Cherry blossoms over the tapas table at Phil’s Camino..
Catherine is driving me over to Tacoma for oral surgery. Wow, what a thing to look forward to. Just trying to put one foot in front of the other on this one. Thought I needed to get this taken care of so it would heal before flying off to Iowa. Right, all in prep for the Dubuque Vortex.
We had a big walk yesterday with five folks from out of town. The trail is pretty dry now and pretty civilized. So, the walk evolved into the first outside tapa gathering of the season. We had cherry blossoms overhead, memorable time.
So thankful that I have Catherine to “carry my pack ” this morning. We were meant to have this happen. Thankful for Camino buddies.
We are there even when we aren’t there, so to speak.
Dubuque Iowa is going to be the center of our universe this month. Not too long ago I couldn’t spell it now everything is focused there like leadup to the Normandy Invasion. Personally, all I have to do really is get my butt to the airport at the right time and whoosh, into the land of early French explorers, all things Corn, Heartland film lovers and our beloved Pilgrim Farmer John and his family and friends.
There is so much here to do before I go it’s ridiculous. I’ll have to do the best I can like always I guess. Friends and clients will just have to accept this new movie star mode. Haha. Well, it all works in strange ways, that’s all I have to say.
Last night in my dreams, speaking of strange happenings, I had a visit from the most amazing woman. We conversed but the main thing about her that sticks to me now as we talk is that I have never met anyone one so relaxed/confident. If worry and anxiety are tools of the Devil than this being was totally untouched by anything like that. She was so totally there, present with me, not a care just there. At the moment I can’t remember what was said between us but it doesn’t matter really as her message came through anyway big time. Ah.
This is good medicine to be armed with as I fly off. We should all feel confident in this film and it’s message, no need to worry. We have shot the arrow but St James is here to guide it. Here we go off to Dubuque!
Hey there Caminoheads! Annie here 🙂 All good news coming your way today from Phil’s Camino! I am so excited to announce what I have been calling our BIG NEWS! It truly is big news, Dear Ones, because we are working with a very tight budget here, and it has taken a whole lot of creativity along with our usual can do spirit to pull this one off!
Phil’s Camino is on tour, and the incredible Jessica Lewis and Todd Pinckney are touring with it!!!
Yup, our little film with the big heart is screening in Sarasota Florida today (3:45) and Wednesday (2:45), and Jessica and Todd will be there for Q&A after both screenings! Then they will be making their way up to the Nashville Film Festival for the Saturday April 16 screening. After that they will make their way and join the film at the Myrtle Beach Film Festival for the screening on Friday April 22! Meanwhile, Phil and I will be heading to Dubuque, Iowa for the Julien Dubuque Film Festival from April 21-24. This is not just big news for Phil’s Camino but for the fact that this will be a historic meeting of one Pilgrim Farmer John with Felipe himself. All I can say is Watch Out, ladies and gentlemen! PFJ assures us Dubuque, Iowa truly is big enough for both of them, and just be on alert if you hear some sort of sonic boom when the two of them meet! I will be taking a red eye and arriving on Friday morning. I don’t know if they will have already met and hoisted a few together at that point or not. It is especially cool that we will be together because I have heard that Sister Joyce’s order is in Dubuque, in fact I think she is there this week. Who knew that Dubuque was code for ‘center of the universe’.
But I digress!
There have been a lot of questions about when people can see the film, and here is an outline of our game plan: We want as many people to see this film as possible! The way we will do that is by first getting the film to as many film festivals as possible. If you are moved to donate, this is what your donation will do: get the film in front of as many people as we can! We want this life affirming message to reach as many folks as we can, and we would love you to join us in that! Every donation helps us take this film to another audience somewhere in this world! Thank you! You may never know the names of the people who see Phil’s Camino, but I guarantee you that you have changed their lives for the better by donating so the film can get in front of them. Just like you may not know the names of the folks who have donated to get the film in front of you some day, but it was their generosity that made it happen. This is how pilgrims do it along the Camino: it is called Donativo. The Donativo albuerges were always my favorite ones. They cost nothing to stay there, no set price, just a donation. Donativo. There would be a bowl somewhere, usually near the door as pilgrims would leave, and everyone would drop something in. Everything that one nights’ pilgrims left would be collected to pay for the dinner for the next night’s pilgrims. Pilgrims we might never meet, yet our generosity fed. That is what a donation to Phil’s Camino is right now: you are bringing the film to an audience you might never meet, yet your generosity will feed their souls. Thank you.
