Summer 2023



Dear EarthWays Community,


This is a most unusual summer for EarthWays, to be sure. What makes it so unusual is that once the Men's Fast was completed on June 9th, there will not be another program until September 14. A whole summer without a program, due to sabbaticals, retiring, and other engagements.


However, this does not mean you cannot remember and engage with deep earth time! Here are some suggestions:


~ Sit Spot: every day, take a few moments to sit quietly in the very same spot to notice who is there, how it changes. Slow down to look and be aware.


~ Ask a friend to do a DayWalk with you ( or half day). Sit together first, share intentions, step over e threshold marker ( stick on ground, or through an arch in trees) into sacred time, and meet back after to tell your stories to one another and reflect back what you heard.


~Pick a summertime practice; observe as many sunrises and sunsets as possible, grow plants for bees and birds, try a new hiking trail, or even walk your neighborhood with new eyes.


So, until Fall, get out there and enjoy the wonder of the earth,


Scott, Vanessa, Roy, O, Logan, Cynthia, Sahara


From the Prosaic to the Poetic

Scott Eberle & Roy Remer


Nearly ten years ago, the two of us did a personal four-day fast in the Mojave Desert along with our fellow EarthWays guide and dear friend, Cynthia Eisho Morrow. In addition to sharing the spiritual practice of a wilderness fast, all three of us have had a strong connection to a Buddhist meditation practice. Cynthia is an ordained Buddhist priest of the Japanese Tendai lineage. Roy has been a student of Soto Zen Buddhism at the San Francisco Zen Center for many years (at present, he also serves as Executive Director for the San Francisco Zen Caregiving Project). Scott has had a Vipassana practice for years, much of it cultivated on numerous retreats at the Spirit Rock Meditation Center. At the end of that Mojave fast, the three of us began dreaming of a week that would combine both of these interests: sitting on the cushion and walking in the wilderness.


And so, born that day was “Meditation Retreat in Nature.”


Despite this rather prosaic name, MRiN turned out to be a fabulous experience. We offered this weeklong gathering three times over the next four years, each time calling in a group of friends for a wonderful blend of sitting and walking, walking and sitting. All of that has served as inspiration for a new EarthWays offering, which also combines these same two practices. But before we could offer this to the world, we needed to come up with a more poetic name.



Here we have it: "Quiet Forest, Quiet Mind."


Cynthia is presently on sabbatical this year, focusing more intently on her own spiritual path. Meanwhile the two of us—Scott and Roy—are looking to offer this newly named, but similarly framed experience in a four-day, three-night format. Participants do not need to have a well-developed meditation practice to come, just a willingness to sit quietly in the forest with their own monkey mind, while also having time to go ambling through surrounding forests and meadows.


If you are interested, check out the EarthWays website listing:

Quiet Forest, Quiet Mind


Or you can write to Roy, who is handling enrollment for this program:

Roy's email

Gratitude to Local Land Stewards

Thank you, Land Paths!


In the past, we have had the great fortune to be able to use LandPath's Lands for EarthWays programs. Maybe some of you have been to Ocean Song, Bohemia Ecological Preserve, or the Grove of Old Trees?


We want to honor their amazing place in this community: they are a TRUE Local Treasure. They have many opportunities to get involved. Check out their offerings on their website:


https://www.landpaths.org


LandPaths is an environmental education and conservation leader with the mission is to foster a love of the land in Sonoma County. We believe everyone should have access to the awe and inspiration of nature.



Summer Reading Recommendation


Embrace Fearlessly The Burning World



Barry Lopez


“Lopez did not take the task of writing lightly. . . . Sentences shimmer and punch. . . In one of the 27 essays that are collected here, he tries to pin down the point of it all: ‘The central project of my adult life as a writer,’ he says, ‘is to know and love what we have been given, and to urge others to do the same.’ . . . He loved this world, and did his best, and pointed us the way.”—The New York Times


I miss Barry Lopez and always was deeply moved by his writings.

This final book was no exception!

(Sara)



https://www.ptreyesbooks.com



GREAT SWIMMER


I'm working on the whale stuff—

did a whale witness when a whale stranded 

out at Limantour Beach at Point Reyes.

 

The whales eat tiny crustaceans that cannot

make their exoskeletons without calcium.

 (Less calcium in the water as the oceans acidify).

 

The whales are starving.

 

I just sat with the dead whale

When people paused beside it,

I gave them this tiny poem:

 

Great Swimmer

We pray you travel swiftly

To the Other World

May you find your kin

May you swim in safe seas.

 

It was a conversation starter.

Families read it together.

One young woman started crying and just couldn't stop.

 

Of course, that made me cry, too.

 

Elizabeth Herron

Sonoma County Poet Laureate, 2022-2024


Hey, here's a wonderful summer song!



"There's a Wilderness Within You"

by Parker Millsap


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