Yea, maybe every day needs a color designation. Well personally I didn’t go shopping yesterday. OK, I ducked into the supermarket briefly to grab a half a basket of items. But gosh, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry about the Black Friday activities.
I hope to take this day at an easy pace after my time in the city this last week. I am off to LA in the middle of the coming week to do some work there, patients and doctors to meet. That is all very exciting and intriguing but still in it’s formative stage and I will tell you more as things gel.
This evening Catherine and Dana are coming over to “gobble” up Thanksgiving leftovers. I am making mashed potatoes and gravy which somehow I missed on Thursday. Norte Dame Football is on tonight and Catherine is a big fan so that is the centeral focus.
Burnt Sienna in my mind is a good color for a horse or a saddle. Seems like the perfect color for the day ahead. Thanks for stopping by. Here we go loves, Felipé.
Somehow it is not Kansas anymore. All that in our rear view mirror now. But where are we? What are we doing here? Can we be comfortable here in this new land? Comfortable is not the right word but what is the right word? Can we flourish here once we figure it out like our ancestors who came to the geographic America threadbare and hungry with nothing but a desperation/hope double combo full meal deal within them.
We though have fallen through a looking glass. That is it, isn’t it? We were equally threadbare, hungry, desperate/ hopeful. We have discovered Heartship so far though. Our Caminoheads are changing to Caminohearts before our eyes. We are in the process of internalizing the situation, the Camino experience. Someone wrote on FaceBook in the last few days that after the Camino things were never the same. Yes, something massively significant occurred AND continues to unfold for us.
There is something that has overtaken us. Something strong but stealthy like fog and subtle like a mist. We can’t quite put our finger on it but it seems to have stalked us. We the hunted. And maybe there is a time of trying to figure it out being over soon and we can surrender to a time of enjoying it. Maybe it has been all figured out for us all along and now we are just catching on to that fact here in the Land of No Coincidences.
Right now I am so happy with the blessings that this holiday of Thanksgiving has brought to us. It all seemed more poignant this year. A drop of gratitude in the mix of our lives can go a long way to healing our many rifts.
That was kind of a crowded title but I sense it is going to be a crowded day for many of us. Hopefully we can keep the stress to a minimum for one. Most of the early stress I see is in young hostesses trying to get through their first turkey roasting, a right of passage for sure.
At the hospital that was the topic of the day, who is cooking what for whom amongst the nurses. And a lot of the younger nurses will be tasked with being on duty today so they may get the meal in take out form this year. And a third of the nurses are from foreign lands and are paddling hard to get up to speed with this Norman Rockwell of a holiday.
We are off to a potluck meal at a rented hall with old friends here locally, no big travel. My Rebecca is bringing her signature cornbread dressing to share. We have been processing our dried corn into cornmeal for this. And we have lots more meal that will be vacuum packed and stored in the freezer for later. It is part of the largesse that we are thankful for today.
Michelle our neighbor and one high level plant whisperer posted this comment yesterday and I wanted to make sure that you had a chance to see it:
“Hi Phil,
This remarkable fall here in the NW has opened up possibilities for outdoor work that are rare, and I have been working these days, with gratitude for the beauty, for my current health, and the gift of this farm that I am stewarding more than in some years which have had more trouble. Someone asked me why I was doing all this, and I said, to get ready for what is next. She was surprised by this for some reason. But Camino people will get it… This day I can go further because I can, because being ready for help or hurt is to still be walking in grace. Happy Thanksgiving, thankful for you and yours…“
Farmer John, my brother from another mother, will appreciate what I am going to say next. But trying to get my brain around my crowded life and all the wonderful things that have come my way over the last decade in the guise of serious illness, it’s genesis. But if I could pick one thing that points to our gift of largesse it would be for me the phenomenon of corn.
I am going to make up a little demo for our guests at the meal today. I could shuck two ears of our dried corn and put that in a ziplock bag for them to handle and view to see what one seed will produce. This will be an excellent show and tell. Yes. And an excellent prayer.
And remember to bring calm and peace to the meeting today. People will be there with new hurts and old hurts and new hearts and old hearts. Quite a minefield to navigate through but that is our job.
Our East Coast Bureau Chief Ronaldo put this up on FaceBook this morning and just in the nick of time.