Donations can be made at www.philscamino.com OR if you would like to make a tax deductible donation, you can do that through our fiscal sponsor, Fractured Atlas. https://www.fracturedatlas.org/site/fiscal/profile?id=12789 Either way, you are bringing this beautiful film to the world, a world that thirsts for upliftment, kindness, and inspiration. Thank you, and Buen Camino!
Peace-
Annie
Annie O Neil
Producer/Director: 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
Wiley off to work, blue skies, rained in the night, no big ideas. Well, nothing jumping out at me. Just a peaceful feeling this AM. Life is cooking along. The movie is cooking along. I am trying to get things done so I can escape to Dubuque on the 20th.
Lent is over and the Spring progresses. My Rebecca has been planting onions and peas. I have been watching the corn patch to get a signal to start tilling. The Camino is drying up and the standing water is gone. Walking at 0900.
My buddy Chris was here yesterday to walk and I gave him a sneak preview of the film. He wrote a wonderful piece about Phil’s Camino and posted it to his two thousand friends on FB. OK, horsepower there! Thanks Chris.
Had a great conversation with Catherine yesterday. We were tailgating after church in the parking lot of the local market. Just talking things over, mostly about the spiritual path, trying to figure out the Camino after the Camino.
I have to go and figure out some technical stuff about the blog. Keeping this blog going day after day sometimes is easy and sometimes there are potholes and speed bumps. OK, but everything moving along here regardless. Looking forward to seeing you somewhere down the road. Stay well.
Cherry blossoms over the tapas table at Phil’s Camino.
It all started out in the time around dawn. I purposefully peered out the window and with a nasty attitude asked, “Ok, what are you throwing at me today?” But much to my pleasant suprise the view was just full of beautiful cherry blossoms! Took we totally off guard. But yes, of course or in other words, “Felipe could you just relax and enjoy the ride?”
We are just up to our armpits in nature around here these days sometimes to an unwanted extent. Catherine was telling me that last evening she was hearing strange noises outside and it was the raccoons trying to get into the bird feeder. So, she scared them away and decided she had better check the security around the chicken coup. On checking that out she discovered that the neighbors sheep had put the electric fence out of commission, leaving the chickens vulnerable. Then on looking over toward the neighbor’s flock saw coyotes running around there. Ah, ok, quick call to the neighbor.
Catherine is relating this to me and we drive to early Mass. So, we are dodging birds and deer as I drive along, my turn to drive. Even with my best efforts I wound up killing a bird which is better than a deer I guess, a least better for my pickup.
Father Marc was talking about one of the psalms, ” This is the day that the Lord has made. Be glad and rejoice in it.” Yea, here we are! Love, Felipe.
I have a half an hour before I need to motivate down the road this morning. Just thinking about my day coming up and thankful that it will be amoung friends and involves a little travel. Nothing major will happen today maybe. I don’t have a lot of energy and I need a day to match that.
Last evening My Rebecca and Our Cynthia wound up in Vashon town for the First Friday Art Walk. Yea, once a month folks put up shows of their work and serve wine and other folks wander through and it makes for a festive evening. The weather was postively springlike so that really put a spark in things. I went to two shows with the gals and had to retreat while they forged ahead into the evening. And there was some crazy good music going on too.
I am trying to do some work on the fundraising front also. Good things take backing and Phil’s Camino is no exception. I have a little campaign that I am working on to help out. I know that once people hear our ideas clearly they will respond generously. My job is to communicate well.
That’s the way it looks on a Saturday morning from my location. Hope that your day is bright and positive and the parts come at you in those easy bite sized pieces. Yea, let’s not let anyone but God overwhelm us. Early morning loves, Felipe.
Spring sunshine coming through the new leaves and streaming into the house here as I write about little things.
I discovered a rich vein of ore in the blog worthy mine a while back. And I haven’t been there lately but have stumbled across in again. That is sort of my life, stumbling across things. I think the point is really there are things worth stumbling across. There are things outside of my immediate me that I can see, learn from, stumble across, if I am open to it.
