Yesterday in the mail comes a new hat from the Mazama Store, Mazama, Washington. A new one just like the old original one used to be, used to look like but really hard to remember. So, the old one, the real one, the one that made it accross Spain in the sun of July and August will be retired except for special occasions. But the important thing is to thank the mystery person that ordered that for me. Thank you, whoever you are!

So, Cubbie’s game tonight after I get back from the hospital in Seattle. The commute on Wednesday was a bear and hoping today’s will be easier. Might even be some sun breaks. Do weathermen use that term in other places? In Seattle it means that it has been gray for far to long and then the sun “breaks” through the clouds for four seconds and everyone goes, “What’s that?”. Yea, really.

Also, getting ready to celebrate the thousandth post on Caminoheads blog. This post right here is 997. So, maybe Sunday. My Rebecca has already composed a poem to commemorate it. So stay tuned for that. It would be fun to hear from some of you in the comments.

We had a tremendous party last night. It revolved around Jan, William and Starr’s visit to walk Phil’s Camino. They were in from California and Oregon. Then Bill my cancer commando buddy showed up. Then Kate Munger with Barb and Ken came in. Kate is the founder of The Threshold Choirs which is a world wide movement to have little choirs bring comforting song to folks on their deathbeds. My Rebecca is in that in Barb’s group. So we had a walk, tapas and watched Phil’s Camino. A great afternoon and evening!

OK, have to go for now. And thanks for everything to so many people that make my life richer. On the look out for sun breaks, whatever they are. New red hat love, Felipe.

Yesterday, Wednesday, was my big treatment day and commute into the heart of Seattle. The rain come down all day in buckets and the drive both ways was the worst. Man, good to be here at the ranch just with the regular chores to do. The twist today is that I’ve go two walks. The regular scheduled one this AM and then a special one this PM for folks coming from California.

Then Pilgrim Farmer John from Iowa had a twist on the joke yesterday. And that is the Marine Corps version that says “So far so what!”. That comes from a place where you never give up, where attitude is everything and who can predict that pesky future anyway. Sometimes you can make that future or show a lot of style trying.

And as I thought about the joke, I can’t remember did the guy fell or jumped off the roof? I can’t remember what I wrote or how Bill told it to me. I like to think that he fell. That makes more sense anyway.

OK, what else we got? The big news around here is that Wiley and Hanna are moving in next door on the first of the month to our rental house. Yea, we are
excited to have them close by and right here at the ranch. So, hopefully I won’t be traveling in November to have the month to help get them settled in there.

OK, that’s all the news that I can think of. The best to you there, Spring in Australia/NZ, so jealous. So far so what, love you, Felipe.

That’s a punch line to a joke that Bill my cancer commando buddy told me. And it has turned into a greeting that we use with each other. I need to tell you the joke so that you will be in on it.

So, this guy jumps off the roof of a five story building. As he is falling past the fifth floor windows someone yells out,”How you doing?” The guy yells back, “So far so good!” And he falls past the fourth floor windows and there someone yells out, “How you doing?” And the guy yells back, “So far so good! And he falls past the third floor windows… Well you see where this is going.

So, that is our big joke, it’s a cancer joke really, kind of gallows humor. This is part of how we cope with the uncertainty of it all. “So far so good!” Thanks Bill, your company is priceless.

This is my big day at the hospital for treatment. Bill just dropped by to visit me for a half hour while he was here for any appointment. Again, thanks Bill.

So time for a coffee, have about an hour to go and I have to get up to speed for the drive home. Take care for now, love, Felipe.

Maybe it is nimbleness, maybe it appears slightly naive, maybe a certain knowingness, sort of a bit of happy go lucky. Just trying to figure out what all pilgrims have in common, well when they are in the zone anyway. I have Catherine y Dana for archery lessons this afternoon and I am always sheparding them into the archery zone. There is a place to be that gives you a bulls eye.

And as a pilgrim there is a place to be that gives you the Way, the learning of how to be on that different plane. Kind of feel like I am walking around in circles. Perhaps I can try again. In order to get the big lesson one must be open to it which means a certain amount of trust in the process. One must say yes I am ready to be the clay to be moulded.

I have met people who have been on the Camino and said that they just didn’t get it. Yea, I can see that happening. There is a difference between a traveler and a pilgrim. And being a pilgrim is being on the quest to get “it”. You know there is an “it” and you work toward that. And you have to have the trust that if I am the clay good things will happen as the kilometers go by, as the church bells ring, as the snorers snore, as your pack gets lighter, as you get lighter.

There it is again, the lightness. Well, perhaps I can tackle this on another day, got a start anyway. I like the part about being in the zone gives you a bullseye. OK.

Started Don Quixote the book yesterday. Well, I am fighting my way through two introductions anyway to finally hopefully get to the “greatest novel ever written” here soon. Trying to catch up on my classics is one reason for reading it but also because my “battle” against cancer has been described as “quixotic” and I want to know what that means.

Yup, that’s it for today. Get in that love zone and get a bullseye, Felipe.x

Bill and I walked this morning and made it to Laguna de Castilla just before O’ Cebreiro. We are getting there slowly but surely, little over 7/9ths the way.

Monday 0900-1000
Tuesday 1600-1700
Thursday 0900-1000
Sunday 1600-1700

Come walk with us, Felipe.x

PHIL’S CAMINO will be screening at The Naples International Film Festival AND the YES! Film Festival this weekend!
Friday October 28 at 1:30 and Saturday October 29 at 6:15 PM at Naples International Film Festival and Saturday October 29 at 7:15 and Sunday October 30 at 3:30 PM. Here are the website links: http://www.naplesfilmfest.com/
https://yesfilmfestival.com/

Next, PHIL’S CAMINO will screen at the Ojai Film Festival at 9 AM on Saturday November 5 and Sunday November 13.

