Oh, how I remember my reentry from the Camino in 2014, years ago now but vivid like yesterday. And now I have reentry from reading a pilgrimage book. I guess I was really there “walking”.

Catalina my friend and art historian read all the way through my years of blog posts reported reentry symptoms on finishing. Same sort of deal where a description of an activity has the power to carry the reader away to that somewhere else place. I knew very little about this thousand mile trail from Canterbury to Rome beforehand and now I practically have the blisters.

In the acknowledgements of A Pilgrimage to Eternity the author gave kudos to two folks that helped out on the editing process that I know from St. John Vianney’s. I was so amazed by that striking so close to home. My friends John and Karen fired back an email answering mine that they had a modest role, well of course.

John in his email wrote, ”We thought he did a fine job of blending together a pilgrimage, a personal story and a faith odyssey.” He did indeed, that you could say with assurance. I for one was totally mesmerized by the whole deal.

If I could springboard on that, for my blog post’s benefit I would say that closely resembles my personal experience with my Camino. Things internal and external, old and new, earthly and heavenly seem to intertwine so tightly that they became my new self. Does that make some sense? Things intertwine on pilgrimage, that’s what they do. It all becomes very personal in the end. Just a thought from Felipé.

OK, thinking of you. Cris says that we are halfway to August and the 2020 Veranda gathering. I will trust her calculations.

Springboard loves, Felipé.

Sometimes when all else fails one has to rely on stream of consciousness for help. It just gave me that title, not too bad really. I’m staring at the February overcast sky trying to find some feature or break but it is endlessly homogeneous like a milkshake or a washcloth as Tom Robbins put it. And just then a fast moving flock of unnamed birds flew through my gaze giving me a hint that maybe I should search elsewhere.

I have two more chapters of Tim Egan’s book left unread and I am trying to savor that. And in the meantime everyone and their brother has read this book. Everyone that is in my neighborhood anyway. We are even calling him Tim now all of a sudden. How cool are we, like he is the guy next door? Anyway, pilgrimage seems to be a juicy topic but we already know that.

Henriette is coming today speaking of authors, to interview me and walk and have tapas. I told you already but I have some part in her new book about Cancer and the Camino just to review. That is not the title but just what I call it, a working title it is. There, look at those two topics joined together, one juicy and one powerful and desperately in need of help. It’s the clash of the titans. This so needs to happen and work itself out. Thank you Henriette for taking this on.

And as I wait for her to drive in the yard I will try and put the finishing touches on my business books for ‘19 and try to get on top of my taxes. I am doing pretty good with this and am trying to keep on time. But that is a whole story that is boring and totally unnecessary here at the moment. But wish me luck anyway.

Well, time to go and try and make sense of things, the eternal quest.

eternal quest loves, Felipé.

“fran-chee-jen-na” is the pronunciation of Francigena, or the Via Francigena, the roughly thousand mile trail from Canterbury, England to Rome, Italy. That is on page four of Timothy Eagan’s book A Pilgrimage To Eternity. I am just about done, a handful of chapters to go. It is that bitter sweet time as on the Camino when the end is near and you really don’t want anything to ever change in your life again.

Not that it is an easy book to read, like a pilgrimage there is roughness to traverse along with the creamy dreamy stuff. Him being a lapsed Catholic and writing this book about looking for faith on this once famous Way is helpful. He is just the right amount a skeptic. History looms up and the Good, the Bad and the Ugly are hashed out leaving just enough room in the end for, “well maybe”.

I guess there were years in this trail’s long existence where millions of pilgrims walked. And there are the ever present Camino buddies Charlemagne and Napoleon for good measure. One of the most famous walkers was Siguric the Serious who walked both ways in 990. OK, I had never heard of him either. But he kept a detailed journal on his return trip which is the main document used today to reestablish parts of the trail that have since been civilized over.

Anyway fascinating read on a number of levels. Highly recommended by Felipé for one. This may even be my book of the year for 2020 but I hope not as we are just started on that pilgrimage.

loves, Felipé the Serious.

