What a full day today. It started out with Esther giving us a tour of Cannery Row, remember the Steinbeck novels. Yea, she used to be a professional tour guide there so we got the full meal deal. Then off to Mass with Padre Tomas at 1100. What a nice job he did. This was at the Chapel at Fort Ord. Then lunch with the Knights of Columbus.

So, our work began at 1300 with a showing of Phil’s Camino and an almost hour long question and answer session. This audience was really great and had all sorts of questions mostly of the religious kind. Annie said it well when she said that she was way more comfortable when she could talk to an audience where she could mention God. I am with her on that and she drove home the point with the folks there how important it was for my success that I had not only assembled a great medical support team but also a great spiritual support team as well. True true.

It was such a great day to be with the Padre today not only to see him serve Mass but also to receive some of the Church’s major blessings. Of course Mass includes participating in the Eucharist which was may first Sacrament of the day. Then in the privacy of Padre’s office I had the privilege of participating in the second Sacrament by receiving Reconciliation which used to be called Confession. And if that wasn’t enough Father Tom Anointed me with Oil at the end of the QandA me being held up by one of the parishioners on one side and a major Caminohead Dave on the other just in case I swooned. It will be a very memorable day for Felipe.

A funny thing happened after we left the church that is worth relating. Since we couldn’t sell anything at the church due to federal government regulations we met with all the folks that wanted to purchase the new DVD and other gear down the road off of the property. There was a big empty parking lot next to an abandoned burger joint that we pulled into. We were selling stuff out of the truck of the rental car with all these buyers coming and going. It looked like some kind of big drug deal going down. We were all laughing waiting to be surrounded by the local cops. But in the end we escaped with the money and were on our way down the highway to Berkeley.

After an hour and a half drive we got to the Jesuit housing and got settled in before meeting Catalina and her family for dinner. They treated us to a hearty Mexican feed and we played with Electra their three year old daughter and hammered out the details for tomorrow’s work. And that is being with Catalina’s class on Pilgrimage Art that she teaches at the Jesuit School of Theology.

Pretty darn heady day and I at this very moment am exhausted. And on top of that the Seahawks are winning with a few minutes to go. OK, enough, time to curl up with my fat book. Thanks so much for being here with us, love, Felipe and company.

We had a great showing at the REI in Sacramento with approximately 100 folks showing up. It was a meeting of the APOC chapter there and we were there to give them our best song and dance. Notably missing were Tom and JoAnn who were off on a trip to Mexico.

It is so special showing Phil’s Camino to a bunch of Camino people as compared with a festival audience. Filmgoers at the festivals have one sort of interest but a pilgrim audience is way more involved. Actually we got a standing ovation. They were a great group and Annie and I brought our A game for the QandA. REI had to throw us out when it got to closing time at 2100.

Then immediately we jumped on the highway and Esther drove to her place in Monterrey where we were up late yakking. So right now I am supposed to be napping but here I am writing to you while Annie and Esther are off trolling the supermarket for dinner.

But I jumped ahead, for Father Tom (Padre Tomas) accompanied by his sister Linda took us out to brunch. Then we did some driving around the area which is all so beautiful, ocean, wind blown trees, surf, wind blown trees, more surf. Yea and we toured the San Carlos Borromeo Del Rio Carmelo Mission with the padre as our tour guide. He sometimes serves the Mass there so people knew him and he knew all the good stuff to see.

I find the old missions so fascinating. All the history and the buildings so rugged and the grounds so peaceful. There was a trail that connected all 21 missions way back when. Some of it still exists and some has to be approximated because of modern roads, buildings and homes. But that might be fun to try and do sometime.

So tonight we get to hang out with Esther and her husband Daniel. And tomorrow is Sunday and Mass but I will get to that on tomorrow’s post. I think it is time for my nap. Maybe read a few pages from Don Quixote, approaching halfway!

Heard the Washington Huskies won yesterday. Way to go boys! Hello from Esther and Annie. OK, time to go, love you, Felipe.

This refers to yesterday’s post. This Hot Springs at the Arlington Hotel. That is Steve Watkins in the upper right. I think his wife Dana took the pic.

I woke up at 4:30 AM and the alarm was set for 6:30 AM. And then I pretty awake. So, my best thing to do at that quiet time is to check in with the universe and that includes my tumors. We were all hangin around and the topic of fears came up. The idea that we were kicking around was how sort of arbitrary my personal fears are. We all have a set of them and they go a long way in defining us. What is that and how did I get that particular set or how does anyone arrive at having their own set? And of course our set represents reality while others fears are mostly unfounded.

