When you were a kid Saturday was the greatest thing ever. Time to build forts, play in the snow, to scream and yell. School is out! What a change to the present situation for most of us who don’t know what day it is anymore.

But my Saturday morning is marked by my trusty bible class so I know what day it is! To keep up with the Joneses we have been meeting on Zoom which is working well. Of course we look forward to the day when we can shake hands and hug and carry on like we know how.

Yesterday we had the historic first Zoom meeting for Caminoheads Bureau Chiefs. We had eight of us on three continents. We missed William who was off on some mission but we were mostly there. And it was super fun and we carried on for two hours before it was done. What a crew we have. What a huge grab bag of talent we can bring to the table.

Cris CSABC instigated this confab to keep our communications going in the present situation and to find the opportunities that this situation holds. Where most people see problems she sees opportunities, her superpower! So, we are coming together over that sensibility to probe and explore. What is there that we can accomplish or add to the conversation given our trusty pilgrim know how and unique tool bag of our combined life experiences and training. This is something like a combination of the Magnificent Seven and the Dirty Dozen with a little True Grit thrown in.

So we had this first meeting really to start working together. This technology is perfect for us at this time. That’s what amazes me, just when we need it it is here for us. So, I will have more news as we get up and running.

Now, I would like to say something that is appropriate to the present. I and many of us are seriously in the target zone of this virus, it has me and most of us in it’s crosshairs. And I am not saying this to be a doom and gloom guy or because I am giving up in any way. It is just that if there is one thing that I have learned from my Cancer it is that death is not the final defeat. Generally folks who “battle” Cancer reach a point where they run out of options or energy or inspiration and they as a result feel like their upcoming death is a defeat, that they have failed. They feel they did something wrong or they didn’t try hard enough or they didn’t take someone’s advice or they didn’t pray hard enough or they weren’t worthy. There are a thousand things to substitute in there.

But, it is not a defeat as we all will die at some point only God knows the time and reason. The ultimate defeat is to have been so wrapped up in this fear and fight that we fail to live. That we aren’t present to the world around us, our loved ones, our mission, our neighborhood. A thousand things to substitute there. Do you see that? That is the ultimate tragedy.

So, at this time, this crucial time, let me say that I or a few of us may not make it through this tidal wave. In a few months we could be fewer. Do not grieve. Do not panic. Do not negotiate with negativity. Trust God, your best self and your pilgrim buddies. Do not worry unnecessarily. You/we have incredible assets. The ultimate defeat is not to die but would be not to live when it is our chance. Be present!

heavy duty loves, Felipé.

March 2020,

Burgess Merideth/Rod Serling, and the need for human touch.

Man, what a year, eh? Aren’t we all appreciative right now for having already hiked the Camino? I am very sad about those that were just getting started on their pilgrimage. I feel for the albergue owners, the country of Spain, America, the world. Truth be told, I support strong borders, however, I realize that borders and nationalism cannot stop a human problem. I went to the grocery store today. I looked at the hand sanitizer isle, gone. All gone. I could not help but think that it was unnecessary. Is it really better to make sure we are all blanketed with certain benefits, simply from being a human? Not getting political here, rather, trying to figure out the human construct.
In one way, very much so, I am realizing, forcefully, how the concept of world community is essential. What else could be presented to us for to not realize that everyone is connected in some way shape or form.
I have been thinking of the Second World War. A common enemy. A need to be efficient, living within our means. Resolve. This is the same feeling I had when 9/11 happened. I think we all feel that right about now. The difference being that the enemy is one for all humans, there is seriously no bias.
What do we truly value? Truly. It is human life, is the rest of what we value a means to an end?
The age of the internet and social media seemed to have brought about the bi-product of social distancing in itself. Ironically, when social distancing is now being enforced, it really is the opposite that I personally crave. I never realized how much I actually craved human interaction, the non-digital type. I never realized how much I value the feeling of human touch, to hug someone, to shake their hand, to see them eye to eye. For so long now, I desired the exact opposite. When I retired form the U.S. Navy, Submarine Force, the last thing I wanted was close social interaction. Trust me, I had enough of that…So I left everything, everyone, and I walked my Camino in Spain. I so much needed that alone time. As much as I tried, however, in Spain, the more I tried to distance myself from others and be alone, the more I feel they were attracted to talk to me. Perhaps it was my actual aura. Maybe it was the fact that they just craved the social connection; the human aspect of life. I did capitulate, numerous times, and I am glad I did.
I ended up meeting some of the best people in my entire life. I realized as I walked from small town to town in Spain, how much the Spanish loved the close, personal, family type of environment. You know, when you walked through each town, there was a sort of Piazza? A VERANDA:))…An open square where people just seemed to want to be next to each other, to have that human contact. The one thing I did not want when I initially arrived in Spain was the exact thing I crave right now. We cannot put a price on life. We cannot put a price tag on the human, social aspect of life. As much as sometimes I want to be a complete hermit in a cabin somewhere, prepped to the gills, (Now I am NOT talking Unabomber type…) or on a lone sailboat, endlessly sailing around the world, with my own version of “Wilson” from Castaway on the aft end of my boat next to me, by the till….I know deep down, what I will always crave is the human interaction. The good ones.
We cannot put a price on human touch.