Wow, a reprieve here from the recent rains. And then there is the memory of the snow storm that trampled us last year at this time. We are still cleaning up from that one. We feel lucky for this break in conditions.

Not everything is rosy for Felipé though. I slipped on our wet deck yesterday and landed awkwardly on my right shoulder and hip. And today I am feeling it. I am trying to take it easy, just doing the necessaries. But I will try and walk this afternoon.

Father David was back at Mass this morning. He looked good like folks do after a break. The Bible readings today included one from Matthew were Jesus told his disciples that they were the light of the world. I like the way that reads and sets with me. I can grab onto the shirttails of that and say that I/we are the light of the world also. I think that is accurate as we can definitely mirror that light in our own little corners of the world.

Well, I am not writing a bunch today, feeling groggy. Tomorrow is another day.

taking it slow loves, Felipé.

Blustery weather overnight with branches and a few trees down. This week looks to be a little cooler and drier according to the forecast. But we will be walking as always. Rubber boots are needed as there are areas of standing water.

Here is our winter schedule in place til Thursday March 5th. Sunday March 8th we start summer schedule with afternoon walks starting at 1600. So for now:

Monday 0900-1000
Tuesday 1530-1630
Thursday 0900-1000
Sunday 1530-1630

That’s it! Felipé.

Guess I struck a chord with yesterday’s post. It felt good to review, to get back to the basics of how we got here in the first place. And how we figure on continuing. Below are two comments, one from Henriette, who has been here for a while and the next from Curt who is relatively new to the scene.

“So well put, my friend, and so true, so true. I love that you “leave space in your schedule for others,” with a welcome for all. That is the way of the Camino, too. Leave room for the unexpected, and embrace it when it comes, even if it is not what you planned for that day. Be open to new possibilities, without an agenda. Miracles happen. You’ve got to be there to see them. That’s what we bring back from the Camino into our everyday life.
Living gracefully love,
Henriette Anne”

“Hi Felipe,
What you wrote reminds me of the story that Tim Kreider, an author, tells about getting randomly stabbed in the back and in the throat. He almost died from the wounds. For the following year, the things that used to rattle him like work, traffic, challenging relationships, computer issues, etc. were not the big deals that they were in the past. After all, he was living in “bonus time.” He had survived a random attack, a near death experience. He was alive! He had perspective.

A year later though, he writes that the same everyday anxieties and frustrations he experienced began creeping back. He had re-entered the “busywork of living, the slog of everyday life.”

God give us grace to stay the course in our own personal Caminos, to not lose sight of a new and better way to see things as you say.

Thank you, Felipe, for writing.” Curt

And thank you to those two folks who took the time to comment on yesterday’s Felipé thoughts. Curt brought up the idea that we can slip back given half a chance. This ability we know all to well. The idea of keeping the flame going for ourselves and others is an important consideration, a vital consideration. This isn’t a hobby or entertainment, it is something much more. We will continue the talk in up coming days.

Catherine is coming in a few minutes. We are off to get some firewood from the stash at church. Late winter moves being made here. Our own and nature’s pantry starts to look bare in February and March.

miss you loves, Felipé.

The important thing to remember when reading this blog is that it basically has to do with the Camino. And a saying that goes with the Camino is, “When you get to Santiago your Camino begins.” Yes. And so this is where I still am today years later, walking my personal Camino and that is really what this blog is about.

I met someone new yesterday who was very interested in finding us here and checking it out. So, this is mostly for her or for others new on the scene. I know getting up to speed on a blog might be daunting, reading for weeks to get a glimpse of the flow, of the theme. So, there is a big hint.

And the saying largely fueled the early days and years of my writing here. What exactly does this mean I explored. And here today years later I am still on this trail because we did find the answer to it. It is exactly what it says. The Trail in Spain and all the glorious details of it, the revelations on it, the pain and the healing of it was a training ground to prepare me/us to come back to our lives and
have a new and better way to see things. A new way to be has been learned and internalized.

