Dear Caminoheads,

I am so sorry for the fact that I couldn’t keep running this blog daily; I know that Phil wanted me to find “my own way”, but it was indeed my wish to keep it daily. However, life happens to be busy which is fine, life happens to be busy for most of us if not all no matter what, but when on top of busy, you don’t feel well, everything is uphill. Not the Pyrenees, but sort of like O Cebreiro… remember that?

I shared with you about my 1200 km trip to visit my aunt. The driving was quite something, but the emotional load was something that is difficult to measure in km or hours driving, but nonetheless, extremely high. When I returned, I got the flu (or was it the emotional load?) that really took me down… I had to take days off at work (and oddity on my end). And when I felt I was almost recovered, I had my appointment for the booster shot, and I suffered one of the very odd side effects, that needed some attention and rest.

Side Note: YET, to be fully clear, even an odd side effect is a very cheap price to pay considering the distress, sadness, loss, isolation, and I could go on and on and on, that this pandemic has brought. PLEASE GET THE VACCINE. 

And I also had the main launch meeting for my projects in Asia/Pac countries, which meant staying late 2 nights, after having worked during the day. And these weeks have been pretty full of end of the year assessments of work colleagues, budgets preparation, end of the year on-line meeting… oh, we also had a big BIG change at work, as we became part of a larger group… and there was another huge HUGE topic going on, as the cherry of the pie.

This is all to say that when I was lucky enough to end my day, my smartwatch was screaming to me to be wise as my body battery could only cope with dressing my pajamas and slipping in the bed (and brushing my teeth, but only because I have an electric brush and didn’t need to move my arm!!!)

This morning started with a class I had participate in, a commitment done months ago, and while I thought to sleep in when the alarm went off, I am super glad I didn’t because it was truly worth it. And to continue the day, I got a call from a dear friend, she used to be my secretary when I was still practicing, sharing with me about her appointment to get the vaccine and some difficulties going on, so I exchange the nap for the round trip to get her from her home, the vaccine, and ice-cream, and get her back to her home. This was truly worth it too: she is safer now with the booster shot, I got to spend time and a great chat with her, and I cannot forget the ice-cream!!!

Right now, after writing this post, I am pretty much ready for bed… but believe me, writing this post has also been truly worth it!

Busy times – Not busy loves,

Cris

Well, here is my life. Ready to be used. Life that neither guards nor shies away, scared. Life always at the service of life. To serve both what is worth and the price of love.

 Even though the gesture hurts me, I don’t shrink my hand: I move forward carrying a branch of the Sun, even wrapped in dust, inside the coldest night the life that goes with me is fire: it is always lit.

The sweet and violent way of my life comes from the land of the ravines: its taste of transparent black water.

Life comes in my chest, but it is she who takes me: burning firebrand, veiling, sunflower in the dark.

I carry a scream that grows more and more in my throat, nailing its sad aftertaste in the truth of my singing.

Wet and muddy song of a boy from the Amazonia who saw life grow in the center of firm land. A boy who knows the coming of the rain from the shivering of the greens and knows how to read the messages that arrive on the wing of the wind. But it also knows the time of fever and the taste of hunger.

In the waters of my childhood I lost my fear among the squalls. That’s why I move forward singing.

I am in the center of the river, I’m in the middle of the square. I walk firmly on my floor, I know I am in my place, like the pot on the fire and the star in the dark.

“What happened doesn’t count?” will inquire the deprived mouths. It never ceases to be worth, what passed teaches us with his claw and his honey.

That is why I walk like this on my way now. Publicly walking. No, I don’t have a new path, what I have is a new way to walk. I learned (what the path taught me) to walk singing as it suits me and suit the people who go with me. Because I no longer go alone.

Here I have my life: made in the image of the boy who continues to roam the humble fields and share his song in the same way his grandfather distributed cocoa and turned the harvest into an island of good help.

Made in the image of the boy but in the likeness of the man: with all he has of springtime of brave hope and rebellion.

Life, enchanted house, where I live and you live in me, I want you so real, smelling of mango and jasmine. May you be dazzled by the tenderness of a girl rolling on the grass.

Life clean tablecloth, life laid on the table, life vigilant fire, life stone and foamy trapdoor of poppies, sun coming down in the sea, manure and rose of love: life.

You have to deserve it.

“A vida verdadeira” by Thiago de Mello (Cris’s very draft first attempt of translation from Portuguese into English)

Dear Caminoheads,

Honoring Steve-O, honoring Phil, honoring us all, pilgrims, and honoring my Brazilian father (whose 78th birthday is today and is who more than 30 years ago introduced me to this poem of Thiago de Mello).

