We’ve been with our four and a half year old grandson the last three days. That means being with happy people as we visit the places people of all ages and backgrounds gather and celebrate. We live in and share a world meant to nourish and be generous with All.
Yesterday a friend and I went to the Presidio Tunnel Tops to walk around and see the views. It’s an easy walk from the Presidio to Crissy Field, so gentle movement from grass to sand. We began up top with the Visitor Center where we learned of Michael Painter’s vision that inspired others to cooperate to create this place of beauty, fun, and education. We watched short films on the history of the area, which includes the Native people, Black people, Chinese, and Japanese, and now is a place for all to gather, savor, and feast. We bought lunch at the cafe, and sat in comfy orange lounge chairs to eat with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge, and the world.
This is a place of community and restoration. The children’s playground is made of natural materials and blends in beautifully. If you need a place to believe in the communion of nature, grace, and humanity, this is it. San Francisco is already amazing, and this tops the dream.
We’re having our inner garden rejuvenated, so I’m moving windchimes, fairy doors, Buddhas, and gnomes. I see that one hangar is embedded in the tree.
I’ve made a meditation place for myself in the yard down below and this morning as I listen to and see birds in the lower area, I hear plums drop.
Open space for possibility even as we clasp what matters.
In 46 years of living here, I’ve never seen the fireworks right there in downtown San Francisco. This year I did, and it was spectacular. They shoot them off in two places so it’s quite a show with the fog adding a cooling taste. Music is played that matches the display. Quite emotional and stirring, especially this year when the Supreme Court is compromised and along with others is dismantling our democracy.
The political news requires time in nature. Today I went to Cascade Falls amidst warnings to pack a go-bag. Fire season is here, and yet it’s beautiful as can be, and the truth is if a fire comes roaring I don’t think we’re going to “escape”, and so it is. Strange times as we navigate feelings of vulnerability amidst presence, beauty, and joy.
This week my friend and colleague Karen Roeper gave an inspiring speech to the graduating class at the Roeper School in Michigan. The school was founded by her parents in 1941 when they were forced to leave Nazi Germany. Already involved in education, they came to America in 1939 vowing to establish a school that would educate children to participate in the world as caring, humane adults.
Karen’s theme in her speech is love.
She shares an excerpt from an interview with the US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. He was asked, “If you could change one thing as Surgeon General that would be immutable for the long haul, what would it be?”
He responded: “If I could change one thing, it would be: I would want us to very explicitly, and unapologetically place love at the center of our lives as a galvanizing force in our society.”
He continued on to talk about how our current society is locked in a struggle between love and fear.
Karen quotes her mother from her 2007 commencement speech: “If you really love yourself, then you will love life itself and you won’t want to hurt or harm others.”
Buddhist Jack Kornfield offers a practice: “When you are walking around the world, see every person as once having been a newborn child.”
Yesterday I spent time in my neighbor’s beautiful yard which is an offering to serenity for all who come, plants, animals, birds. I share a taste.
I’m up in the night with the moonlight and critters who explore in the dark, though this almost full Strawberry moon offers light.
The last few days I’ve spent time with my neighbor’s mother who is suffering from memory loss, or is she suffering? It’s her experience, yes, but there is an immediacy to it, a presence. Perhaps it is that she’s been through the anger stage of losing control, of not being able to live on her own, or drive, and so now there is a settling into gentleness, a tender rhythm.
I feel embraced in a softening sea as I lose fear around one more thing I might fear. Yes, it requires the help and patience of others, but perhaps there is a gift in it, too, a gift for the neighborhood as we absorb memories flickering like stars.
Steve and I were married 53 years ago on this day, June 19th. Now, it’s a legal holiday, Juneteenth, honoring the end of slavery in the United States. May we continue to honor and cultivate the interconnectedness that brings peace.
I’m reading the book Wintering by Katherine May.
As we approach the excitement and celebration of the summer solstice, I’m with these words of D.H. Lawrence:
We must get back into relation: vivid and nourishing relation to the cosmos and the universe … We must once more practice the ritual of dawn and noon and sunset, the ritual of kindling fire and pouring water, the ritual of the first breath and the last.
Yesterday a friend and I took the ferry from Larkspur Landing to the city. We enjoyed lunch with our book group at MOMA and walking back to the ferry I was struck by a sculpture that I wanted to find the name of which led me to an on-line exploration of sculpture in San Francisco. Check it out:
We went up to the gardens at the SalesForce building, rather an eyesore from where I see it in Marin, but up close, it rises beautifully, and the gardens are amazing, so I offer a taste.
I’m re-reading Annie Dillard’s wonderful book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. I’ve read it many times over the years, each time with new receptivity and absorption.
Today I’m with this: What if I fell in a forest? Would a tree hear my fall?
I’m reminded that we can feel warmth from the moon shining in the night if we pause to receive.
This weekend we were at a house with wire fencing to keep the animals out of the gardens. Grandson had seen butterflies and a caterpillar, and with concern he went into the house and returned with a long strand of yellow yarn which he proceeded to weave through the wires an inch or so above the ground. He said it was so the insects would see the fence and not be hurt.
Annie in her book invites us to return to seeing like a child. I see yarn weaving through my thoughts.
