Annie’s Blog post from Saturday has been on my mind quite a bit this week and judging from all of the comments, it appears it resonated with many of you too. For me she provided some context for a painful time I am going through right now. In early May my Auntie Char, the name I have called her my entire life, suffered a stroke. She is now 88 and also suffered a stroke about 10 years ago. We always knew another one could happen, but I was not prepared for when it happened or how it affected her as her first stroke was relatively mild. Thankfully, her current stroke didn’t really affect her physically, but it did affect her cognitively. Memory recall with names or people and places along with the inability to grasp certain concepts make it challenging for me to help her understand the sudden changes in her life and how the stroke has affected her. I share this because the conversation that Phil and Annie had and Annie shared here has helped me to take the next step in accepting this phase of my aunt’s life. Her life has reached a point like the older wooden fence, worn out, yet mended at least once and repaired many times. As Annie wrote, “There is an acceptance that time is marching on, that forces greater than ourselves are at work, and that we are merely doing our best even though we know that the sun and wind and weather – Mother Nature herself – will have the final word.” Mother nature and time have spoken, and I can continue to rail against it, or I can take the first few steps towards acceptance. 

Annie also spoke of “finding the beauty” and this also reminds me of my Auntie Char. As an artist, her entire life she not only looked for beauty, but she also found ways to add beauty into the lives of others. It could be as simple and bringing in a dried autumn leaf bursting with reds, oranges and yellows, or as complex as watercolor painting capturing the vast landscapes in the rolling green hills of Umbria, Italy, where she taught art for many years. 

When I returned from the Veranda at Raven Ranch back in August of 2018 it was then that I shared with her the short version of Phil’s Camino. She was not only inspired by Phil’s story and the journey he has been on, but she took this inspiration and created the picture above. In her piece she also wanted to include Sture, Phil’s dog, because in her mind he was still walking with Phil in spirit. Auntie Char not only found the beauty in Phil’s Camino, but she was also able to create something beautiful from her inspiration and share it with the rest of us.

Sadly, Mother Nature and time have also affected my aunt’s eyes and she now suffers from Macular Degeneration. Her sight is almost completely gone in her right eye and is fading fast in her left. I also struggle with this because it seems like a cruel twist of fate that as an artist she is losing one of her main ways of expression, her coping mechanism, and how she personally contributes joy and beauty into the world around her.

But now I find myself thinking about the weathered and worn fence. I realize that this may be the latest gusty wind or pounding hailstorm pressing up against my aunt and altering her life once again.  If I can learn to see the beauty in the worn and weathered fence, perhaps I can learn to see the beauty in this current phase of my Auntie Char’s life. Perhaps I can learn to cherish it as much as the wild adventures we shared climbing the ancient, cobblestone streets of Assisi, Italy or the many times we sat together on my patio in Ramona and quietly watched the setting sun as it sunk below the far off horizon.  

Worn Fences and Sunset loves,

Rho Densmore 

SWCBC

To all,

Sorry that I haven’t communicated in a while.  I have been confused.  And time has been short.   But I am OK.  Sort of running at half speed these days.  I’ve been walking one lap instead of three on the trail.  I am in no shape to get a blogpost together.  So the Bureau Chiefs have stepped forward to take over.

Oasis, August 20-23rd.

Miss you, love you,

Felipé.x

Posted by Cris on behalf of Felipé

Dear Caminoheads,

Today is going to be a short and sweet report with news from the ranch and The Boss.

The household is pretty busy at the moment with Phil’s daughter and her family visiting, and Phil’s life long friend Steve-O and Rasmus (the loyal furry four-legged friend) company.

Yesterday afternoon there was a walk at the usual time, so one more lap has been added to the log and rocks have been added to the rock pile.

And today, Phil and Steve-O have been doing some carpentry work at Jim&Jen’s home. I presume that Rasmus went along too, but I am not sure if he did any work. Had I have been him, I would have gone under a tree to hang out with Kodi, the dog of the house they were visiting!

Loving news Loves,

Cris

Dear Caminoheads,

Cris again reporting today on a foggy day from one of the sides of the Rio de la Plata. If I would have gone to my office, where I used to go to work before the pandemic hit, today I wouldn’t have been able to see Uruguay, which is our neighbor country on other side of the river… And I have been missing that view, which I haven’t been able to see since early March 2020, when we were all sent to work from home due to the pandemic.