It is my understanding that myth is a very useful thing. As in the bible story that the above graphic is referring to, Zacharias being a short guy sought a tree to chimb to catch a glimpse of Jesus. Well, that’s my short version. Anyway isn’t myth like that in a sense that we can employ it to get where we need to go.
In 2013 and 14 while I was walking my homemade camino it was very helpful to use the myth that I was walking across Spain to focus my energy and make the journey “fun”. It placed it above mere exercise. Not that there is anything wrong with exercise but sometimes at least for me, it needs help.
Lately on the blog I have been writing of using the “America Guerrilla” myth to learn how to operate in my life with cancer. That particular link up was not conscious but nevertheless worked. I can’t explain the how of that.
I see it as a template that we can use to organize our effort. There is always only so much energy for any particular effort and this is economical. Well,that is the first thing that comes to my mind. It must have other benefits also.
OK, my battery is getting low. Time to attend to finishing up my chemo treatment for today. Will write to you on Turkey Day.
I did some serious reporting yesterday. Sorry if it seemed intolerably subjective but I was trying to explain it to myself. The blog is a way for me to do that. It is a tool for me to unlock things. Thank you for bearing with me.
It is quiet today here at the ranch. I am savoring that for tomorrow my Camino takes me back to the city and the hospital. It is such a bother but needed. Today is the last day of dry weather so I will scurry around doing more buttoning up before winter.
My Rebecca is going to bake corn bread today with the new cornmeal that just came out. Two big batches will go into the making of cornbread stuffing for turkey day. She makes that in big flat pans so the bread gets crunchy around the edges, oh boy! I am a convert to this having grown up north of the Mason-Dixon Line but I’m a believer now!
There is more to say about the topic that we had been working on, the Cave Rescue, and maybe I will get back to it tomorrow. Don’t want to start now with this post so filled. I will have time at the treatment center.
So are you working on your thanksgivings for Thursday? Our whole largesse is one big blessing of course but we need to be more specific. This is important because children will be listening to our expression. You will be in your own Norman Rockwell painting, don’t you know, so don’t blow it.
All good, alperfect on the Camino. We travel on wishing each other the best. The morning sun warms our backs and our shadows stretch out before us. Wait, I think I smell coffee.
I so much appreciate clarity, a gift that comes with age I think. It so much simplifies life to see clearly. It is a blessing. But still everything is not clear just certain corners of one’s life. So the process goes on to mine for the ore that understanding comes from.
A few great things popped out at me during our digression into the Thai Cave Rescue that really captured me. This is combination with the thoughts of Cris and Ronaldo from their comments. Let me write of one of these items so I can do a good job on it and leave the rest for another day.
Those of you who have been here for a while know that I have read a certain book maybe twenty times. I am not exaggerating, ask My Rebecca. And I have asked the question, have people read a book over and some say yes and some say never. And of the folks that have read one over it may be that it was once or a few times. So, I had to say to myself what is with your relationship with this book of yours Felipé?
The book is rather obscure, at least now in these times. It is about an American Naval Officer who stays behind in the Philippine Islands after the invasion by The Japanese Imperial forces in World War Two. He is a man that is active in his approach to the situation. He operates in a world of little law and order and tries to bring it. He operates in a world with little resources and he improvises. He lives in a world of peril and keeps one step ahead of it. His most important feat was that he communicated with General MacArthur everyday bringing news of the situation and helping to pave the way for the future Liberation.
Here is this man with such clarity to pull this off and such faith to think that it was possible at all. It is all about a certain interior state that is the foundation for a way of navigating in a world being out of one’s comfort zone for the duration of events. I studied this for years not knowing that I would be that guy to in this land of stage four cancer. I am “stuck” in this situation. Or I am being allowed to explore the space of this diagnosis. Here I am reporting out to you every day. This book is such a model for what I am now doing. It is truly mind boggling to me at the moment.
The book by the way is American Gorrilla in the Philippines. I am so thankful for it being written and me finding it in the secondhand book store once upon a time. No coincidences, right?
Our new sign along the driveway to Raven Ranch. Thank you Tom!
Tom Wynne is the Director of Signage for Phil’s Camino. He created all the great signs that are here at the trail plus t-shirts and buttons. We have a great new Phil’s Camino sign for our driveway which will show newcomers the way. And a new t-shirt design has arrived, Camino related of course.
Tom the font of good craftsmanship and creativity keeps on giving. And he’s is saying that he and his wife June will try and show up this coming summer here at the ranch to be with us. Man, so cool. We have never met in spite of all the good work that Tom has been doing over the years.