“What I have is a new way to walk” Loves

Cris

Dear Caminoheads,

I am so so SO SOOOO grateful that Ron didn’t give us much time to forget about the spirit of this season of thanksgiving and this season of preparation for hope, either the hope that brings the birth celebrated on Christmas or even the hope that comes with the renewal that the new year brings.

And it has been pretty difficult for me to be focused on “things going well” this year, because this year challenged massively my patience, my perseverance, even my usual willingness to connect. Much of the year has been spent inwards, and hidden under a ton of work; two attitudes that have brought some rewards but in no way resolve the difficulties, in no way address the roots of them, and what is worse, these attitudes have taken me farther away from analyzing the possibility of resolutions.

And here is a key thing, one more time, the harsh reality of that statement that I was told in my first year at university: “the most difficult thing to do -for a health professional- is to do nothing”.  Yes. Acceptance. And that statement exceeds the fact of being a health professional, it is about Life in general, Life with capital “L”. Life requires a lot of acceptance, acceptance that the things are just what they are, that a resolution does not always exist, that there is nothing in our hands that could change the situation we are in. I struggle so much with this that my oversight director at work, recommended for my end of the year assessment that I should work on analyzing more which are the battles I have to fight and ones I have to drop…!

But there is one category of acceptance that I find the most difficult: acceptance that when there is one or more real resolutions, none of them is the the one we want. It is a bit like going to vote in the elections, lately, at least in my country, we vote whatever is “less worse”.

To find the things we are grateful for in the myriad of things we struggle to accept sounds like a distractor factor, the candies that the ones arriving after the 3rd position always receive, even a phony thing; but in fact, it is not. It is the most rationale thing ever and comes from understanding that Life, with capital “L” is difficult, that the capital “L” is not for free. Thiago de Mello, a Brazilian poet from the Amazonias, wrote a poem called “A vida verdadeira”, not sure what a good translation would be, but would be something like “A truthful life”; this poem ends saying that ” we must deserve life”. My understanding of this poem (that I couldn’t find in English) and last line is that a committed life, a life that doesn’t hide when there are adversities, a life that despite hurting also holds us together, that type of Life, must be deserved.

Gratitude then, abounds when we live a “L”ife.

“Pois aqui está a minha vida. Pronta para ser usada*” Loves,

Cris

*Thiago de Mello

As the days get shorter and colder, our walking time is lessened and I miss that time listening to my inner teacher.  The holiday season is a little different here in Spain, but we have so many connections around the world that we dwell in a mixed relationship environment and we can’t help wishing that travel was easier than it is.

What lessons would that inner teacher be focusing on at this time?  How can we apply those lessons to make the world a better place?  Big questions.  What do you think Phil would say?

Each of us will surely respond differently and I suspect that sometimes we are so overwhelmed with life’s events that we haven’t yet found the time and energy to think about or apply the answers.

I have thought about some ‘common denominators’ of our life together as Caminoheads and want to share my thoughts and get your input of these ideas.  I think of them as the foundations of my well-being.

The first that came to mind is Gratitude.  I trust that you too have sensations in your life that fan the glowing coals of gratitude.  I’d like to share with you a practice that helps me bring them to my awareness and realize how grateful I am for the people in my life.  The practice is to simply write down three things which sparked gratitude in me that day.  I could have used a journal, but I chose to create a new calendar on my PC called ‘Thankful For’ and add three things each evening.

The first day or two it was a little challenging, but soon it was hard to limit it to three things.  On the calendar display I could easily see if I missed a day and soon I started entering events all day as they happened instead of just in the evening.  Some days I had a dozen things on the list.

Writing these things down allowed me to focus on how good life is instead of what I was lacking.  I could not help smiling and feeling good as I reviewed a day’s list.  I found myself doing it on my mobile phone too.  It was addictive!

I invite you to try it and would appreciate your comments on how it works for you.  I might share a few things from my list later on in the comments, but don’t want to plant any seeds that might limit your experience.

Thank you for reading my thoughts today.  I am grateful to be a part of the Caminoheads family and to have walked a lap or two with Phil and a few others.

I plan to share more of what I think of as common denominators in future blog entries.

