The Virtual Camino project started this morning. It is a, well it’s hard to explain really. It is a virtual walk from beginning to end of the Camino Frances in Northern Spain. This is the main line or truck of the Camino de Santiago, the 500 mile pilgrimage. So, now that we are all housebound and the the Way is shut down this is what’s happening.

It operates as a FaceBook group under that title Virtual Camino. This is the brainchild of Laurie Duperier a pilgrim that runs tours of the Camino in Spain in normal times. Annie O’Neil is with her riding shotgun on this virtual one. As I understand it is a journey of the mind and spirit with numerous facets, maybe programs on art, foods and history of the various regions that you go through.

Today they are showing Phil’s Camino, the 27 minute documentary film as a opener to have folks get the idea of the everyday camino or a backyard camino idea. In other words how do you get some of the benefits of walking the Camino when you are not in reality there? Seems we are experts on doing this. Annie just had a Q and A on Zoom at 9 AM PT and I was lucky enough to catch it and participate. There is supposed to be another at 3 PM PT. So the film is showing all day and you can access it through the Virtual Camino FB group.

So, that is the big happening today in my world. We are all finding ways to cope and keep life moving along. We will get through this pandemic and most assuredly it won’t be pretty but it is doable. It will have some very rough spots as we are already starting to glimpse.
But getting out the other side in a month or two or three or a year maybe in some places we will have a new appreciation for life and be searching for ways to rebuild our bodies, minds and spirits individually and as neighborhoods, countries and beyond. I am afraid we have embarked on a big journey, a Camino as it were, that will both scar us and educate us.

It is my belief that our pilgrim sensibilities will be part of the reconstruction. Really! That is what I am sensing. What we have learned in our journeys will be vital to society as a whole. I don’t know how this is going to work but I think that we have already glimpsed the future.

Off I go loves, Felipé.