We closed down the meeting and I rolled over on my side and slept till both My Rebecca’s and my radio alarm clock went off. Mine was intent on telling me about a three mile backup somewhere. Got those shut off and I had to regroup after a mild nightmare about renegade city buses going this way and that and causing all sorts of havoc. Here are my fears showing up when on this trip to California that starts today I decided that I would use the bus system to get myself to and from the airport. Buses and trafic are scary apparently!

I can’t account for my fears. They are so capricious, maybe that is the right word. Consider just before this bus craziness I am hanging out with my tumors like they are a bunch of harmless munchkins. No fear on either of our parts, Hmm.

OK, off to make my day. Esther is going to be at the airport in Sacramento to pick me up and get me to the REI. Let the fun begin and the fears subside, watch out for those buses, love, Felipe.

That’s what the working title is for a talk I am going to give to a college class on Monday. Annie and I are going to be with them for three hours to watch Phil’s Camino and talk about pilgrimage, it’s a class on pilgrimage. This is one of the three stops on our magical mystery tour that starts tomorrow. I’m flying out of Seatac tomorrow afternoon and I have today to prepare.

Totally forgot I have a walk this AM, in twenty minutes. Will do that and be back to you afterward. Yup.

Here I am. Just looking on FaceBook and it’s fun seeing all the folks writing about just receiving their DVD’s of Phil’s Camino. So great to have it out there. If you would like one go to www.philscamino.com and click on store at the top and have at it. There is other Camino stuff there also. You also need a t-shirt to be at your coolest. That reminds me to pack my Phil’s Camino T-shirt.

So this afternoon I have a phone call slated with Steve Watkins and maybe say hi to Dana. Steve’s name is all over get out so I feel comfortable naming him here. They just recently got back from walking the French Way in Spain. They did a FaceBook blog that was nice. I wanted to touch base with them and see how things are. We had a chance to spend time at the Hot Springs Festival a few months ago.

Time to go. I will be blogging from California in the near future. You will find out the inside skinny. Stay warm, love, Felipe.

I don’t know much about St Andrew other than he was brother of St. Peter. I need to study up. But that is a great image of him that some one painted. Man, I am pretty lame on my facts today.

But I do know that a hummingbird visited our new feeder a minute ago. Fun to see them in the bleak near winter, like little fairies flitting around. Oh, there is another. Maybe the same on, I don’t know. They are green females so far. The males have some red. What wonderful little beings to share the planet with.

Well I am fling out on Friday to Sacramento to join up with our Phil’s Camino magical mystery tour. Esther, Annie, REI, Padre Tomas, The Knight’s of Columbus, Catalina and maybe Electra will be along for parts of it. We will be in Sacramento, Monterrey and Berkeley. News is on Phil’s Camino Face Book page. I am just trying to stay healthy, seems like everyone and their brother has some version of a cold now.

Ok, off to work. Woodwork R Us. Remember St. Andrew’s Day, love, Felipe.

This morning on FaceBook a local posted a pic of the “Jesus Barn”, a landmark here on the Island. It was beloved, if sort of taken for granted, by everyone. I say taken for granted because I think that we all thought it would last forever but no it collapsed I think in the 90’s. My Rebecca and I remember it in it’s hayday during the 70’s and 80’s. I don’t know the history of it. Maybe it just dropped out of heaven.

But the pic is gorgeous! Hayday shot if I ever saw one. You are looking directly north and the afternoon sun is over your left shoulder. The grass is all dried so it must be late July or later, high summer or better. It speaks of sustained sun and the heat it brings when we locals finally are able to uncurl our bodies locked in position still from the long winter.

Sometime the county came along and imposed it’s will on us and laid a grid down on the landscape and gave it all numbers of streets and avenues. I still don’t know the numbers, refusing to learn. It’s oppressive, like the Romans rolling into ancient Israel. But some of the original names have persisted like, “Bank Road” which is the road the savings bank is on. And there is a pond on Bank Road and the pond’s name is, you guessed it, Bank Road Pond. See, easy peasy.

But what is really interesting is that if a landmark somehow disappears as in the case of the Jesus Barn you still call that spot or even area the “Jesus Barn”. This is why outsider city people tend to look at us funny. Well, there are other reasons too I hear. Anyway, just thought I would bring this to you this Tuesday morn.

Maybe all us old timey Isand carpenters could get some kind of fancy grant to raise it, to reconstruct it again. You know I didn’t even write of the quality of the calligraphy. Someone really busted butt on that. Thank you, whoever you were. And thank you Jesus Barn in totality, teaching us that you are there just like Jesus even though we can’t always see you.

OK, have to go, miss you, love you, Felipe.