There is a “Twilight Zone” episode with Burgess Meredith. It is the one titled, “Time Enough at Last”. It is about a man that wished nothing more than to be left alone from the noise of the world so he could read all of the books he could get his hands on. Then he gets his wish through horrible circumstance. When he finally got what he wanted, his glasses broke, and he could no longer have what he wanted. He then craved, the human interaction of others…Poor Burgess Meredith….Thank you, Rod Serling.

Cheers!
Ryck

Let me explain the pic above. This is Cool Gary, an Island character that grew up here and passed on early in his life. He is remembered in this rugged chainsaw carving which is along the Vashon Highway just south of Vashon town. It was done by Gene Amondsen another Island character who was a pastor, artist and part time abolitionist. He is unfortunately no longer with us either. Anyway, there is Gary with his chainsaw and some kind person has winterized him with a warm hat and scarf. There is a little wood elf at his feet. Reminds me of the usual statue of St Francis with the ever present birds and rabbit.

Catalina is going to love this. She will undoubtedly see to it that I get some sort of recognition in the art history world! And as usual there is always some symbols of what is going on in the world around us. Two summers ago there were some huge road projects on the a island and Gary sported a hardhat for that. You can see the color coordinated masks that protect them now giving us a reminder out of the corner of of eye to be safe as we cruise by. One day I was driving by and an owl was perched on his head and I said how clever of someone to put that there but it flew away.

Also in the news Cris, CSABC, and myself had a big powwow on Zoom yesterday in preparation for our big worldwide conference on Friday with all of our Bureau Chiefs. This is a first. We will compare notes on the situation. The goal is to come up with some sort of appropriate and robust crisis response to life as we presently know it. More on this later.

So, be safe, carry on and praise God loves, Felipé.

Last evening I was so exhausted after wrestling with firewood most of the day. My Rebecca had made dinner, potato pancakes and an omelette.
With the extra time that we seem to have these days we may fuss with leftovers to create something interesting instead of chucking stuff in the microwave for a quickie warmup. And we had some pears that came from the food bank that needing eating up. I picked through them in the fruit bowl with the bananas and avocados and found the two most ripe. She sat at the dinner table and peeled them and cut them up for our dessert. I mixed them with a little honey yogurt. Then of course her fingers were all sticky from the juicy fruit. I said something like you need a finger bowl. Now, I don’t tend to pamper people, never fixed anyone breakfast in bed for instance maybe because I have never really been pampered myself. And it took me a moment to say yes I could do that, to bring a little bowl of warm water to the table. And I did that for My Rebecca. Well, yes I could use a little atta boy but really I want to say that maybe in these unusual times we have some space to fuss with things, fuss with ourselves and for others close by.

A couple of days ago I was writing about dreams saying that I think due to our unusual circumstances we are entering a period of intense dreaming. I can feel this because I tend to have dreams in periods of transition or doubt. We seem to crave guidance and I think that we will get it. All we have to do is pay attention. Remember paying attention? They are other words for being present. Right now I am sensing that the Universe is fussing over us and we need to pay attention and benefit from it.

Here at Phil’s Camino I have the prayer machine cranked up to full capacity beaming out rosary pleadings with maximum wattage. Each lap that I walk of the terrain is one lap around the rosary beads. Simple, easy peasy. I contemplate the Four Great Mysteries as I walk, contemplate suffering and death, contemplate redemption. I am fussing over God I guess.

pay attention loves, Felipé.

