhausted.  I really appreciate the enthusiasm that they showed.  Maybe this shows me the difference between trying to present my story to a group with and without the film as last year at this time I didn’t have it.   The film is powerful and gets the idea across quickly and effectively.

I am going to be traveling back to Vashon this afternoon and hope to be back for my walk at 3:30.  Hope to see you there. in person or in spirit.

How about we do the last Pilgrim Beatitude:

BLESSED ARE YOU PILGRIM, IF YOU DISCOVER THAT THE “CAMINO” HOLDS A LOT OF SILENCE; AND THE SILENCE OF PRAYER; AND THE PRAYER OF MEETING WITH GOD WHO IS WAITING FOR YOU.

Boy and did I spend and lot of time and energy trying to decode this one, well mainly the “silence of prayer”.   Work on for a while and maybe we will talk about it.  I talked about this with the guys last night and it meant a lot to them.

OK, moving along, time goes on, blisters come and go.  Always remember that you are children of God, love, Felipe.

Monday 0900-1000

Tuesday 1330-1430

Thursday 0900-1000

Sunday 1330-1430

The trail is starting to dry out again but still wear those rubber boots.  You might need your rain jacket or you might need your sunglasses.

Felipe.