It is so bright and wonderful out, I can hardly sit here inside. Let me go and hang the new sign and take a pic for you and for Tom. That is a plan!
So work on your thanksgivings, don’t wait for your day of. I am thankful for you all for one thing. Warm and dry loves, Felipé.
I just randomly ran into the second half of this PBS documentary film again yesterday. My Rebecca watched it with me and we both wept our way through it. And then Cris came up with this link:
Also, I am copying and pasting Cris’s other comment here below because I thought that it was so right on, a touchdown! Without getting into it today her thoughts did solve something for me personally. I am just rolling that around in my mind and enjoying it. A moment of clarity. Thanks Cris.
“Now, Dear Felipe,
I loved this question Dana and you discussed while walking, and yours and Ronaldo’s thoughts.
I had this thought a couple times: do we perform better when we are in these “brought-to-our-knees” situations or is it that those situations aren’t resolve by our usual skills and we need to appeal to the forgotten tool-box we count with but almost never go to? We are the same self, right? Definitely, in those situations, one of the options is to sit and cry, and the other is to go on living with dignity. How we do the second is the question… and once thing I read from Richard Rohr was that unless we are brought to these situations of powerlessness -which is never chosen voluntarily, always rather pushed on us-, we would never accept that we cannot continue performing in the same way we were doing before, and expect a resolution. This is why when we are brought to our knees, it is merely accepting we cannot do it, -for some of us, it means we cannot do it by ourselves, and there is where faith comes to play a role; but it also means to reach out to others, as we did in the Camino.
As Ronaldo said, and I experienced myself, in the Camino it doesn’t matter “what” you are at home or the size of your bank account or your house, you still have to walk the same amount of km as everybody else, and that for me is the powerful thing, there is a very simple experience where life is fair to all of us, and whatever we are going through in our own body, soul, mind, heart, -you name it-, affects us equally, and the way to a resolution is a walking path, that we have to walk, cannot be skipped, and will bring blisters and tiredness to our selves, no matter the image we -or others- have of us “at home” (aka “our comfort zones”).
Just my usual non-succinct 2 cents love,
Cris”
The sun is shining here and I must get out in it. Love our salon, may it be long lived. Sunshine loves, Felipé.
Unfortunately I can’t remember the exact name of the Thai cave rescue program. Would love to pass that on to you. And I would love to watch it again but need the title to find it. Can someone help me with that?
As we walked yesterday Dana and I were asking the question, why do we need a crisis to perform at our best? What is that temporary state that happens to us only once in a while? Can we tap into that and be there more often?
I don’t know, big questions that probably need big answers. Ronaldo in a comment yesterday related it to our experience on the Camino. Somehow we had that purity to outperform our “usual” selves. We surprised ourselves and each other by that.
Could it have to do with decluttering? Both situations have a “deck clearing” aspect. We don’t have the burden of all the trivia that normally inhabits our lives. There is one thing that may be bigger than we think.
Then there has to be a need and not only a need but one that has to be addressed immediately or quickly. We were pretty needy the whole time on the Camino from what I remember. We had to help each other when our self-help ran out which it seemed to do daily. Desperation is present.
Being in this groove with others offers a high, a high state, where we seem to feed on each other’s energy. There is that! It is rare but we know it when we see it and jump on it if we can. Am I right?
Just a few thoughts to pass the time. A gray morning here with a little wind out of the north and the leaves are falling one by one. Thanks for stopping by loves, Felipé.
Look at that! My winter garden spinach coming up so proud and robust.
Good morning! I just happened randomly to watch a Public Broadcasting program last evening about the big cave rescue in Thailand. Remember that? It wasn’t too long ago.
There were 12 boys who went exploring a cave with their soccer coach. Unfortunately the first monsoon rains blocked their exit as the cave started to flood. It was an amazing joint effort of different experts and rescuers that was put together in a rapid manner.
I am always drawn to these dramas where people get together and perform at their very best to pull off a rescue or solve a problem. The Chilean mine rescue back maybe five years ago was exactly the same. Remember that one? There was one funny incident from that one that just popped into my head. One of the miners as he hit the surface was welcomed simultaneously by his wife and his mistress! Oops, slight problem.
Well, have a walk in a moment. Takes fo stopping by. Love you immensely, Felipe.
