Week 11: Marin County

So yes, I’ll admit, my past few posts have been a bit introspective and gloomy.  This one will have gloomy bits as well, but for a different reason.  But I am getting ahead of myself.

The week started on a bright note, lunch with a new friend.  Several years ago I came across an article celebrating the 50th anniversary of the San Fransisco Zen Center.  This article included a section on Green Gulch Farm, the organic farm the center runs in Marin County, and a told of a new program, Honoring the Path of the Warrior, where mindfulness practice, including work on the farm, was helping returning OEF and OIF veterans come to terms with their experiences overseas.  I have been following their programs, which have expanded to include wall climbing, day hikes and week-long rafting and writing retreats, and they recently published a guide for other retreat centers who wish to develop similar programs.  Over lunch, their Operations and Development Manager updated me on recent changes to their programs, and since we are both female veterans (her Army and me Air Force), we had a nice conversation sharing our time in the service.

DSCN2199  My heart and belly full, I headed north on the Pacific Coast Highway to Green Gulch Farm, where, inspired by my interest in Honoring the Path, I would be spending the next two weeks as a Guest Student.  Cresting the coastal range, I was treated to a sign normally seen from the air: a blanket of fog covering the valley below.  Slowly I descended the twisty road, going ‘IFR’ shortly before I reached farm’s driveway.  The dirt track wound through an eucalyptus grove, the dark green leaves hanging from white and tan smottled trunks cloaking my arrival as the sky darkened and the air took on a chill.  Little did I know that I would not see the sun again for three days.

DSCN2240Green Gulch Farm was founded in 1972 at the direction of Shunryu Suzuki, the spiritual founder of San Fransisco Zen Center, as a place where lay practitioners could live and practice together. Located on a former working ranch in Muir Valley, the property includes family housing, several dormitories, a tea house, and the Green Dragon Temple. Over the years many notable gardeners have lived and practiced here including Alan Chadwick, who helped spread organic and biodynamic farming techniques in the US, and Wendy Johnson, the lead gardener for over ten years who now mentors aspiring farmers through the Edible Schoolyard program and the local community college. The farm’s grounds now include eight acres split between a fruit, herb and flower garden, and the vegetable farm.

The schedule Green Gulch focusses on work practice.  We would wake at four thirty and sleepily make our way to zazen at five.  The zendo, located in a converted barn modified to incorporate traditional Japanese design principles and temple features, is beautiful.  The original wood beams and support structures, now sanded to a shine, rise two stories above a recovered plank floor.  The early hour was dark, the temple lit only by the candles on the two altars, one to Manjushri (wisdom) and one to Tara (compassion), that sandwiched rows of black cushions from opposite ends of the temple.  We would enter one by one, stepping in with the foot closest to the door, two steps, bow, then down a short staircase to find our cushions.  It was cold, and as the service proceeded, it would soak though my sweater and chill my toes. The sitting intervals here were longer than I am used to, forty minutes.  The first would include elements of the service, lighting the altar and ringing of bells.  My mind would settle quickly but after an interval my legs would numb and then begin to ache.  Slow walking would clear the kinks and slightly warmed by the movement, I would settle back on the cushion to watch the pine

DSCN2279 - Version 2After breakfast was work practice. Each work location had a small altar, and samu would begin with incense, a reading from Zen teachings, and a bow. As guest students, we would begin with dishes, then rotate through the different departments: chopping veg in the kitchen, pulling weeds on the grounds, cleaning the guest house, thinning and planting seedlings for the farm, and cleaning flower beds in the garden. We would break for lunch, vegetarian and prepared with produce from the garden, then continue for another three hours. In the late afternoon we would to clean our tools and close the practice. After this, we had free time for the remainder of the day.

DSCN2202The farm, located adjacent to the Muir Woods National Monument, is surrounded by miles of glorious trails.  On the first few days, drained by the physical work, I ventured only as far as the beach at the bottom of the valley.  It was so foggy and cold I would wear my winter parka, a bright of magenta in the sage and grey, returning from trail with mist dripping from my nose.  On Tuesday there was a break in the clouds, with actual sunshine on Wednesday (the sky seems to be broken), and I took the opportunity to hike the coastal trail.  Accustomed to the sheltered bay of my childhood, I was surprised when I looked south, where I could see past the mouth of the bay to Half-Moon and beyond.  To the west was a line of ships on approach, dashes of reds and oranges on heir hulls and deck, distance belying their size.