If you do not know a lot about Uruguay, I would say that it is like Argentina but way more reasonable! Argentinian and Uruguayan people identify themselves as “rioplatenses”, which means we are all born in “the Rio de la Plata”. We speak the same Spanish, we drink mate, we are fond of the music and the dancing of the tango and the milonga, and we share so much that it is crazy that we are divided by the widest river in the world (it is 220 km, equal to 136,7 miles width).

Maybe this is the reason why both Argentinian and Uruguayan people are described as “friendly” and “easy going”, in part I believe, it is because for us, different is seen as a gift of our ancestors as the vast majority of us come from a “melting pot” of Aboriginal people from the different regions of the continent, European immigrants, Africans, and the locals. “Criollo” is a word that describes our true nature, and a “criollo” was the term to describe the mix of a <local> with someone who <wasn’t local>.

Anyway, I could go on and on and on trying to explain more about this, but instead, I would like to suggest to you to spend 15 minutes (yes, I know, it is a lot, but believe me: you will not regret it) and watch to this TED-talk. The one talking is Jorge Drexler, who is a very famous and talented musician (and happens to be also a medical doctor -ENT specialist-) from Uruguay.

*****There are subtitles in English available, just click the “Wheel” icon and select “English subtitles”***** 

Loves from the Rio de la Plata,

Cris

Dear Caminoheads,

Cris reporting today once more. I hope all of you had a nice 4th of July celebration, and today are enjoying a day off work, or off week-days routine, or maybe the leftovers of the barbecue and cake. Or all together.

For me, the important day for the last 12 years has been the day after the 4th of July, which obviously is the 5th!! because it is my youngest nephew’s birthday. This little that is no longer that little, is 12 years old today, and he is as loving and affectionate as hilarious. As I told on Friday, this is the first birthday we aren’t together and the first birthday party I do not organize for him as since April they are living abroad, but thankfully there is Uber eats and PayPal that have allowed me to deliver cookies and pastries and sweets this morning for his birthday breakfast, and thankfully we have FaceTime that allowed me to call him and have a funny chat. Mission accomplished: Happy nephew and happy aunt!!!

So, today, that is all that matters to me. To know that I am still able to be with those I love even when they are not with me. I have quite a bit of training in this matter, and while it hurts, with time I have come to see that it is the price that comes with love. And it is totally worthy to afford it.

Love is all you need, Loves,

Cris

Dear Caminoheads,

Cris reporting again today from the southern latitudes wishing all my American fellow pilgrims and non-pilgrims, known and unknown, a Happy Independence Day.

As weird as it may sound, when I was in what in Argentina is called “escuela secundaria” -Secondary school-, that you attend for a 5 years period, from 13 to 17 years of age, we had to study “World Wide History” (I don’t know if that continues, as this was by now, more than 30 years ago! Sigh!) When as a teenager I wondered why do I needed to know what the 4th of July meant for the United States, or the 14th of July for the French, or what the Apartheid was, but now as an adult, I cannot be more grateful for that education that sounded so useless at the time. 30 years ago, the word “Globalization” wasn’t really in the vocabulary of a 15 years old, and even less the experiences that were awaiting for me in this life, like this one I have today, writing the 4th of July blogpost on behalf of The Boss (aka Phil), who we know is such a brave American.

I have been thinking what to write to honor this moment, and I thought on this piece of the speech that Robert Kennedy gave in South Africa in 1966, that became part of the collection of words that inspire me since I was first offered them in my “World Wide History” class at school 31 years ago. Back then, I didn’t know about the Camino de Santiago; and I could have never imagined that the person who would helped me the most to re-gain my trust in myself and in humankind would be a pilgrim from Cape Town, South Africa, who I met in my first Camino in 2011.

Some believe there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world’s ills. Yet many of the world’s great movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single man. A young monk began the Protestant reformation, a young general extended an empire from Macedonia to the borders of the earth, and a young woman reclaimed the territory of France. It was a young Italian explorer who discovered the New World, and the thirty-two-year-old Thomas Jefferson who proclaimed that all men are created equal.