I got up is AM and was despairing over what oh what to write for the blog today. Now it is an hour and a half later and I have way too many ideas. One I will write about and the others will have to fend for themselves I’m afraid. If they can cling on to my flighty consciousness til tomorrow they have a good chance of being posted then.

Somehow, all the delightful people that come into my life leave their message, their scent, their essence behind and it clings to me and inspires me. Maybe I don’t discover it for a while. Maybe it takes something else to come along and catalyize it. And all of a sudden it is rampaging around in my consciousness like some love sick bull elephant.

Just to pick one of these love sick bull elephants, it was an idea that Catalina, our staff art historian, dropped off yesterday. She sent an article from the Guardian about the popularity of pilgrimage that is happening. The article went into the phenomenon globely, not just in any one spot. Well, we know that the Camino in Spain is growing in participants by leaps and bounds but others also. What is this craving when church attendance wanes. Are they related? I never put that together before. Here is the link if I can figure it out: Pilgrimage popularity

Is the trail the new church? I know that from my wanderings there are different sorts of ways to belief that exist, as one based on knowledge and one based on experience, say. My stay at the Catholic Church has been brief but what I appreciate most is the experiential quality of it. So much that I take in is gain by my physical doing. This is different from knowledge where I read and study and try and reach an understanding. I am so much of a kinesthetic learner maybe but I get so much more out of putting my whole body into something. Now that is just me but the trail has that aspect, you have to admit.

As one walks long enough and hard enough part of us actually becomes the trail. We sort of donate it. We give it away. We don’t need it any more. And that sudden empty space in us is where God moves into. It’s holy implant. He isn’t an idea any more. This is the trail, the new church.

Wow, and on a morning when I didn’t have any ideas. Bless you all as we get back to work on this Monday morn. Blue sky is appearing for our walk here at 0900. Thank you all for leaving your scent, love, Don Felipe.

For the first time this fall Raven Creek is running and there is some standing water in the south pasture. So if you are coming to walk wear your rubber boots. We saw some deer today but no Billy the Cougar. Catherine was here this afternoon and we slogged it through the rain, major fun. Man is it getting dark early.

Monday the 28th – 0900-1000
Tuesday the 29th – 1530-1630
Thursday the 1st – 0900-1000
Sunday the 4th – no walk
Monday the 5th – no walk
Tuesday the 6th – no walk
Thursday the 8th – 0900-1000
Sunday the 11th – 1600-1700

Felipe.x

BUOY
ˈbo͞oē,boi/
noun
plural noun: buoys
1.
an anchored float serving as a navigation mark, to show reefs or other hazards, or for mooring.
synonyms: float, marker; More
bell buoy, nun buoy, sonobuoy
“a mooring buoy”
verb
3rd person present: buoys
1.
keep (someone or something) afloat.
“I let the water buoy up my weight”
cause to become cheerful or confident.
“the party was buoyed by an election victory”
synonyms: cheer, cheer up, hearten, rally, invigorate, uplift, lift, encourage, stimulate, inspirit; More
informalpep up, perk up, buck up
“the party was buoyed by an election victory”
antonyms: depress
cause (a price) to rise to or remain at a high level.
“the price is buoyed up by investors”
2.
mark with a buoy.
“a buoyed channel”
Origin

Middle English: probably from Middle Dutch boye, boeie, from a Germanic base meaning ‘signal.’

I was thinking about the verb form of this word. This is what we do for each other as we walk. It fits perfectly. Felipe.x

The holiday has come and gone and it seems that somehow we all have accomplished a collective deep breath for the first time since the election. Don’t you think? I seemed like that happened and what a good thing.

Thursday morning we had a walk and Catherine y Dana showed up to participate. And you them they are always doing there best to be ambassadors of joy. They brought a batch of pumpkin muffins that they just made and a humming bird feeder for our kitchen window. We have a little pool going as to how long it will take to have them find it. Catherine said two weeks and I said a month.

These are Anna’s hummingbirds that winter over in the Northwest. A special thing really. I did a report on them a year ago or two years ago because there was some hanging around outside my hospital window. I will search and see what I learn. And will keep you up to date on the pool. When will they find us?

There is a big salt water fish tank in the waiting room here at the Treatment Center. One of the fish was lounging in big orange shell which was looking like a underwater wingback chair. Was he watching TV? Were we the show? Cancer Treatment Center the reality show, that’s us!

Off to lunch in a minute so I am going to wrap this up. The Apple Cup is being played right now. This is the big rivalry football game between the U of Washington and Washington State. Maybe I can figure out how to get the local radio station on this Ipad. I’m working it.

Talk to you soon, as always love you, Felipe.