Friday was our day off. After sleeping in (until a late six thirty) I spent the morning on a trail that wound up the hills on the south side of the farm.  The trail head was sheltered by yew, pine, and juniper that slowly gave way to wild flowers, berry brambles and coastal sage.  As I approached the top I looked down, and my eye was caught by movement, a smudge of rust above the green of the valley.  It was a red-tailed hawk, making lazy circles in the thermals.  As I watched, he slowly rode one, then another, higher and higher: first below me, then abeam me, then above me.  I was familiar with this from flying, at one airport it was not unusual for a hawk or crow to fly off our wing as we taxied or departed, but watching him from above, adjusting his light feathers to better capture the wind, was a first.  This will be one of the memories from this adventure I will treasure most.
Another treasure from this adventure were my fellow guest students.  Green Gulch is also a monastery, with students committing to study for residence intervals of three months, six-months, or longer.  The entry path to these residencies was the two-week guest student program, which we completed as a group.  The first week there were six of us, and we would tend to drift to each other.  Over the course of the week, one, calm and confident, came to stand out.  Though I have to admit, what first caught my eye was that he was a total hottie, in an Orange County punk scene lead singer kind of way.  Over time, I was pleased to learn he was also a learned practitioner with deep knowledge across a wide range of Buddhist practices and other spiritual traditions.  His favorite teaching was the Platform Sutra, the foundation of Chan Buddhism. Meals with him were a joy; he openly and humbly shared the wisdom he had gained at various practice centers and during a thirty-day silent retreat.  He also really helped me with my sitting (“Master Chan says make friends with the pain”) and how to approach practice (Rules for walking the spiritual path: Accept what is given; Do the right thing; Make nothing of it.)  He also brought a relaxed, playful approach to practice that seemed to infect our group as the week progressed.  
 
More on the others, and the second week of my stay next time.  🙂

Week 10: The Way-Back Machine

Leaving Santa Fe, the weather matched my mood.  The Sandia mountains to the east were capped with fierce clouds, white blooms erupting from a steel base, the fog below dusting their steel and rust-colored slopes white with spring snow, the air as cold and turbulent as my thoughts had been the past few days.  But then, on the other side of the highway, bright desert sun filled a blue sky.  As I turned west on to Interstate 40, my mood began to lighten as well.

The next two days would be some of the best of the trip, and I almost missed them.

Heading west, I vacillated whether to go through with my next stop.  It was with an old friend, the ‘P’ from KPM racing, and the plan was to stay two nights.  I had not spent more than an hour with him since 1999, during my angry phase, and the second night it would be just me and his wife, who I had met over breakfast the month before.  Our friendship seemed tenuous, and as I drove through the desert, spring sun warming the car after a month in the mountains, I went back and forth between whether I should visit or not.  I had forecast a dinnertime arrival, but the drive took longer than I thought, and as my arrival time slipped from six to seven to nine, I considered calling off the visit.  In the end, his big black dog Guinness met me at the door with a deep woof and a stream of drool.

Over a dinner of mac n cheese we began catching up: where we had been, what we had been up to.  This soon expanded to our friends: marriages, divorces, who was still in the Air Force or the work they were doing now they were out.  Some  have been radicalized against ‘brown people’ over the previous decade and we speculated on the cause (their work? the media they attend to?).  Then it was reminiscing old times, Saturday nights at the short track north of town, missions they had flown together, and even things that had happened the year I was in Korea (the Air Force’s 50th Anniversary Air Show) that I had never heard before.  We swapped stories late into the night like two old coots down at the VFW.  His wife wisely nodded off early on.

The next day, after lunch, I went for a hike in one of my favorite spots.  Mount Potosi is part of a range to the west of town, south of the dramatic cliffs of Red Rock National Conservation Area.  This particular peak has the dubious claim to fame as the location of the CFIT accident that killed actress Carole Lombard as she returned from her War Bonds tour.  This had been a favorite spot for Land Cruising (Kevin had a 1968 FJ40 and I drove a 1986 FJ60 Wagon).  The area is criss-crossed by well-developed series of vehicle tracks and the slopes provide dramatic views of the city.  Kevin and I had always talked about combining a harrier and a Land Cruiser event, with both groups meeting up at a vantage point just before sunset to watch the Strip light up as we had a potluck.  The day’s hike did not disappoint: high-elevation wildflowers were blooming, and I was happy to find the trail structure had been expanded to include hiking and mountain biking options.  Later, Ahab’s Hot Blonde Wife and I had a pleasant evening of Thai take-out and an ANTM episodes.