Everyone is in figuring-it-out mode these days. How do we make this happen for ourselves, our family, our neighborhood and the world. That is a lot of entities to keep happy. We feel stretched this way and that.

As regards our neighborhood Caminoheads is putting together a Coronavirus Response. Cris our pilgrim in Buenos Aires is heading up this effort to come up with some way to help out now and in the future. We are having a worldwide confab this Friday with hopefully all the Bureau Chiefs attending a Zoom conference. This is very exciting stuff.

I went on a foray into one of the supermarkets this morning early. They were open an hour early for us the compromised folks. Folks were taking advantage of that. Again we are adapting.

Here is some exciting news Edie Littlefield Sundby was featured in an article in This Day magazine, I think that is a Catholic publication. She is terrific. Walked the El Camino Real, the Mission Trail through the Baha and California in spite of serious health issues. Editors are looking for uplifting stories for their readership at this time of crisis.

On the same topic the editor of award winning Northwest Catholic Magazine, Kevin Birnbaum, contacted me and wants to do another article on me/us, an update for their readers. They ran the the original article in March 2015. This publication goes out to something like a
hundred thousand families in the region. Pilgrim Farmer John originally heard of us through that 2015 article when it was forwarded to him in the Heartland by friends. So what kind of major league character are we going to attract this time you might ask?

Well, off to split wood. See you all tomorrow.

uplifting loves, Felipé.

Hi gang! I just did my walk for Monday morning, 0900-1000. The trail is closed to the public but I walk on the regular schedule:

Monday 0900-1000
Tuesday 1600-1700
Thursday 0900-1000
Sunday 1600-1700

You can’t walk here but if you could walk where you are at some of those days and times that would be powerful. I am saying the rosary on each lap to pray for our rockpile. You can pray for our rockpile too. In a way it is a miniature of the whole world with it’s woes and joys.
I try and keep my flitting mind focused on our rockpile as much as possible. I/We are praying for our pilgrim community and broadly for the planet.

Last year at about this time plans were starting to be made for the 2019 Veranda. There were a lot of concerns but what made the whole management process easier was my firm belief that the folks coming were pilgrims and “they will figure it out”. In other words the meeting place did not have to be overly engineered. Keep it simple and sort of do-it-yourself. Not only will we figure it out but that is what we love to do. Just basically give us an empty space and a four day weekend and some wine and firewood and we will have a ball!

Beside physical knowhow we have spiritual, emotional and mental knowhow. I’m not just BS’ing you here. This is what I see. I see a group of very resilient people. And this is exactly what we need right now in this crisis. We are so prepared in a certain way, please realize that. Pilgrim Strong as Steve Watkins coined. Here we are.

We will be putting our heads together in the coming weeks and months to make an effort at a contribution to solving some of our troubles. We have talent and incredible communications and we have time now. Do you see what I am talking about? Cris shows us that everything bothersome has opportunity in it, that’s it exactly.

OK, I have energy work with Janet. Prayers for Janet for current health issues. We are going to work on our healing together.

putting our heads together loves, Felipé.

PS – St James is Afoot (SJA is back)

Yea, I wrote about my piggie dream yesterday. I hope you liked it. I’m always a little shy about talking about my dreams but I think I am getting over that. But other folks have been reporting on dreams too. Catalina in Berkeley told of one about the melding of Phil’s Camino with the Camino de Santiago. Catherine was here this morning to say the rosary with me, at a distance of course. She was saying that she had two major “spiritual” dreams that she was going email me. I’m saying it that way because all dreams may be spiritual, maybe.

But it may be important that we are having this uptick of dream activity. Maybe we are more comfortable about talking about it or maybe we are more prone, I don’t know. But maybe we can keep an eye on it. Maybe this is important. We know that dreams are important.

Also people are learning how to get together in new ways. My Bible Guys had a Zoom session yesterday morning which went very well for our first. At this moment My Rebecca is “at” her church service as she is sitting in our living room via some platform. And yesterday Cris our CSABC proposed figuring out how to have a Bureau Chiefs get together soon. She said that she could engineer it.

