Miles at Big Basin

 Yesterday, Marly and I spent the day at Big Basin Redwoods State Park. The Park has over 80 miles of trails.  We took the 10.5 mile Sunset – Skyline to the Sea Trail.  Here are a couple of waterfalls we saw along the way. That’s Berry Creek Falls on top, and I believe Marly is next to Cascade Falls, the Golden which later drops into Silver Falls. 

We moved through a surround sound of forest throughout the day: wind, bird calls, rushing water that sounded like wind, and the silence of the majestic and patient old growth Redwoods. What a fantastic day.

 

 

Day Off, Nature

March 11, 2013

1 Comment

4 Lines

Photograph summarized in four lines . . .

Playing

February 14, 2013

Leave a comment

Wilder Ranch

I spent my day off at Wilder Ranch State Park. Just me, lots of sun, my camera, some chickens and a cat. The buildings were desolate and in perfect disrepair.

Day Off

February 13, 2013

2 Comments

Marlena

She’s magic. When I’m around her, I feel as though my fairy godmother has taken out her wand and alchemized the entire world so that it glows with love.

Thankfulness

January 15, 2013

1 Comment

No Coincidences

When people come to Vajrapani, the road rises up to meet them. Many have waited a long time to be here. They’ve saved up for a retreat, they’ve gifted themselves with solitude in one of the meditation cabins, or they’ve simply been called to be on the Land. And then they come and every moment begins connecting to others. Synchronicity occurs. Insights download. They go within and begin remembering who they are.

Sometimes, when they leave, they stop by my desk and share with me. A long time ago, I wanted to be involved in work like this: where I’m a part of someone’s unfolding, or more accurately, their blossoming. I thought this would out-picture in the field of psychology after years of training. But I see now that life has been a good teacher, and at this time I’ve learned how to listen and to hold space. And so I do. I feel unbelievably grateful to hear of the magic that happens when folks take the responsibility to work on themselves in deep ways. Miracles happen in these Redwoods. They happen everyday.

Nature, Thankfulness

December 10, 2012

3 Comments

Only One

“Ma – You scared a goin’ to a new place?”

Her eyes grew thoughtful and soft. “A little,” she said. “Only it ain’t like scared so much.  I’m jus’ a settin’ here waitin’.  When somepin happens that I got to do somepin – I’ll do it.”

“Ain’t you thinkin’ what’s it gonna be like when we get there?  Ain’t you scared it won’t be nice like we thought?’

“No,” she said quickly. “No, I ain’t.  You can’t do that.  I can’t do that .  It’s too much – livin’ too many lives.  Up ahead they’s a thousan’ lives we might live, but when it comes, it’ll only be one.  If I go ahead on all of em, it’s too much.  You got to live ahead ‘cause you’re so young, but – it’s jus’ the road goin’ by for me.  An’ it’s jus’ how soon they goona wanta eat some more pork bones.”

 John Steinbeck’s Ma and Tom in the Grapes of Wrath.

Books, Teachings

July 9, 2012

Leave a comment

Natural Bridges

June has been very nice. First a visit from Linda, a friend I met in Peru.  Then Julie, from Guanajuato, is arriving next week.   There’s been lots of cruising along Highway 1.  The photo above was taken at Natural Bridges State Beach.

Thankfulness

June 18, 2012

Leave a comment

Kind Alive

I spent the last two weeks in Southern California, returning the day before yesterday. It’s good to be back home. Home: dirt trails, trees, sky, deer and stream. I missed them.  When in San Diego, I went to the ocean everyday, to re-calibrate. Cities are so hard on our planet, paving her in a tight corset of asphalt. Pruning and poisoning flora beyond recognition. Leaving no space for fauna. Healthy wildness remains in the woods. Here, nature relaxes, she’s friendly and she shares. Treated with respect, she is a true friend.

Nature, Thankfulness

June 3, 2012

1 Comment

Fleeting expression to a boundless eternity…

To the traditional Wintu, human experience and skill are capable of affecting only a tiny fraction of nature’s immensity. The natural world that lies beyond a person’s frail bubble of personal experience is fundamentally unbounded, undifferentiated, timeless.  So while individuals may think that by the time they reach old age, they have genuinely altered the world as they interacted with it, this is simply an illusion.

In truth, what they have done is no more than grant fleeting expression to a boundless eternity of ancient, preexisting patterns, relationships, and materials that are all a part of the grand design of the natural world.  The individual Wintu, during the course of his or her transient lifetime on earth, merely actualizes a given design endowing it with temporality. As a mortal human being, as for other species, his role in the sacred order of the natural world is necessarily constrained. He neither creates nor changes; the design remains immutable.

From Wisdom of the Elders: Honoring Sacred Native Visions of Nature by David Suzuki and Peter Knudtson.

Books, Dream, Nature, Teachings

May 20, 2012

Leave a comment

Happy Pachamama Day

Moving through the forest is like snuggling on mother’s lap. I rest my ear on her heart. Her pulse becomes mine.  Her knowing fills my awareness. Her creativity opens the subtle fields that surround me. I experience joy and belonging in the presence of my Mother.

Nature, Thankfulness

May 13, 2012

Leave a comment