It is that openness that is important. But it takes that unclutteredness to get there. Some times life is just too crammed with BIG things to get there. But big things are more important than little things, right? Hmm. I’m thinking of my inner astronomer meeting my inner geneticist. They are both bragging about finding God in there separate areas of interest. Galaxies light years away, priceless. Seeing DNA as intelligence, equally priceless. Priceless because it is pure inspiration.
OK, well Felipe, what did you stumble across today? Well actually, it started last night. I rescued this little bug from the toilet who was still kicking and making a fuss. Doesn’t he know he is too small to count? Can’t he drown without me? Don’t I have better things to do than to try and pull off a graceful rescue of this LITTLE guy. Why is he here anyhow? Bother!
Well, it would have been totally cheery if he had survived after all that but I found him this AM immobile were I carefully placed him. Too much for the little guy that tried. Well, maybe he accomplished his mission after all by capturing my heart. The big picture for a little bug I knew.
A Friday morning in April, April Fool Loves, Felipe.
Rebecca checking out the sunset at the ranch last night.
I had a new nurse, new to me, yesterday at the treatment center. This was for my every other week big chemo treatment which takes, give or take, six hours. He was a male nurse. Is that redundant? But maybe ten to fifteen percent of the nurses there are boy nurses.
Anyway, we were having some great conversation about the great state of Iowa since that is where he is from and where I am going in a few weeks for the Julian Dubuque Film Festival. Yea, that was good. And then we wandered over into some heavier cancer talk after that and I said to him,with the proper disclaimer that it may sound weird but, cancer may be the best thing that ever happened to me. This is a big picture idea and one that I don’t often share. But he said that he had heard that before which was heartening for me to hear. I wasn’t totally out the on a limb, as they say.
In a sense that the disruption that this disease causes in all it’s facets, details and deeper inner meaning is earth shaking to the individual and their family. Somehow I saw it as a catalyst for change. Somehow with the help of some key mentors I was able to discern a path that led to the positive. So what I was saying to my nurse was that it put me on a path to this change to the positive. And that led to a total revamp of my inner being. It’s all a strange happening but totally worth it.
So according to one of my mentors, “In non medical terms God is keeping you alive to complete your mission.” Yes, I have had the luxury of having a very lazy form of cancer and some crazy good medical attention, granting me time. I have had time to work on the movie and do do this blog which is so special to me. Thanks for being here.
One of the three mounds of accidental soil that we are trying to grow flowers in.
Made it in time to the hospital, barely. Some days the traffic is on steroids, just like I will be in a few hours. But the good news is that I got to take a pic of one of our guerilla flower plots that we planted recently. The traffic was moving so slow that I got that time to screw around and use my iPad to give you a glimpse. But I couldn’t pick out any civilized little plants there, maybe too early.
Had a long phone session with Annie last night to plan our trip to Dubuque. That’s the Julian Dubuque Film Festival in the home territory of our friend Pilgrim Farmer John. Who was old Julian anyway? Have to get the minions on that. So, the festival is Thursday through Sunday and I will be flying in Wednesday and out on Monday. The film is scheduled to show four times, once a day. Hopefully we will have plenty of time for question and answer sessions.
I am anxiously awaiting the meeting, the summit meeting, of Annie O’Neil, Pilgrim Farmer John and myself next month in Iowa. It’s going to take a lot of cold beers to cool that down. The fate of Western Civilization could hinge on this one, so stay tuned.
Here at the hospital things are started, treatment wise. Jennifer is not with me today so I have to hold the fort myself. Ah yes, but I will make it through and get back to the Island this afternoon. So, take care, all is well, be present, love you, Felipe.
You wouldn’t want to wrestle her, she’d bite your ear off.
Just came across this incredible story about Granny Gatewood, who at 67 became the first woman to walk the Appalachian Trail ( runs north and south through the Appalachian Mountains, Eastern USA) in it’s entirety. What an awesome creature, check her out. I better get off my butt?
Some high pressure has moved in to Western Washington to give us a few gorgeous days. People will be here to walk in a few minutes. I am sorry but I just used up my blogging time screwing around on FaceBook. But. then again I wouldn’t have heard about Granny Gatewood if I hadn’t been screwing around and you wouldn’t have heard. We obviously need some minions to keep on top of all this.
So, have to grab my boots and get going. Hope that your day is filled with this spring that we are getting now. The best to you, love, Felipe.
