Good Morning Caminoheads!
I hope your Movie Monday went well! Things were popping over here at the PHIL’S CAMINO headquarters! Lots of details to be tended to as we approach our LA Premiere. It is going to be a really fun evening, with our special guests, Phil and Rebecca! It will be so nice for so many other team members to meet them: our composer, Laura Karpman, along with dan Bern and Eric Kufs who wrote the opening and closing song, Come and Walk, Walk with Me, along with others. And of course, wherever Phil and Rebecca are, you know our dear Carol is not far behind, so she will be joining us as well! Another special guest will be Esther Hobbs, making her way down from Monterrey, CA for the weekend. Then of course, there are all the SoCal pilgrims who want to meet the man himself who will be attending, and also some of my choir members — the men, anyway since our LA Opening falls on the same weekend as our Women’s Retreat…well, the list goes on!

We also have some more screening dates and times for you:

AUGUST:
Rhode Island Film Festival
Middlebury New Filmmaker Film Festival
SEPTEMBER:
Port Townsend Film Festival
Jhilava Film Festival (the Czech Republic)

I will leave you with my latest Tom Bomb. Fr. Tom is one of the spiritual advisors of PHIL’S CAMINO, and is the official padre of the team. He is an incredible mix of fun and wisdom, with a dash of mischief thrown in. I left him a message last week asking him to say a prayer for me as I was getting overwhelmed with all the things I have to do, and losing faith in myself that I could do them all. Here is what he sent me. Not only am I inspired by his words, I am so very blessed to call him friend.

Annie, Dorothy Day claimed she awoke each morning with 30 hours of work to do, and only 24 hours to do it. So, she began each day by ONE HOUR of silence in front of the Blessed Sacrament. Voilà! She claims Jesus always multiplies whatever we offer FIRST to him. And Dorothy swore that he always have her more than ample time to accomplish the work. The other insight she got from her Holy Hour was the realization that the work she was doing was really God’s work. And God always gives us the resources necessary to accomplish HIS work.

I’m off to not quite an hour of silence, but perhaps a Holy Half Hour.
Blessings and love, to ALL us Caminoheads!

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

Here at Phil’s Camino we are moving along and about 28km west of Leon. We went through the town of Villar de Mazariffe a while ago.

Our walking schedule is:

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

So come join us. Felipe.

Monday morning and time to regroup after Archery Camp, after Festival. Time to sweep up and get ready for what’s next. Right now there is thunder happening above with a sprinkling of rain. A deer mom and two fawns are browsing outside.

Reverend Bonnie is off to Port Townsend for a writer’s workshop. That sounds like fun. She will try and stop on her way back though Seattle afterward to catch some more archery with Felipe. She was so awesome on Saturday when she shot here. She hadn’t touched a bow since high school days and she surprised me with her skill and endurance. We must have recreated for three hours when most folks would be done in an hour or less. So more fun to come.

Her sermon at Burton Church yesterday was a thing of beauty. A little bit of intro and then an introduction to Heildigard of Bingen (sp?). She was among other things a medieval physician who we talked about not long ago in regard to the book “God’s Hotel”. She saw humans as gardens as opposed to modern medicine seeing us as machines. H of B talked about keeping our lives wet, green and juicy and not to let ourselves dry out. I’m paraphrasing somewhat but your get the idea. Yes, let’s do that, keeping ourselves juicy!

Then we moved on to centering prayer with the congregation participating in some of that practice. It was very moving for me. We were pumped and about ready for anything after all that. You will have to catch her somewhere down the road.

OK, I am going to move on down the road here myself. There are some things that have to happen today. The best to you where you are. Oh, I can’t wait to say this: juicy loves, Felipe!

I have a few minutes before the service at Burton Church where Bonnie will preach. Went to 8 o’clock Mass and now a second church service. Yea, I’m going to be glowing in the dark.

So somehow I was going to write about an item that happened this AM here at the ranch. It was a pretty good starting point for a blog post and about the Wild Kingdom here which pretty much surrounds us here at all times. But today at church coffee I heard a really really good one that blew my story out of the water. I can’t even mention mine.

A friend asked me how my corn was doing and I answered that the deer were loving it. So, this got her started and she told this story. She was out by her chickens the other day when an eagle swooped down pouncing on one and started to try and lift it off the ground. So Linda, brave wrestling Mom that she is, runs at the bird yelling. Yea, and the eagle drops the hen and gets out of there quickly. Well, unfortunately the hen didn’t make it but the family had a handsome chicken dinner out of it and even better a great story. Yup, up to our armpits in nature.

So, have the run. Have a great Sunday. Love you, Felipe.

It feels so good to be avoiding the crowds in downtown Vashon. Vashon Strawberry Festival today. Yea, been there done that, been here forty five years and did a few of those.