These men moved the world, and so can we all. Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

Sending forth a tiny ripple of hope (and love),

Cris

I have been the whole week living in the wrong day of the week. On Tuesday, I woke up thinking it was Saturday, on Wednesday, I woke up thinking it was Monday, and yesterday, I woke up thinking it was Saturday and I almost did not turn on my work computer in disbelief!

Some weeks or days are just like that…

And I think it was because so much was packed in one single week that seems impossible that only 5 or 6 days have passed. Let me tell you: Saturday 26Jun, was the birthday of my oldest nephew; he is 14 years old now and it is the first birthday he has in his new country. Sunday 27Jun, a neighbor from Caminoheads became a grandfather for the first time which obviously is pretty amazing… to me almost comparable to the day when my oldest nephew came to this world…. Thursday 01Jul, it was the 41st anniversary of my mother’s passing to cancer… at the same time, this baby just born will make a week on earth this Sunday and then this Monday is the 12th birthday of my youngest nephew, also in his new country where they have been already for almost 3 months… which means too, a season has passed… they left in the fall, and now it is winter time here.

And I was thinking what time represents… and I guess it is because I continue to think on how our “bumping into others” shapes our lives… Let me explain this thought a bit more: I am 46 years old and by now, I have been an aunt for 14 years, which represents almost 1/3 of my life; so for the last third of my life, my own life has been shared first with one human who is related to me, and then, 1/4 of my life with two. And as you can imagine, it is hilarious what can come from sharing your life with two nice little/now not-so-little boy humans, and at the same time, it has been inevitable to feel the weight of not having my mother for the 90% of my life… I guess, we realize the weight people and events have in our lives as time passes, which is the equivalent as the time we have spent “bumping into” or “rubbing against” these. The good news is that while we keep bumping into, our lives continue to be shaped and that is the important thing. It is a challenging and poignant pilgrimage.

These days, actually for the last 0,55% of my life, I have been shaped by “rubbing against” the fact that I am the long-distance & cyber aunt of two teenager boys, and on top of that, I must do my best to be cool! What I can tell is that it not easy!!! For example, I texted them with the emergency phone number to call if there is an alligator in their backyard, and they replied with the “facepalming emoji” and no words.

Doing my best to be cool (and know the day in which I live) Loves,

Cris

I thought to take advantage of the cold weather here (right now is 41F) and write on behalf of The Boss who is under the heat wave as if he would be in the tropics. And I will write more about rocks and polishing rocks, and shaping our lives… It seems to me that we have been talking a lot about these topics in the last several days in a way or another. As I read the posts of these last days, an image a man called Ed wrote about the Camino de Santiago came to mind; this is it:

“…you put rocks of different shapes, sizes, colors, textures, some rough, some smoother into a barrel tumbler, turn it on so that the rocks all bump into and rub up against one another and after the process is complete and you take the rocks out each has been transformed into a new, smooth but different and unique thing of beauty.”

For Ed, “the tumble of Camino life” brought him — and all of the pilgrims — up against “joy, suffering, beauty, anger, frustration, depression, peace, chaos, pain, your past, your present, the unknowns of your future, your inevitable death. You just never knew.”

When I read this several years ago, I thought how true and accurate that image was: the Camino shaped us, but what shaped us was not only the walking, but also the time we walked with others “against who we rub up” and the time we walked alone or in silence, but the idea that we were in a pilgrimage with others also was present for us “to rub up against”. The whole experience shaped us, polished our rough edges, rekindled our colors and transformed us in something more beautiful for sure, although we don’t know exactly what and how that means, but what we do know is that once a pilgrim, you are forever a pilgrim, and that means too that the experience of the “barrel tumbler” continues. Ed wrote too:

“What the pilgrimage will be in the end, what it will hold, and what it will reveal to us,” they concluded, “remains a mystery as does so much in life.”

Sharon Salzberg, the very famous meditation teacher wrote:

“In a way, every day feels like a journey into the unknown, with the attendant possibilities of danger, defeat, and lost moorings. I try to remind myself, every day, that I can reframe this time as a time of pilgrimage, with attendant possibilities of profound companionship, unexpected strengths, and transformation.”

