We read the stories about record-breaking heatwaves, and they are certainly not happening here. This past week has seen an entrenchment of the fog, damp and gloomy, weighing down any thought of summer – apart from the jacarandas flowering around the city, you would not know the season. The only places I have seen clear blue skies have been down in Hillsborough, at the far end of a long and exhausting bike ride on Friday, and in the afternoon in Oakland when I went over to work on Tuesday.
On Saturday, at the end of the afternoon, I went over to Land’s End to conduct a wedding, for friends of a couple I married two years ago, who were among the handful of guests in attendance. The location they had chosen was lovely, a little mound surrounded by trees, high above the waves, with the bridge somewhat visible through the low layer of fog.
The next day, a Zen-a-thon roam that I led for Zen Center was also conducted under low grey skies. On Corona Heights, the wind brought the fog over from the ocean; elsewhere it felt occasionally warm in the lee of the hills, but I kept two layers on most of the way round. The participants seemed to enjoy the little nooks and corners I took them around, and I remembered how much I enjoyed being out amid the hills and trees, whatever the weather.
On Monday afternoon, I was in the middle of a meditation using my Core, when the room started shaking gently. After a couple of seconds, I figured it was an earthquake, and told my partner (who has done her share of tornados, but not so many earthquakes), and we waited to see what happened. Which was, not much more. We tuned into the app which told us that it was a 4.0 – or 4.2, or 3.9 (the estimates varied over time) – deep in the East Bay. I checked the biometrics on the meditation, and my heart-rate had not budged. I guess I have lived here a while – and been woken up by more violent shaking a couple of times.
Shundo David Haye 