Waiting for Bonnie to get here so we can work on archery. She wanted to make sure she got some shooting in. Yea, we can do that, today’s the day. And I have some questions for her in the spiritual realm, maybe we will have time for that.

My Rebecca’s is back and Bonnie should be here soon. I better finish this up and get in gear. Maybe an ice cream sandwich would help. OK, see you tomorrow. Just a lazy day here, lazy love, Felipe.

Our good buddy Bonnie Barnard showed up yesterday for a weekend visit. She will be preaching at Burton Community Church Sunday morning. That is great, that is cool but it is also just good to have her here to grab some of her energy. She had dinner with My Rebecca and me last evening and we watched Phil’s Camino.

Bonnie has a website if you Google her name you will get there. That is why I am mentioning her name in full. I generally try to refer to people on this blog by their first names but when someone has a site then they are out there anyway. Yea, so check that out. There must be info or a link about her spiritual center in Scottsdale AZ.

I’m so lucky to have so many great people come and go in my life. They buoy me up with their energy, ideas and spirit. Absolutely! I don’t know that I would be able to do without my constellation of celebrities. I call them/you my Doctors, Lawyers and Indian Chiefs. Thank you all!

For instance, My Sister Joyce. She has news. She retired from the Archdiocese of Seattle. What does retirement mean for her, I really don’t know. She’s eighty four wonderful years old. So she is opening a new office down the street and around the block from her old place that’s bigger and better. And now she will be coming to Vashon two days a month instead of one to meet with folks one on one. Retirement? Well whatever, but the point is she another one of my happy band that I could not do without.

And Padre Tomas has news. He is our official unofficial Padre of this blog site. He has two things actually. One he is growing a beard. Makes him look so much more professorial, which is good because he has a new interest in art history which we can blame on Catalina our official unofficial art historian. See how it works? Well actually I have no idea how it all works but that is totally beside the point. It all works swimmingly well is the idea!

OK, I am off to the last day of archery camp. There is a competition yet to get top shooter for the older campers and the younger campers. There are some nice awards for that and also for most improved. Then an ice cream social later to meet with the parents. Yea, and this is what as known as Festival Weekend coming up. It’s the annual Vashon Strawberry Festival with a parade and all the hoopla. I’m just going to hide out, work on the corn and sit in the shade.

OK, you are up to date on the news from Lake Woebegone or wherever we are. See you tomorrow. Maybe I could be one of your Doctors, Lawyers and Indian Chiefs, love, Felipe.

I was lounging around thinking I was totally on top of things. Then came the realization that there were going to be more moving parts to my day to be than I had been planning. So, we will just have a fleeting glance at each other as we quickly pass. But it doesn’t matter because we are solid in our relationship. We will have time tomorrow, promise, I think. Love, Felipe.

I just made the mistake of reading someone’s else’s blog before writing mine. Not that that is totally a bad thing. It’s just that it influences my thinking till I can process it and get it filed away somewhere in the nooks and crannies. And I don’t read a lot of blogs but the one that comes in the most with quality and quantity is old Richard Rohr’s (Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation). I am sure I have mentioned this before but he has got a brain lock on me at the moment so you will have to put up with it.

This is relevant to what we do here because he is currently writing about “liminal” space and this lines up one of our favorite topics here of, “What the heck did happen to me/us on the Camino anyway?” Or in other words, “How come I had such a hard time reentering my old life afterward?”. There are seriously a lot of blogposts on this back in this blog’s archives. And the ghosts of these questions linger on. This was powerful stuff that we encountered and we can’t really ignore it or we can ignore it but at our own peril.

Liminal comes from the Latin “limen” which means threshold. So Father Richard uses liminal to describe the space that a person is in when they are on the threshold of something new and different. They are outside of their usual space, their usual routine, their usual way, there rut, their usual usual. We find ourselves there in this new place because of some shock that knocks us out of our old patterns. Could be death of a loved one, divorce or a bad diagnosis, for instance.

But without that, going on pilgrimage is in itself the act of getting out of one’s patterns. It is letting oneself be the stranger, to be outside one’s normal. This in itself is putting one in liminal space. And so many pilgrims are of the age where they have been touched by tragedies that may be unresolved. This combination can be a starting place for real growth that comes out of being brave and crossing that threshold into liminal space.

We remember vividly the space we were in after our Caminos where we felt like we had been run over by a truck, which is how I can remember describing it. It is that space that Father Richard talks about, that space that is so pregnant with potential. That may be the space that great people are in for the most part or perhaps continually.

OK, well, there you have it for today. The sun is out and my archers are avidly awaiting. Thanks for being here, love you spaciously, Felipe.

