Good Morning Caminoheads!
Annie here, hoping to keep you up to date on all things Phil’s Camino as you come here to this beautiful and blessed blog to keep up on all things Phil, or Felipe, depending on the day, ha ha!
Our beautiful little gem of a film, Phil’s Camino, which so many of you have supported, and continue to support, made its debut in Austin, Texas, at the world famous South By Southwest Film Festival, commonly known as SXSW, and by the locals as simply “South By”. It was everything a filmmaker could have dreamed of, with my whole team there, big crowds, lots of parties, and the man himself, Phil. That was the icing on the cake, as I am sure you can imagine. A good time was had by all, and I am even more aware of how grateful I am that my path crossed Phil’s. What a lucky duck I am! We are continuing our film festival run, with a few festivals coming up. If you know anyone who lives near these film festivals, please let them know they will have an opportunity to see Phil’s Camino, and on the Big Screen, no less!

Sarasota Film Festival, April 4 – 6

Nashville Film Festival, April 16 – 23

Myrtle Beach Film Festival April 20-23 (our screening times not yet announced)

Julien Dubuque Film Festival April 21-24 (no screening times yet, although probably once a day from 21-24)

Black Hills (SD) Film Festival May 4-7 (no screening dates yet)

We are so excited to have this beautiful and uplifting film traveling around the country!
Stay tuned for more details. I hope to be a little better about my commitment to Movie Mondays 🙂

I love you all, and wherever this film goes, rest assured, you are part of the reason it has gotten there!
Peace-
A
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

310-403-4228

Hopefully a quiet morning here at the ranch.  I was just getting back to normal after Austin when Easter struck.  When Easter struck, sounds funny.  Well and FaceBook doesn’t help.  I got started on that recently and I have to keep that under control.  It takes a certain amount of quietude to do my blog and lately I have had a hard time being in that zone.  But maybe today is the day.

It’s gray and foggy out like we are living in a cloud.   Yesterday was beautiful although it was supposed to rain all day and there was rain around us in the distance but we were dry.  This morning according to my weather app it will be dry here.  We are walking at 0900 so have time to write to you and read other blogs.   Everyday Richard Rohr has a piece that continually is awesome, the guy is a powerhouse.  Then Monday morning Terry Hershey, fellow Vashonite, brings Sabbath Moment which is always just what I seem to need.

I am coming up on two years of blogging.   That’s a lot of misspelled words and goofy grammar.  But hopefully it is of some value to you.  I can hear Jennifer in my mind saying, “now don’t go humble on me”.  OK Jennifer, yes it is of great value.  It is an honest reflection of the ups and downs of the Cancer Camino and of life in general in the daily slog.   It throws in some Catholicism, some Spain, some farming, some stories of wonderful people near and far.

It all started when I knew that I was headed to Spain to walk the Camino de Santiago.     So, I am training and buying gear and packing.  I am talking about all this with the nurses at the Cancer Institute and they first suggested writing a blog.  I barely knew what that meant.  But they realized that is exactly what I needed to get my story out and do it without dealing with answering twenty emails per day.

But it it came with frustration.  Learning the ins and outs of the technology for someone born in the wrong century was harrowing.  This was especially true when on the trail and having been baked to a golden brown in the August heat and then trying to type out something coherent.  Fortunately Gracie and others helped me along at the critical points.

Well, I am going to shuffle off to my day’ enough reflections.  Hope that everything is going well for you.  What can we do today to rock the old boat?  Thanks for being here, love, Felipe.

The kids squirreling around during the big Easter service was my favorite part.  Energy, energy, energy and enthusiasm all over the place. Catherine and I have a favorite girl, I guess that she is three.  We call her the Secretary of Joy.  Her poor parents have their hands full trying to get her “civilized”.

We had a walk today and tapas afterward.  That was our Easter dinner.  A little unorthodox but yummy.   The trail is drying out which is a welcome change.  Fruit trees are blooming and just hoping the bees can get moving.