In grateful love,

Ronaldo

Dear Caminoheads,

I get now why Phil used to “self criticize” when he would write “he was whining”. I am a lot like that, as if it is not ok to whine, but there are days, weeks, months, seasons, even years or decades, that just invite us to whine, whine wholeheartedly, openly, whine like W H I N E!!!!!! I have a W H I N E!!!!!!!! momentum myself right now… you know the saying “the proof is in pudding”… well, here is one: my right shoulder is painful due to some lesion I have in the collarbone, and since Saturday, my left shoulder and arm are painful too as I had the booster covid shot… But this one is not even in the top of my list of things to whine about…

Maybe the whining (W H I N I N G) is just for a signal that it is time to “rest”, real rest.

Maybe this is the time?

“REST

is the conversation between what we love to do and how we love to be. Rest is the essence of giving and receiving; an act of remembering, imaginatively and intellectually but also physiologically and physically. To rest is to give up on the already exhausted will as the prime motivator of endeavor, with its endless outward need to reward itself through established goals. To rest is to give up on worrying and fretting and the sense that there is something wrong with the world unless we are there to put it right; to rest is to fall back literally or figuratively from outer targets and shift the goal not to an inner static bull’s eye, an imagined state of perfect stillness, but to an inner state of natural exchange.

This template of natural exchange is the breath, the autonomic giving and receiving that forms the basis and the measure of life itself. We are rested when we are a living exchange between what lies inside and what lies outside, when we are an intriguing conversation between the potential that lies in our imagination and the possibilities for making that internal image real in the world; we are rested when we let things alone and let ourselves alone, to do what we do best, breathe as the body intended us to breathe, to walk as we were meant to walk, to live with the rhythm of a house and a home, giving and taking through cooking and cleaning. When we give and take in an easy foundational way we are closest to the authentic self, and closest to that self when we are most rested. To rest is not self indulgent, to rest is to prepare to give the best of ourselves, and to perhaps, most importantly, arrive at a place where we are able to understand what we have already been given. … “

‘REST’ From
CONSOLATIONS:
The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words.
© David Whyte & Many Rivers Press 2015

Tired loves,

Cris

Dear Caminoheads,

Hope all is well with you! “Quilting this neighborhood”… This is a thought that came to me as I was reading Ron and PFJ’s comments on yesterday post…

Ron was talking about “looking up” and how this activity that he felt became sort of like a ritual when walking the Camino, was combined with PFJ’s thoughts who told us that he experiences the sky as something not “separated” from him, in fact, it is what somehow, marks the rhythm of his activities, so so so ruled by the weather and the time of the day, and so combined with his look “down”, as he looks a lot to the soil where he is planting, harvesting, or building… …  After reading their comments, I started to think what do I do??? and I realized that while I look at the sky during the day, I do not see it because a lot of the times I am “outside” in a big city, there are lots of tall-ish buildings occupying my visual and if not, huge signs advertising something, and the driving or the walking has to be done mostly looking “ahead” and not “up”. Then, I thought about Ann (from Ron and Ann <3)… if you are friends with her in the facebook or instagram, you will immediately note that Ann looks at “her sides” and this is how she discovers (or sees?!) the most amazing flowers and plants. And what about William, our Canadian BC?! Have you paid attention to the posts William sends to us? They always come accompanied by several pictures capturing details, those tiny particularities that make a snowflake different from the other, the petal of a flower different from the petal next to that one… And then I thought about Phil… where used Phil to look at? And while he had a “360 view”, he used to look “inside” a lot… praying, talking to his tumors… Do you read Kevan’s comments? Kevan looks at “facts”, he creates a genealogy tree of information…

And I could continue writing, describing my own impressions of each of us who owns a piece of this neighborhood… and the verb “own” is so right I believe, because what I am trying to say is that every one of us brings to this neighborhood with a way of looking at things, different from the one the other has, and with the comments and posts, what ends happening is that we overlap the view that each of us brings, and we end “composing” a new landscape, wider, bigger, deeper, more colorful, more refined, with more details, … a quilt could be the best word… not a puzzle that is about “adding”, but “composing”… as the result is something more creative, abstract, more beautiful, more appreciative of the differences

I think Phil would have approved this concept, don’t you think?

360 loves,

Cris

Dear Caminoheads,

Today was a day in 50 shades of gray. The sun didn’t come out even for a second. And this thought made me remember a post that  Ron wrote about looking at the skies, and I found it and realized it is too great not to post again,

My 2 cents to Ronaldo’s amazing post below come from this thought: Have you thought about the number of times you look at a cloudy sky and do not remember that “the sun is still there”. How would our days and life be if we have this thought every day that is cloudy? And what about if we recall this when someone does a mistake but we know this same someone is a magnificent human?