Well I didn’t have to walk 5 km to get my cafe con leche this morning but sitting outside with my breakfast and coffee is bringing back memories of those times. Still there is not a day that goes by that I don’t have some memory of my Camino in Spain come rushing back. Still think that it was a vision of heaven.

The overcast is breaking up and patches of blue sky are appearing overhead. I am off to archery camp again to make that happen. Wiley and I got things started yesterday and always glad to be past that as there is always a lot of organizational stuff to get out of the way. Now we can get on to the fun stuff!

Annie sent in a bunch of news on the film and various events surrounding it on the pervious blog post. So, if you missed that just scroll down. Right now she is packing our schedule with events for our end of the month California visit. We are going to have showings of Phil’s Camino, of course. But beyond that we have fundraisers, a wedding, a panel discussion, meetings, parties, a Padre’s baseball game and who knows what else. We don’t like dull moments, obviously.

Well, have a splendid day. Let yourself be inspired,love, Felipe.

(Here is the latest in on things Phil Camino the Film. Later this month My Rebecca and I are off to California to be with Annie doing events from LA to San Diego. Then in September there is the Port Townsend Film Festival up here in the Seattle area which we all will be at. So join us if you can, always fun! Felipe)

Hey there Felipe-
I am excited to write to you this morning. We had a wonderful screening yesterday, so it feels like I have something wonderful to share! A year ago, the Church of Santiago de Compostela — yes, only the second church with that name, the first being the Cathedral which is the traditional end to the Camino de Santiago — hosted a beautiful event. An amazing and dynamic woman there named Ann-Marie Blaney wanted to offer her church a retreat: we screened Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago, had a Q&A and lunch, then I showed them some clips from the upcoming, work-in-progress film called Phil’s Camino. Wow! We then had a procession from the room where we screened to the outdoor fountain where we dropped rocks at a Galician cross, sent by their sister church in Spain, to symbolize the Cruz de Fero ritual along the Camino. That is where pilgrims drop rocks that symbolize releasing a resentment, or care, or worry they have ben holding on to. It was beautiful. So you can imagine how meaningful it was to return there on Saturday with the finished film, Phil’s Camino. Beautiful!
In addition to the screening, Ann-Marie organized an Interfaith Panel to follow the film, with religious leaders all talking about how pilgrimage is part of their faiths. It was magnificent. Ann-Marie had been at the first Interfaith Panel I hosted, back in February, and was inspired to include a panel as part of Saturday’s retreat. I am so glad that she did, because it feels like getting to know, to chat with, to break bread with people who are different from us is more important today than ever. In fact, I listened to the President giving his speech on the way down to the event. I have felt so helpless as I watch events unfold that indicate that our country is in the middle of tough times. In such a divisive climate, it felt even more significant to bring together a Catholic priest, a Muslim Imam, and a Jewish cantor to talk about pilgrimage. I think the audience was as rapt as I was to hear eat of them speak about pilgrimage, and their rituals. Although we learned that Judaism does not really have pilgrimage as part of its rituals, there is strong symbolism about how each day, and our entire lives, are a journey, a pilgrimage that we undertake and can walk as best we can. The Imam had everyone’s attention as he talked about the Haj, the Pilgrimage that each Muslim hopes to take during their lifetime. There are a lot of things that they do before hand to make themselves ready, knowing that they are embarking on a transformational experience: they clear up any debts, they make right any wrongs that they have committed, and other preparations of the soul. Of course, we also spoke of how the Pope has suggested pilgrimage as one of the rituals Catholics can do in this year of Mercy. Caminoheads, it was beautiful! We did some filming, so I hope that I can put something together for you at some point. Stay tuned for that one!
The other big news is that we will be screening in Los Angeles! Yay! We will have a special Los Angeles Premiere on Thursday July 28, with special guest Felipe himself in attendance! Then we will screen at 12 Noon for one week, from Friday July 29 – Thursday August 4. Noon every day. There will be some panels following the screenings on Saturday and Sunday. More details to follow. If anyone feels called to help, I could use some help for these screenings. You can contact me through my personal email, [email protected]
Of course, we are have also started taking reservations to stay at Ft. Worden during the Port Townsend Film Festival. They have set aside 16 rooms for Team Phil’s Camino. I think there are about 5 also ready spoken for, so that leaves 11 rooms. It is an old army barracks, so it is dormitory style living, but I have heard that the setting is quite lovely, with walking paths, and beautiful views. It is a flat rate of $125 for the entire weekend, so if you are interested, please let me know ASAP.
Lots of wonderful things shaking with Phil’s Camino, don’t you think, Egg Man?!?! I think it is absolutely wonderfully and ridiculously fantastic! We just can’t help ourselves!
Lots of love, lots of peace-
Annie
PS I am about to send you a picture of the panel.

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