Tired after all this partying, a tough problem.  Off to work tomorrow so have to get some shuteye.   Just want to say Happy Easter.  Joyful loves, Felipe.

Yes indeed, ever onward!  We will be at Itero del Castillo this evening.  That’s 50 kms west of Burgos.

Our schedule is:

Monday 0900-1000

Tuesday 1600-1700

Thursday 0900-1000

Sunday 1600-1700

It’s still rubber boot time.  Hope to see you.  Felipe.

Well, I made it through Good Friday.   Catherine and I went to Mass in the evening and I got relief finally from most of my sadness.   Mass completed me, so to speak.

Now Holy Saturday.   The belief is that Christ descended to the dead, the place of the dead on this in between day.  Yes, OK.  And what was He doing there, lolly gagging, taking a break?  The idea that He was talking to the millions that had come before and had died without hearing of the new covenant that He offered is intriguing.   It fits with the idea that Christianity is not an exclusive club.  It is open to Jew and Gentile we are told, meaning everyone.   Interesting to think of prehistoric individuals hearing His message.  Maybe they could understand it better than “we of cluttered brains”.

Well, just some thoughts.  Oh, maybe one more.  A friend asked what a Catholic was supposed to do on these holy days, like maybe having a list of good works to accomplish?  But I came up with the answer that it was about contemplation.  So, yes, that’s it.

You are my sunshine, love, Felipe.

Ah, a day to not use power tools, a day to contemplate.  A day that so takes me over.  A day that is a different day each year, that flits through our calendar like a summer butterfly.  A day that affected me as a kid.  A day as an adult where I cried in the middle of the service at a church that I was at for the first time.  It’s always a spring day but it doesn’t feel like spring ever, sometimes.   But ever a day to be caught up in a big cosmic drama.  A day, just a day.

Yesterday, Father Marc washed my feet and today he will hold the cross for me to kiss.  A tear now, today.  It runs down my cheek now, today.  A bird in the daylight, outside my window gathers up the perfect piece of debris to be an important part of her nest.  Does she know about this day?

Or is most of it unsaid today?  Is it some sort of under lying hum that loops up into my consciousness on a day where I am paying special attention?  Days can go on for a long time without me paying this special attention, can’t they?  A day perhaps with more questions than answers.

Mayday, mayday, mayday!  Doris Day, doomsday, worst day, business day,  laundry day, Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, Thanksgiving Day, Boxing Day, Doubleday, The Longest Day, Judgement Day, birthday, hump day, Sabbath Day, all day long, night and day, the Day of  Reckoning,  payday, heyday, yes but, ah ah ah, all of that too, but but, this is, ah ah, something different today.

The sun is out, right now, today.   Underlying love, Felipe,

There is Mass tonight, 1930, at our local Iglesia.   I have to get in gear with Holy Week and be here now.   Still reentering from the Austin trip.   So, I will be at church tonight and won’t be at work tomorrow, Good Friday.   Well, at least I won’t use my power tools.  I am so distracted on Good Friday that I tend to be dangerous.  We don’t need that.

It would be interesting to be in Spain during Holy Week.   I can only imagine the energy and the pageantry.    Well, maybe that will have to wait for another year.  But back to the here and now and Holy Week.   Holy Week, the time to contemplate on Christ’s Passion.  What does it mean to the world?  What does it mean for mankind?  What did it mean for people then and people now?  What does it mean for me here and now?

Yup, time to go for now.   Hope that we all get some time to think about things in between all that seems  to happen.  Maundy Thursday loves, Felipe.

P.S. ~ so I nodded off with the iPad in my hands on the red couch.  And Catherine, Dana and Cynthia show up to walk on Phil’s Camino.    They look in the window and think I am blogging and walk a lap without me.   So, they come around again and this time I am awake because of a phone call.   So, I hurriedly get myself together and walk the rest of the way with them.   So, Phil’s Camino has a life of its own and sometimes Phil has to catch up with it.