Here we are practicing the old tried and true Marine Corps motto, “Improvise, adapt, overcome!” We have assets, we have smarts. We have been trough hard times before. The sun shines, the soil warms, plants sprout, the deer are out in the woods having babies. We just need to remember to smile and keep our heads.

Please keep in touch. We will be here, you be there!

overcoming loves, Felipé.

That’s My Rebecca reminding me to write about the dream I had two mornings ago, it had some pigs in it, too many pigs. Anyway, here I am right now at 7:30 in the evening hammering out the blogpost. Way too busy to get to it today yet. But here I am.

Well, what the heck Felipé why the heck were you too busy for us. Yea, we had Bible Guys first thing over Zoom. That went pretty well, I think that we can work with it. Then I was off with Wiley who scheduled an arborist friend of his to come over and take down three problem trees in his front yard next door. So, a bunch of Wiley’s friends and myself were the ground crew hauling and managing all the debris. Wore me out keeping up with the young bucks. So, I have a good excuse for a late hand in on the blog.

But the pigs, yes Dear. I have identified a state of mind that I have been prone to slip into these daze. Yes, that’s very apt, daze. Sometimes people can get in a situation in which they freeze up because of fear as in “deer in the headlights” but it is not that. It is that with all the crazy happenings lately I have a hard time processing it all and my mind can drift into a sort of stupor where I am far away from my task at hand. I know just in general it is hard to have a clear thought without the virus or the economy impinging. So I call this state a stupor.

So, as happens I had this dream early in the morn that shook me awake and cured me of this problem at least temporarily. In the dream I was unconscious on the ground and got these strange nudgings and sounds that at first were hard to identify in my state. And slowly I was forced toward the surface. Things were smelling my hand and face. I suddenly realized I was surrounded by herd of pigs and they were getting close to eating me. This happens if you don’t know. And in this adrenaline pumped state I beat them off. Yikes.

You know dreams can be strange and this was a strange one but seems to have cured me. No more stupors for Felipé. You get too distracted by what possibly could or couldn’t happen and the pigs will eat you for sure. So there I’ve said it.

OK, 430 words, I have to go.

love you like before, Felipé.

Hello! As you know if you have been hanging around here for a while Friday’s are reserved for the Caminoheads Bureau Chiefs to give us the scoop. Here is Ronaldo!

Ann is my life partner and has been a perfect one for over 46 years. So we find ourselves in Astorga with more time at home than we are used to for the next few weeks and my thoughts today return to writing this blog. Trying to avoid writing about what you just read about and will likely read more about after you comment on this one, I threw it out to Ann, an avid flower/plant/tree/weed lover and she reminded me of how much I loved the sunrise coming up behind me as I walked westward on the Camino. Dark to Light.

I walked during September and the beginning of October and the light was wonderful. I started out in darkness most mornings, sometimes just a little skylight. I got to feel the sun on the back of my head, got to eventually see my shadow and was reminded how predictable that process is. The bible talks about light pretty highly and I appreciate that we can share that inner knowledge. We all can. No education, social position or certificate needed – it is out there for all of us.

I’m going to focus on one aspect of light as Ann suggested: Plants.

Seeds fall off plants, some get eaten by birds, some land on rocky soil which doesn’t support long term growth and some find themselves embedded in good soil. We will skip the thorns for now. Matthew 13 has a man doing the sowing, but plants do it themselves as well in real life.

So this seed that falls on rich soil gets buried by wind, rain, oxen hooves – whatever, and lays dormant for the winter in the dark. Dark is important. The dark is the thing that makes light so unique. If it is dark and one enters with a candle, there is light. No amount of dark can eliminate that sign of new life.

And then the days get longer, the same sun that warmed my back and cast a shadow of my body along the path warms up that soil and begins that germination stage. And slowly a root goes downward and a shoot goes upward and daily the light returns to serve as warmth and light to enable that tiny seed to grow. But there is a period of dark between those sunrises. It is not an error, it is a necessary part of the cycle.

You know where this is going – that tiny seeds ends up being a plant of significant proportions, producing shade, or edible green parts or fruit or beautiful flowers – and more seeds. Animals eat some of them, people eat some, we harvest and display decorative plants too. And again some of the seeds hit the ground and some of them repeat this cycle. So it is in life that adding light to a cold or dim situation can spur creation anew. Tiny things that you plant can become significant sources of sustenance to others. Both the dark time and the light time are part of this cycle.