Front Page

With our recent wins at the Tacoma Film Festival and La Costa, i believe we are at 12 wins at 21 festivals??? Could that be!!!?!

The recent article in the Vashon Beachcomber is one of the best yet: Living ‘vibrantly in the face of adversity’: Islander learns to live life with cancer – Vashon-Maury Island Beachcomber

Living ‘vibrantly in the face of adversity’: Islander learns to live life w…
One late afternoon last month, while the spun-gold of autumn’s fading light filtered through the madrona tre…

I am still amazed and delighted at the response from jurors and audience members alike. There is so much wisdom, so much inspiration here. Phil and Rebecca have touched the hearts of so many.

I am still doing lots of work towards Oscar consideration. We shall see. St. James has it all under control.
Love love love-
A

Annie O Neil
Director/Producer: Phil’s Camino www.philscamino.com

Co-producer and Pilgrim: Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago www.caminodocumentary.org

Author: Everyday Camino with Annie www.everydaycaminowithannie.com

310-403-4228

Yea, we were there. My Rebecca and I made it in to Seattle on Saturday afternoon to be with Dan. Sorry I didn’t get a blog out yesterday, too busy, but will cover that in a moment. Back to Dan, very funny, present and creative guy. We almost kidnapped him to bring him back to Vashon, community building it’s called.

So we went to the kid show which included a lot of sing alongs. Dan also has adult shows for the evenings but being kid’s at heart is important so be need practice so we went to the kid show. And we had a few moments with Dan after the show and we took a few pics. Just in case you missed it he and Eric Kufs wrote the original song “Come Walk With Me” and Dan sang it for the film. Yea, I am so glad for all the creative and motivated people that added their part to the film. The music is such an important part and thanks Dan and Eric!

So in a moment I have to jet into town to get some ingredients for country sausage. Have to drag out “Old Sparky”, our trusty electric grinder and make up some venison sausage for the winter. That’s my main project for today.

And Annie has some film news that I will get out to you this morning. Also I will post our walking times for the next few weeks. Remember some time in early November daylight savings stops and we will move our afternoon walks to 1530 till Spring time. But that won’t be for a little while.

OK, have to shut her down for now. Off to make it all happen. Big loves to you, Felipe.

Dan Bern is a songwriter and performer and is in Seattle for a few days on tour. My Rebecca and I are going on a rare excursion into the city to catch him this afternoon. Dan sang the song “Come Walk With Me” at the beginning and end of what documentary film? Phil’s Camino, that’s right! And Dan cowrote the song with a fellow named Eric Kufs.

Until then the sun is shining and the outdoors calls me. Still have things to do for winter. So I am going to end early today and get out there. Maybe it will be wet and stormy in the morning and I will be more in the mood to sit with you and gab. Antsy right now, antsy love, Felipe.

The orca whales, used to be known as killer whales, are back in the vicinity of Vashon Island. Above is a great shot taken by a friend of ours and I just lifted off FB. That is a pretty cool pic of the critter breaching.

It is too bad that Annie and the rest of the LA gang that were up here last month missed this. It is hard to predict when exactly the orcas will show up each fall and sometime it is earlier. First time I saw them it was September.

Time for a little story. I was fresh here on the Island and to the Pacific Northwest and it was 1972. My first job as a carpenter was working on a beach house on the westside of the island. I was getting two dollars an hour and I could stay there at the site. We had all the windows out of the old house which we were moving and remodeling. The house is right on the water I remember being woken by the sound of the whales breathing as they came up the channel. The sound of the half a dozen animals was echoing back and forth in the calm of the early morn. What an exotic way to wake and what a welcome to my new neighborhood!

I don’t know what this going to mean this year as the salmon season is closed due to the poor return of fish from the ocean and the orcas eat a lot of salmon. So will they still hang around? I guess they still have seals. Wild Kingdom out here, up to our armpits in nature.

Planting my cover crop on the corn field today, after getting it tilled yesterday. It’s not going to rain this AM, better get out there. Well, go get’em today whatever you are up to. Big whale loves, Felipe.

The gauge on the kitchen wall says Rain, yup no lie! It is coming down outside and we are walking in a few minutes. A different face on Phil’s Camino. It sounds like the wind blowing but the wind is not blowing, that is the rain falling. Yup, the monsoon season has arrived.

The local newspaper the Vashon-Maury Island Beachcomber published a front page (below the fold) article with pic about Phil’s Camino the trail and the film. I remember the reporter Julie was out here mixing with the folks that were arriving for the big Port Townsend Film Festival weekend. We were generally smoking and joking (old saying) here walking the trail, drinking wine and having tapas, locals and folks from LA. Julie was in the swing of it all while reporting on it for the article. I’m not sure that is really fair subjecting a poor helpless reporter to that volume and intensity of Camino hospitality. I guess it’s fair for it was just us, right? That’s how we act, we can’t help ourselves! Maybe we need a warning label: “Caution, pilgrims at play, doing what they do, winning over your heart is highly likely.”

You know come to think of it, it really isn’t fair. In general, pilgrims have a complete unfair advantage in most of life. I have never thought of it in those terms before but it’s true. Thank you St James for one.

Well, time to gear up for my walk, let’s see, wetsuit, aqualung. But it will clear up last minute, right? Maybe Bill my cancer commando buddy will show, he is crazy enough. The best to you, don’t take unfair advantage of people, love, Felipe.