And I was thinking of the unknown music that Al, Phil, Wiley and Rebecca listened when looking at those rocks, and I thought also of the work that Al and Wiley will do into the “unknown-ness” of them, and I couldn’t help but thinking what those rocks “will reveal to us”. What I am sure is that this time continues to be “a time of pilgrimage, with attendant possibilities of profound companionship, unexpected strengths, and transformation.”

Rub Loves,

Cris

Cris reporting from Buenos Aires, Argentina. And I cannot be more excited to share that if the right people would read this blog, the Caminoheads would be candidates to the Peace Nobel Prize. Yes. Just as you read.

Yesterday, I was listening to a mind-blowing talk with Dr. Gabor Mate, Dr. Dan Siegel, Sará King and Angel Cordero; it was part of a documentary called “The wisdom of trauma” and they were talking about intergenerational trauma, epigenetics, social justice  and racism. ~~These terms might sound complicated, but they are not, bear with me!~~

The conversation was full of science behind the reasons why our minds and bodies identify the other as someone different from “me”. All these ideas that are so imprinted in our beings that have the capacity to pass by in our genes from generation to generation (this is what “epigenetics” is, and let me make a side note here with a brilliant explanation by Dr. Dan Siegel: genetics, our DNA, is like the books in the shelves in the library; epigenetics is what allows the book to open). With this, what he meant to say is that we have the capacity to modify the “epigenetics”, we cannot modify the book, that comes with us, but we can modify what we express. And here is what would jump us to the Nobel Prize: WE, the Caminoheads and pilgrims, HAVE PROOF OF WHAT CHANGES THE EPIGENETICS!!!!

~~Bear with me a bit more, please; I swear I am not crazy!~~

Yesterday, these 4 experts concluded that this imprinted belief that the other is different from us is at times so intense that we can only see what is different as a “threat”; so “the cure” for this is to imprint instead the belief that we are “similar” not “different”, because when we are “equals”, we “belong”. This doesn’t mean to ignore our genetics, what is in our DNA cannot change, we cannot expect all of us being purple skin or have blue hair to “belong to the same group”, we need to find our sense of belonging in things led by epigenetics. And we pilgrims and Caminoheads are the guinea pigs that confirms this is true.

In the Camino and the Caminoheads neighborhood, we became experts in “togethernessing” (Dan Siegel calls it “MWE” and the Zulus “Ubuntú”). We figured out that we are all equals, we find joy and safety in becoming closer to the other , we welcome the other (won’t you be my neighbor?), we hug each other, we BELONG. We understood that the real healing happens in community and we healed and continue to heal together.  

I wish I could take all of us to the laboratory and study our telomeres, I am sure they are all super long (which would be scientific proof)… That is the only piece needed for us to win the Peace Nobel Prize. Meanwhile, let’s take pride on the fact that these are the believes that we are passing to the next generations, and to those that we cross our paths by. It is even more important to change the world than to have a trophy in the shelf, don’t you think?  

This is what we have figured out Loves,

Cris

Today I want to celebrate denial. Denial is a word that has such a bad reputation in our therapied, self-aware world. But like any “bad” thing it also has its gifts.

As some of you know, I have a life limiting cancer. I know I am currently as well as I will ever be, but I don’t know how long I’ve got feeling well or indeed how long I have at all. I share this because what I am not denying that the big C pilgrimage is a tough one and has impacted my life in many, many ways.

At the same time, today I am well. I have wonderful friends who met me for pizza last night. I slept really well. I’m only in a bit of occasional pain and because I am not in treatment, I am not suffering from side effects. Its sunny today and my garden is full of flowers and birds. I had my vaccine shots about two months ago and feel reasonably OK going out now. I am praying that things are good enough Covid wise that I can go to Spain to walk on my beloved Frances in September. But as they say, God knows.

So why denial? Well, I accept I am ill, btu I deny that illness the right to shape the whole of my reality. If I brood on it, the Cancer gets so damn big there is no room for anything else. If I focus on all the wonder of later spring and the opening up of the world, that is what fills me. I want my life to be shaped by love not by cancer.

Most days I am in denial. And that is good.

Karen (Our Caminoheads Bureau Chief from England)