DSCN2187The next scheduled stop was my mom’s place on the coast.  The route took me through Mojave, and feeling nostalgic I stopped at the Air and Space Port for lunch.  I pulled in to the airport, expecting it to be Virgin Galactic-ville (which it was not) and there it is, the restaurant where we used to stop at for burgers after we’d done our little ‘airshows’ down the road at Rosamond Lake (we being me and the five college-age guys I learned to fly with).  It brought back a lot of memories, my time as the airport coffee shop waitress and the excitement of visiting Mojave, the test flight epicenter of the world (well nearby Edwards AFB/Muroc Lake was, but this was as close as we could get).  The restaurant is named after the (then) Rutan Aircraft Voyager, the first aircraft to fly non-stop (and without refueling) around the world, and is an unofficial museum of the flight, with photos, maps, and commemorative materials covering the walls.  (Exciting for me as Jeanna Yeager had been one of my role models when I was learning to fly).  After lunch I poked around a bit on the ramp, smelled the jet fuel, watched a King Air start up and taxi off, took a few photos of the aircraft in dry storage (quite a few Atlas Air and Southern Air Transport, both DOD long-haul contractors), and along the way got to remembering how much fun we had back in the day.  I returned to the road with a light heart.

DSCN2288After a quick stop to visit my mom, I headed north up the coast for a few nights at Land of Medicine Buddha, a Tibetan monastery and retreat center nestled in the Santa Cruz foothills.  Here you have the option of staying in a room or a yurt, and I elected for a yurt.  It was early in the season, so the yurt village (where I had stayed two summers before) was not yet open, and I was placed in the handi-accessable one (read: adjacent parking!) on the road to the Wish Fulfilling Temple. This center was founded by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, who’s teachings focus on kindness to all living beings, and is home to a project to build the largest stupa in North America.

DSCN2303DSCN2307The center is located next to the Nisene Marks State Forest, a 10,000 acre secondary forest (it had been clear cut over 40 years during the late 19th and early 20th centuries) with over 40 miles of trails through towering redwoods.  This area is known (in addition to the awesome hiking) for being the epicenter of the Loma Prieta quake, and damage (including a seam in the earth) is still visible along one of the trails.  I quickly changed clothes and got to walking.  After a slog up a steep fire road, pausing every twenty steps or so to catch my breath, I reached a fork in the path.  I chose east, downhill, along the three-mile loop.  Despite the day’s heat it was cool under the canopy, fallen needles dampening my footsteps.  The trail, also wide enough for vehicles, gently sloped along the steep hillsides, with coast redwoods towering from below to above.  Towards the bottom there is a turnoff to the Enchanted Forest, a local gathering spot with fallen logs to sit on, hollow stumps to shelter in, and a large peace sign constructed with sticks on an open area of earth.   There is also a makeshift memorial where people leave photos and mementos honoring loved ones passed.  After this the road merges with the Eight Verses Trail, a one-mile loop through meadow and forest with verses and benches spaced along the way to allow reflection on the Buddha’s teachings.

DSCN1106One of the other nice things about LoMB is the meals: vegetarian, organic, and locally sourced to the greatest extent possible, eaten communally in the dining room with the senior lamas and nuns mixing with the guests.  I had timed my walk to finish at dinnertime by the dining room.  It was packed with two yoga retreats, so I sat off to the side with two nuns, one a resident teacher and the other a visiting scholar from Australia who is active in the Prison Dharma program.  Over the next few days we had several fascinating conversations about international politics, the prison-industrial complex, mass surveillance, and avenues to walk the teachings in the world.  After dinner the first night was a dharma talk by Rene Feusi, a lively and quite funny French monk.  He quickly dispensed with the advertised topic (they asked me to speak on the fifth chapter of the Bodhisattva Way of Life, but…) to tell tales about his Tibetan teachers, provide the reasoning behind several Tibetan meditations, and share a lovingkindness meditation (we do this practice for others so it becomes easier to do it for ourselves).  In the morning I did prayer wheel practice with the nuns, 104 turns in a clockwise direction while chanting Oh Mane Padme Om.

After another day spent hiking, eating more great food, and spinning the dharma wheel, I was back on the road, off to the next leg of my adventure: Green Gulch Farm.