Aug27
Monthly Archives: August 2019
Aug26
River of Nourishment
About six months after the October 2017 fires, I received Stanford’s Compassion Cultivation Training (CCT) from Sylvia Dolce. I was most interested in learning the difference between Empathy and Compassion. I already knew they accessed different parts of the brain, and I learned that Thupten Jinpa, one of CCT’s main gurus, says “Empathy focuses on the problem and Compassion focuses on the solution ‘What can I do?’.”
About a year later, Sylvia Dolce taught Restorative Self Care specifically for fire and trauma survivors. In one of the exercises, she gave the students a circle of paper to take home and asked us to draw what we needed for self care. In my drawing, Compassion is the river. Dr. Dan Siegel says that all mental illness can be categorized as Chaos or Rigidity. The riverbanks of tangled underbrush signify Chaos. The rocks signify Rigidity.
The dense thicket on the banks tries to trap me in chaos,
but I will never get anywhere if I stay on the shore.
I pick my way out to the Rocks of Resentment
Rigidly clinging as the water rushes by.
"Look how hard I'm trying!"
I barely notice that I am stuck.
The sunshine of safety warms up my courage.
I release the Resentment and slip out into the flow
of the River of Nourishment,
Buoyed by the Bounty of the Goddess.
Aug24
Jackie Visits Berkeley
My sister Peggy lives in Novato and my sister Laurie lives in Portland. Laurie’s daughter, Jackie, came to the Bay Area for the funeral of her father’s mother, Esther, which was held in Walnut Creek. Jackie works for a hotel chain which provided lodging for her at the Graduate Berkeley, so Peggy and I drove over to take her to lunch at Cafe La Mediteranée. Notice the “Big Bang Theory” artwork over my head in this selfie taken in her hotel room.
Jackie, Anet, Peggy
Aug18
Larry and Nancy Get Married
Larry and Nancy have lived next door to Martha for many years, adjacent to Annadel Park and overlooking Spring Lake. Martha values their close friendship which developed over many dinners and rides to the airporter. They cook for each other as part of a monthly dinner group, and celebrated my birthday once with a great meal and cake.
Nancy was the one who urged me to take genealogy classes, overcoming my resistance to going to the LDS church classroom where they were held. I got to meet many of Larry’s hunter-friends, and sampled some wonderful venison chili. We all brought food — my contribution was my Irish Caponata: everything is gently sautéed in olive oil, no deep fat frying of the eggplant. The photographer captured this wonderful image of Martha in the late afternoon light.
The bride and groom about to cut the cake — can you find me in the picture?
While none of my cellphone pictures came out well, I certainly enjoyed taking them, and celebrating with Larry, Nancy, Martha, and Susan (in turquoise).
Aug16
Camp Fare
It has been over 100° in Santa Rosa for a couple of days. To avoid cooking, I am enjoying my favorite camp fare: previously grilled chicken thigh, quinoa, and caponata (eggplant, zucchini, peppers, onions, capers, olives, vinegar).
Aug13
Perseid Meteor Shower – Wrights Lake
The sky would be as dark as possible after 2 a.m. on Sunday August 11 because that’s when the bright, three-quarters moon set. I rose from my tent and walked to the end of the pier (see below). Walking in the dark in the pre-dawn hours in an unfamiliar place, using red cellophane rubber-banded over my flashlight to retain my night vision, was a challenge. The lake pier was only about half a mile from my tent, but it required several turns. Distances seem so much longer in the dark. There were audio cues, like the water rushing over the dam, and roadway cues, like the bridge just below the dam. When I reached the cow catcher by the park entrance, I realized I had made a wrong turn and had to retrace my steps in the dark.
The meteor shower was beautiful. I saw about four in 30 minutes, sitting in my little green fold-up chair on the pier. While the vast sky was great, next time I will find a meadow to lie in with my sleeping bag. Our camp (site 60 in the RV area on the south side of the lake) was in the trees that ringed a meadow. Sites 61 and 62 were in the meadow in the center, just across the narrow paved road. Earlier in the day, we hiked toward Rockbound trailhead and Dark Lake and found this beautiful meadow. Trey took this photo using my cellphone.
The Rockbound trailhead is the gateway to many stunning vistas and is very near the tent campground on the west side of the lake. I would love to someday set foot in Desolation Wilderness.
Here is the map with notes for tent camping and kayaking. Note the rocky tent sites near the Rockbound Trailhead. These sites are have comfortable privacy but they are a long carry from the lake. Sites 1-3 are close to the small beach adjacent to the pier which is a good put-in, and they are well removed from the day use area which can get noisy. The RV area is called Meadow Loop on the south side of the lake. Trees rim the meadow, so the sites on the outer edges have more shade. The RVs use bright motion lights at night and the generators can be noisy in the afternoons as they provide air conditioning, so it is not ideal for tent camping. There are clean pit toilets and good-tasting cold water from the spigots. A very enjoyable campground when you choose your site wisely.
Dark Lake is just above the Rockbound Trailhead and has a nice, small, beach put-in right by the road. One would have to move the vehicle to the nearby parking. Notice the little squares on the map on the north side of Dark Lake. These are summer homes that have been grandfathered in by the Eldorade National Forest. There is a nice path around Dark Lake, pictured below.
The Wrights Lake campground did not open until after the Fourth of July because of the late May snow. About a week before it opened for camping, Trey and others camping at Ice House Reservoir had driven over to check it out. They were able to paddle the small lake and liked it so much we returned six weeks later. The campsites can be reserved through Recreation.gov until about mid-October, the Camp Host told us, and then it is walk-in (first come first served) until snow closes the camp.
My efforts to get to Utica Lake for the annual meteor display have failed for the last three years due to smoke from forest fires and insurmountable logistical difficulties. I was so happy to get a chance to join photographer Trey Steinhart and his wife Becky in this area named for the dairy farmer who worked the land until about 1950. The drive from Santa Rosa took four hours on a Sunday morning in mid-August. The tricky part is making a left turn on Highway 50 which is only a two-lane mountain road in this stretch just a little north of Kyburz. Thank the stars that a space opened up just as I needed to turn.
The sign above appears just about where the “31 min” indicator is on the map below. The six miles are to the turn onto Route 50, north of Kyburz.
Aug7
I Read Two Books
This is notable because my library use had plunged over the past three years. I read Michael Pollan’s “How To Change Your Mind” for a Gnosis discussion. I couldn’t believe he spun nearly 500 pages on how hard it was for him to get high. I learned very little, except that he started about forty years late and had medical issues about trying things without a cadre of doctors and licenses. Sigh.
I just finished Michelle Obama’s “Becoming.” Maybe she is charming and funny in person, but the book was a grind about how hard her life is. I am hoping it was deliberately written to the eight-grade level, the way the Early News is. How can a 40-year-old woman not know that the First Lady’s job is to plan state dinners, roughly once a month?
I’ll admit that growing up in the Washington, D.C. area, pretty much all the high schools girls knew this, regardless of race. And we all knew that the motorcade stops traffic, but not for long. I’m sure her post-9/11 security was way worse than it was during the Eisenhower and Kennedy years when I lived there. I realize now some of the qualities Barack saw in her were tenacity and stamina. Sometimes, being first lady is hard like coal mining is hard. The story of her first Inauguration Day, for example. The book ended with her sounding grateful to be getting out alive.