And we have good days and bad and good years and bad but we continue. We continue creatively and joyfully in the rain and the sun both. We welcome others. We begin to leave space for others in our schedule in our view. We appreciate things and people and efforts made. Taking things for granted is gone now.

The ability to walk or to “walk” is a joy. No need to stress over getting to a goal. Living gracefully turns into the goal of goals.

So, we have maybe greatly expanded the definition of the Camino or more correctly we have found the Camino to be a very expansive concept. It is the Way as has been said. None of this is new really just new to each of us as we discover it and see it.

So, yea, as Kelly would say to me, “Let’s review…” That is what we are doing today.

let’s review loves, Felipé.

I’m making bean soup today, one of my favorite wintertime hobbies. Been enamored with the supermarket bags of dried beans containing fifteen varieties, so colorful. And I found a piece of salt pork adrift in the freezer so a perfect match I would say, just add some onion and garlic, salt and pepper.

And the woodsmoke continues to flavor everything here in the wintertime. We are going through some wood these days. Luckily I got the OK to obtain some extra to see us through to spring from the church supply. Bless my friends that cut, split and dry it for folks in need. This late winter it appears we need.

All in all we are sneaking through this particular winter with no appreciable snow. Well, there is some in the forecast for later next week but things could change. Just don’t miss the stuff. Can totally live without it.

Well, the bad weather does lend itself to getting all sorts of indoor stuff done, paperwork and taxes and such. Also I am studying to give the lesson on chapter six of Revelation to my Bible Guys this Saturday. Can’t just do this last minute, it will take some thought and reflection to get though this material from this book of apocalyptic writing gracefully. But we like a challenge, right?

OK, good to see you again. Hang in there if you have hard stuff. See you again tomorrow.

onion and garlic loves, Felipé.

(Today I just received a comment on a post Mostly About Jesus from 2016 and I have to get this all to you because it is so great. I don’t know about the details about how this all came together but it did and maybe we will find out one of these days. Anyway here is the original post and the comment. Felipé)

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, Felipé.

”Actually, I created the stencils for the original letters painted high up on the old barn on the Sherman Place in about 1970-71. It seemed a bit weird to me to put that up there, but my hippie husband talked me into it.
My first two children were born in that fine old house, and I also saw many farm animals through their births there. It was good farmland. I raised veggies, miked a couple goats and cows, and had a flock of laying hens. Our little hippie family of 5 moved out in about 1978, to another wonderful family farm east of the North Cascades. Still, Vashon was where I began learning how to live in harmony with the land, and live a lifestyle respectful to this Planet, and so, is a place of significance to me.” Karen C

OK, here it is the third of the month and the big game has been decided and onward we go into the glories of Spring. That’s what I’m fantasizing about. One thing that is evident now is the change in the length of the day since the solstice, unmistakable. So, everything else should follow according to my calculations.

Well, I started a new book which our dear Catherine placed in my hands recently. A book by the way that about eight hundred people said it’s a must read. And I am on a record breaking streak right now with four books finished since Christmas. That is a lot of reading for me. But anyway, A Pilgrimage to Eternity by Timothy Egan is the one. He writes for the New York Times and is a Seattle resident I think.

Wow, another book and a half! It is a journal of his thoughts as he walks the medieval route from Canterbury England to Rome along the Via Francigena. Sigeric the Serious, Archbishop of Canterbury hiked this both ways in 990. His detailed records are now being used to revive and reconstruct the trail for us moderns. And Eagan’s book is a sort of spiritual travelogue of a lapsed Catholic on the early on stages of this reconstruction.

I know from reading and actual pilgrims on this route that the Italian end of the route is way more organized with accommodations and signage as will be needed. Lucia from Sicily who I walked with in Spain has done various parts of it with various groups in Italy since. And as I understand it the improvements are starting at the end and slowly working their way northward toward the beginning.

Oh, have to go walk myself, Phil’s Camino you know.

what fun loves, Felipé.