No matter how hard I try and be here at the Ranch on the Island my thoughts are drawn away.  There is a sucking vortex that is Phil’s Camino the Movie and it is not here, it is somewhere else.  My thoughts are either about planning to travel for an upcoming event in another place or about what can I do here to get things off my list so I will be ready to be somewhere else.   I need to get used to this new dynamic and get a grip on it’s ways.

And speaking of somewhere else, Annie has announced that we are in the Dubuque Festival.  Woo hoo!  Been pushing this because I wanted to make sure that we touched the Heartland.   I want the movie to be dusted with some good old Iowa corn pollen, I know it’s the wrong season, symbolically, symbolically.  Pigrim Farmer John we are coming baby!   That’s  April 21-24th, so put that on the calendar, just around the corner.

Right now the film is at the festival in Sarasota, Florida.  I wish I could make all the festivals but it is not possible.  Doing one a month seems like a reasonable goal for me, for my situation.  So stay tuned as we will announce news about the festivals as it comes up.

One of the things that I see myself becoming involved with is fund raising.  This is not my forte but hey, it needs happening.  And it needs happening right now.  Fortunately or unfortunately I am learning about this whole world of documentary film making as I go along.  And one thing that is apparent right now is that we need more funds to carry this process forward.  Yes, the movie itself is finished, physically finished, but that is not the end of the story.  Getting the movie out to the public is next, is now.  And that is this process of attending these festivals through the season.

Just getting accepted at these festivals is a major honor.  The news that South by Southwest in Austin accepted us, for example, didn’t mean much to me until I heard that we were one of 12 out of 800 short documentaries that they looked at.   That woke me up to the fact that we are blessed, how else can I put it.

Promoting is what the task is now, to get the film out.  It is worthless unless it gets out to the people that can use it.  And that is what these festivals are all about.  This is where folks that know about film and deal in film gather to network.  And we need to be at as many as possible to meet with these folks.  Annie is dedicated to making this happen as much as our treasury will allow.  That means she is going to many and that means that I need to go to as many as possible.

So, our pitch to you, to all possible donors, is do you want to become part of Phil’s Camino?  Do you want to help get this message of healing and hope out to those that need it?  This is how you can help by donating and of course by praying.  So, just warning you, I’ll be on all you’ll’s case!  Love,  Felipe.

We missed a few days of walking here because of the trip to Austin but we are back now. Yesterday, Sunday’s afternoon walk, we got into the town of Castrojeriz which is 40 km out of Burgos.  We are out on the Meseta now.

Here is our current schedule which I think will hold for the spring.  It will be interrupted once a month for my travels though.

Monday 0900-1000

Tuesday 1600-1700

Thursday 0900-1000

Sunday 1600-1700

The trail is drying up but still muddy in spots and you need your rubber boots.

Please come and keep me company, Felipe.

Monday morning, light rain and cloudy.  Crawling out from my funky chemo weekend.  These Monday’s are pretty good generally.  We have been calling my every other weekend, laden with fatigue from my chemo treatment, my Pyrenees weekend.  So you will know in the future.

Just got done reading “La Concha”, the official mag of APOC, American Pilgrims on the Camino.  This is our national organization in America.  I got around to joining recently although my walking partner Rick urged me after we got back in 2014.  And a nice magazine with poetry and stories and news and nice pics and a painting.

I don’t know if I mentioned it but one of the gatherings for our movie group in Austin was the first meeting of APOC in Austin.  At least twelve folks signed up to start the charter process.  It was nice to be involved like that.

Now that I am a member I can submit an article for La Concha about Phil’s Camino to tell folks to be on the lookout for the film coming to their locale.  And to give them an idea of our journey of the last two years.   If I am not mistaken I think that our film will be showing at the national gathering of APOC  this spring or summer in St Louis.

Ok, you are up to speed on that.  We will be walking in a few moments here.  Ah, that reminds me that I haven’t put out my weekly Sunday post on the progress our walk locally.   Will do.  Yes, always more to do, keep walking loves, Felipe.