Back to the Camino, that wonderful daily experience of the light. So simple. Nothing difficult about it, other than getting up and getting on the Way. It repeats every day, warm, germination of relationships or understanding of life’s mysteries or healing of one’s bones. In our case, we put down roots in Spain and are waiting to see how our shoots get used. Do you recall this feeling I describe?

So you are sitting in your home reading this blog and maybe not able to appreciate that sunrise cycle so much with a lot of man-made lights around. I encourage you to get up early and watch, or better yet feel, the sunrise 21 days in a row. Dark to Light. Be thinking of all the non-visual work that light is also doing – warming soil, encouraging men and animals to walk the earth, starting that germination process in the wild and even killing off the plants of seeds that landed on rocky soil. Enabling beautiful flowers and buds to display creation. It is really something. Yes, it does contribute to your having to cut the grass all summer too.

So creation teaches by example, demonstrating the lesson for all to see. The birds get their share, some seeds are on that rocky soil and just don’t get it, some are engulfed by weeds and in time might see the light, others are fortunate to experience the good-soil life.

I encourage us all to take a deep breath and take note of the good that can come out of this difficult time of changed routines.

Be in the light, and the dark, and see what germinates. May it be beautiful, nourishing and plant seeds for the next generation. And may you notice it!

In germinating love,

Ron
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NOTE: Two books that you might add to the reading list this month are Learning to Walk in the Dark by Barbara Brown Taylor and All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. I happened to read these two together in 2016 before my Camino walk and maybe the next time I get to share with you I’ll tell the amazing story of how reading those books found a way to enhance my pilgrimage.

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Ron Angert in beautiful Astorga, Spain

Here is an absolute newly born poem from Christine Valters Paintner, Ireland. Gratitude can give us a focus when we slip towards the stupor caused by all the current events. That was my thought that I woke up with this morning and then this poem showed up, to second the motion. Thank you Christine for putting it so nicely.

Praise Song for the Pandemic*

Praise be the nurses and doctors, every medical staff bent over flesh to offer care, for lives saved and lives lost, for showing up either way,

Praise for the farmers, tilling soil, planting seeds so food can grow, an act of hope if ever there was,

Praise be the janitors and garbage collectors, the grocery store clerks, and the truck drivers barreling through long quiet nights,

Give thanks for bus drivers, delivery persons, postal workers, and all those keeping an eye on water, gas, and electricity,

Blessings on our leaders, making hard choices for the common good, offering words of assurance,

Celebrate the scientists, working away to understand the thing that plagues us, to find an antidote, all the medicine makers, praise be the journalists keeping us informed,

Praise be the teachers, finding new ways to educate children from afar, and blessings on parents holding it together for them,

Blessed are the elderly and those with weakened immune systems, all those who worry for their health, praise for those who stay at home to protect them,

Blessed are the domestic violence victims, on lock down with abusers, the homeless and refugees,

Praise for the poets and artists, the singers and storytellers, all those who nourish with words and sound and color,

Blessed are the ministers and therapists of every kind, bringing words of comfort,

Blessed are the ones whose jobs are lost, who have no savings, who feel fear of the unknown gnawing,

Blessed are those in grief, especially who mourn alone, blessed are those who have passed into the Great Night,

Praise for police and firefighters, paramedics, and all who work to keep us safe, praise for all the workers and caregivers of every kind,

Praise for the sound of notifications, messages from friends reaching across the distance, give thanks for laughter and kindness,

Praise be our four-footed companions, with no forethought or anxiety, responding only in love,

Praise for the seas and rivers, forests and stones who teach us to endure,

Give thanks for your ancestors, for the wars and plagues they endured and survived, their resilience is in your bones, your blood,

Blessed is the water that flows over our hands and the soap that helps keep them clean, each time a baptism,

Praise every moment of stillness and silence, so new voices can be heard, praise the chance at slowness,

Praise be the birds who continue to sing the sky awake each day, praise for the primrose poking yellow petals from dark earth,

Blessed are the dolphins returning to Venice canals, the sky clearing overhead so one day we can breathe deeply again,

And when this has passed may we say that love spread more quickly than any virus ever could, may we say this was not just an ending but also a place to begin.

—-Christine Valters Paintner, Abbey of the Arts

*a work in progress

we are here for you loves, Felipé.