I was just thinking, loves

Cris

Hasn’t the sky been fantastic for the last couple of years?

Clouds dancing around and displaying dynamic range and shapes that engage the imagination. What has caused this change in the sky? Could it be climate change? Or is it some secret research project adding secret ingredients to the atmosphere?

I could blame retirement. I could credit the Camino experience. I could continue to believe that the sky has changed.

I’d like to suggest that it is simply that I have been keeping my eyes up and gazing more purposefully at the sky. I have been in the moment – mindful of the light of the sun reflecting off of and filtering through those collections of water vapor, encouraged by the invisible winds.

What caused me to be more mindful? What caused me to appreciate the clouds above my spot on earth?

I think that the sky has always been this magnificent, I have just increase my awareness.

Whatever it is, I can also apply it to other aspects of life. Keeping one’s eyes up and gazing into the eyes of others, for example. Appreciating the fact that others carry loads that would be impossible for us, or lack the ability to do something that is easy for us. Seeing and appreciating the dynamics of other’s lives, even when it makes us less comfortable, practicing our ability to engage them by being with them, or supplying something they need at that moment. How many times does that happen on one’s walk along the Camino? How often do those moments come back to our memories as either a receiver or provider of that tiny blessing?

I want to encourage you to gaze more at the sky and the rest of creation to see more of the blessings that are out there for each of us. Receive and provide gratefully. I am thankful for the words that come to us from Phil and the other guest writers each day and I try to discover opportunities to share the fruit of the messages with others along my path. Please share with us in the comments if you are noticing the ‘sky’ appearing different and blessing your journey.

With overhead love,

Ronaldo

Dear Caminoheads,

Friday… I need to review the Bureau Chiefs schedule to bring the team back to writing!!! But in the meantime we get that sorted, let me share with you the last part of this email I sent to Ron and Anne last year and while I have no photos to post of those times, I posted a pict of the beach… that may give you an idea of “the weather & the landscape” when and where all of this was happening…

…

The pork… the pork was the second plate… Usually, my grandfather from my mother side, Italian descendant, used to be in charge of cutting the animal. This was always done in the “house” kitchen, sort of like a ritual… but we knew that my grandfather, as he was cutting the animal, would eat the kidneys or the “brain”, and obviously we kids found that horrible! He also would save the head to eat later, when we kids were not looking!

My brother, my cousin and I used to fight for the ribs (until I discovered how delicious the skin was, super well toasted and crunchy, seasoned with the “adobo”… by then, I let the boys fight for the ribs!)

We would continue the meal with a long break. For us, the meal would start at 10 PM as my family used to have businesses in this beach and were opened until just a bit before. So by now, after the pork, someone may look at the watch and exclaim: “15 para las 12” (15 to midnight!) and the table would be quickly cleaned up, rushed trips to the fridge (the one that only would be plugged in in Christmas) for the super cold cider, put the TV on, and we would count until 12. Then, a cheerful cheers, and when we were kids, there was always a moment of distraction so someone would say “I think there is someone at the front door, and it would be a red bag from Papa Noel with presents. There were for everybody, even if the present would be a deodorant! or a bar of soap!

Then, it was time for the dessert, invariably, in every Christmas or New Year, there would be “Ensalada de Frutas”, usually to feed 25 people at least (some families used to have a “plastic bucket” only for the fruits salad.

By then, in this beach where we used to spend Christmas, friends would come to greet, or we would go others house to greet too, so it was the time for the sweets, the turrones, the pan dulce, the fruits with chocolate, and my grandfather would sit with his big bag of walnuts and his Christmas hammer (that I have with me!) to break the nueces and eat easily 3 kilos by himself from the 24 Dec to 06Jan! “Solo para las fiestas!” (Only for the holidays) he used to say when someone would complain to him that it was a lot. The following day

The night would end by 3 in the morning, and the following day would find the patio taken over by the empty bottles of cider… and would find us with mate and pan dulce, and somehow, within hours, we were all ready to feast again!

After my grandparents died, and after we all married and the need to share holidays with other relatives came, these gatherings were lost but I have great memories of those days.

Feasts of love and love those feasts,

Cris

Dear Caminoheads,

I thought to bring today the “second installment” of the traditions around Christmas here and while particularly I speak about my house, this could easily be extended to many other families… if not for the recipe of the “adobo” to season the meat… that, my friends, is something unique… believe me, that is something you should try!!!

