Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

When we get to Thanksgiving, I always somehow get the impression that Christmas is just around the corner, but after the long relaxing weekend, we did have to go back to work.

It was an especially beautiful week to be out, though. The wind was still from the north, and the temperatures low if you weren’t in the sun in the middle of the day, but I got a full dose of sunsets and moon viewing this week.

After putting in some extra hours in the East Bay recently, I was able to get away in time for the 5:00pm ferry on Tuesday, where we were treated to one of the best sunsets I can remember – even the crew were taking pictures:

There was also a pretty sunset towards the end of the roam on Friday, when we went to Marshall’s Beach:

The tide was low enough for the small group to make it all the way to the foot of the bridge again, which we managed two years ago at the time of the king tides, but not last year when the weather was a bit more challenging.

There are more pictures of this on my Patreon today.

There was a super moon rising full on Thursday, which I didn’t manage to catch successfully, that night, but caught it before it went down on Friday morning:

It seemed brighter on Friday evening:

Even though the wind is chilly, it is much less pervasive than much of the year, so it was pleasant enough to walk over the top of the hill to catch the seasonal view on the other side:

In other news, my back is very much back to normal, which leaves me amazed at the healing qualities of the body. My talk is percolating slowly – I know what I am going to talk about, but the structure will certainly need fleshing out. There will probably be some reflections on the various shuso ceremonies, the first of which is today at City Center.

There was sad news from there this week, with the death of Mary Watson. She and Jack were somewhat in the background when I first lived at Zen Center, but they had been around since the days of Suzuki Roshi, and it was fun to get to know them a little better as I became more senior.

My favourite memory of Mary was from my last summer at Tassajara, in 2015. A rare thunderstorm was brewing quite strongly not far from the valley; it was a personal day for me, and I was set on running the Horse Pasture Trail early on; Mary was the only other person I saw out that morning, and she was positively gleeful to be experiencing the unusual weather.