So…

Our tables always  had the sweets my grandfather brought in those boxes (he used to spend his whole “aguinaldo – 13th salary”  in those sweets): walnuts and almonds and “turrones de Jijona” or “turrones de alicante” and “mazapan”. The purchases included always a pannetone “Pan dulce” or (2 or 3), lots of cider (yes, champagne is a newer posher invitee, usually there was always cider, really really cold cider), and there were always grapes, cherries, and orange peels… all covered in chocolate 🙂 

You would think that that is enough for a feast, but actually, that was the “last part of the meal”… At my house, usually the meal started with “Jamon con melon”,  tomatoes filled with tuna, smashed potatoes, olives and pimientos del piquillo roasted, or “pionono” (a sort of very thin rectangular sponge  filled with the same filling of tuna or sometimes, ham, cheese, tomato, olives and lettuce, and then “rolled”). There used to be “ensaladilla” always… remember the pilgrims menu? Potato, carrots, peas, maionesse…  And then, the PORK (a young one, known as lechon or cochinillo) or LAMB. We used to like more the pork for Christmas, and maybe the lamb for the new year… we usually had a complete animal (18 kg approx) cooked in the wooden oven of the local bakery. A friend of my aunt who was an excellent cooker, taught my aunt the best “adobo” for the lamb or pork:

Recipe of “adobo”:

-Garlic: 8 dientes chopped not too small not too big

-Lemmon juice: 4 lemmons

-Oregano, black pepper, chili, a little bit of cayene pepper (here, you can buy a mix called “adobo de pizza” and has this all)

-Apple vinegar: same quantity as the lemmon juice

-Water: 2 times the quantity of the lemmon juice

You put this all to cook, low heat, until it simmers. When the vinegar cannot be smelt anymore, you add 2 generous measures of whisky, and you let it simmer a bit more until the alcohol evaporates a bit.

Now, you let it cool down, and then, you add the same quantity of oil, a mild one, not a strong one.

You put it on a jar in the fridge and is ready for any occasion.

My uncle used to take the pork out of the fridge the night before, very very late, put the “adobo” in generous quantities, as if he would be giving a massage!!! and by 5 AM, he would wake up, take the pork to the bakery 2 blocks away, queue with all the other proud owners of porks and lambs, and leave it to cook. Around 1 PM, when the bakery was about to close, there was a new queue of avid men trying to check whose pork or lamb smelt the best!

Those were the times loves,

Cris

Dear Caminoheads,

Last year, Ron, our BC from Virginia relocated to Spain, precisely to Castrillo de los Polvazares – Astorga, asked me about the traditions around Christmas in Argentina. Lovely enough, Anne and Ron became good friends with a family there, who were Argentinian, and they wanted to know more about our culture as they were going to spend Christmas with them.

I emailed Ron with my memories about the Christmas when I was a child/teenager, and all these memories had the beach where my uncle and aunt had businesses and we used to spend all the summer. This past week that I travelled to visit my aunt, I went to that place but to the “main city” not to the beach. I had not been there for several years now, and the elders from my family have all passed away, and the younger of us have taken decisions over the holidays and those Christmas in the beach are now memories of a past time, but fondly ones.

I thought then to share some of those paragraphs I wrote to Ron with you all here…

“So, now to our topic, Christmas here… Christmas here has a lot of Christmas in Italy and Spain. There is where our grandparents  or grand-grandparents came from and they kept their traditions even when the weather was not suitable for them. 

When my brother and I went to live with my grandparents and then aunt and uncle (my brother was 8 and I was 5 when our mother died), we started spending Christmas and the New Year in a beach almost 600 km away from here to the south. My uncle and aunt had businesses there (a carrousel, an enterteinment park, and later in their lives, an ice cream shop). So the holidays were spent there.

My grandfather was in charge of buying lots of “sweets” here in Buenos Aires, and go in the bus with cardboard boxes tied with a plastic thread, full of them.

On Christmas afternoon, around 7, it was time to set the table. That was my job always: I would do all different things with the napkins, use the glasses from my grandparents wedding set, their plates, etc. They had given the part my mother used to have to my aunt to have in the house in the beach. So the table was all special and old fashioned (to my eyes!) And the table was always in the “quincho” or outside, under the tree.

By 8 PM, my grandfather used to come and put the TV with the mass in the Vatican. It was always a must. (Fast forward, when I went to Europe for the first time in 2010 with E. -my ex-husband-, our first place was Rome. When I sat in St. Peters basilica for mass, I couldn’t hold my tears thinking and remembering my grandfather -who was my best friend- sitting in the “quincho” as I set the table, listening to “la misa criolla” and the liturgy. )”