Upcoming dates:
April 17th, 18th, 26th.
May 2nd, 8th, 15th, 17th.
June 12th, 14th, 19th, 27th.
Because of some upcoming travels, there will only be four roams each in May and June.
There’s still an outside chance of rain in the spring, and these may still get rescheduled depending on the forecast. The Meetup page and the Instagram page will have the latest news if there are any changes to the plan.
All weekend roams start at 1:30, lasting around three hours, and Friday ones at 3:00, generally taking two hours. All roams are loops unless otherwise stated; I also flag any longer or especially hilly routes.
Potrero Hill, like its neighbour Bernal, is not just one hill, but a series of slopes. We have ventured around it a number of times over the years. On Friday 17th, we will do a quick loop, that nonetheless packs in a few steep climbs which take us to the viewpoints, overlooking the bay, and westward across the city.
There are a few blocks of dirt involved as well, so bring good shoes for this one. We will meet at Jackson Square, at the corner of Arkansas and Mariposa, adjacent to the bathrooms.
April 18th is the 120th anniversary of the city’s most famous earthquake, so it seemed like a good day to wander around the downtown of today.
We have done a number of POPOS roams now, but always on a Friday so as to be able to access the roof gardens and other spaces that are only open during office hours. But I have wanted to offer a weekend version enjoying the places we can still get to.
We will start in front of the Ferry Building (right by the central entrance) and on our way round across the Financial District and SOMA, we will visit a few favourite spots, reflect on the city’s history, and enjoy the relative quietness of some parts at the weekend.
This roam is mostly flat, though we will venture a few blocks uphill from the old waterfront.
The last roam for April will be on Sunday 26th.
McLaren Park is one of the biggest, and perhaps the least appreciated, open spaces in the city. I had not been there myself until I decided to include it in our roam repertoire just before the pandemic. Now we have visited several times, from different angles.
This time, I wanted to approach from the Portola side – starting at the Palega Recreation Center on Felton St – and including the Goettingen staircase that we visited at the end of last year. We will loop around the northern slopes of the park, which is part of the Yosemite Creek watershed, and naturally we will stop at the water tower as well for the views.
There are several portions of steep climbing on this route, as the park is along a tall spine, and plenty of dirt.
As I am sure you are already aware, Saturday May 2nd is World Labryrinth Day. Does this not seem like the ideal day to visit a few of the public labyrinths in the city?
I have had an idea in mind for many years to take a day-long roam to do as many as possible, but that was in the days of the Land’s End labyrinth. In this one-way roam, we will have a chance to do our walking meditation around three of the city’s finest.
We will start at Duboce Park, meeting at the Scott St side of the Harvey Milk Photography Center, where there will be a special event starting at 12:15 – you can join the worldwide labyrinth walk at 1:00pm if you like, or do it with us after our 1:30 start – and end at Grace Cathedral, home to the most famous city labyrinths. We will also visit the little-known one on Clay St on the way round, as well as visiting a couple of parks and perhaps the narrowest alley in the city.
Apart from walking in circles, we will be climbing uphill a couple of times.
I have had the next couple of routes lined up in my schedule for a while, so I thought it would be nice to do them on consecutive Fridays:
In the lee of Twin Peaks, Eureka Valley is a historic neighbourhood. Having lived nearby for a long time, I have always been fascinated by how the street grid gives way to twisting streets, stairways and unexpected open spaces.
This roam on Friday 8th will be packed with climbs, which we will take at a steady pace, as well as a fair number of dirt paths, one of which I have not explored before!
We will start and end at the foot of the giant rainbow flag in the Castro.
After tackling its northern counterpart on the 8th, we will be in Noe Valley on the 15th. It’s a lovely part of town, much of which we have explored before.
This is a newish route through the area, taking in the classics like the Harry Street steps and Billy Goat Hill, but also some of the lesser known open spaces in the neighbourhood.
We did this as a three-hour roam about eighteen months ago; this version cuts out some of the harder ascents in Diamond Heights, but as you might expect from the title, there will still be plenty of climbing over the course of two hours. We will be taking it at a moderate place, and taking our usual meditation breaks on the way around.
We will meet at St Paul’s Catholic Church, on Church at Valley.
Bring water, snacks, and layers for whatever the weather is doing. Punctuality is always appreciated.
These roams are offered by donation. They are one way I am able to afford to live in San Francisco.
‘Shundo David Haye has probably walked through more parts of San Francisco than you have.’ I’ll take that endorsement – it came from this nice article in the SF Chronicle at the beginning of the pandemic
Camille, who I have known through Zen Center for more than twenty years, had a lovely piece on Roaming Zen published in the Bold Italic.
Corona Heights – the first picture I used to promote Roaming Zen in 2016.
Views to the Farallones from this little-known park.
If you need some prompts as to the benefits of roaming, here are a trio of articles from the Guardian:
Two-hour ‘dose’ of nature significantly boosts health – study
Woodland sounds help relaxation more than meditation apps – study
Blue spaces: why time spent near water is the secret of happiness
All of which is achievable without leaving the city limits!
And this from the New Yorker:
A small but growing collection of studies suggests that spending time in green spaces—gardens, parks, forests—can rejuvenate the mental resources that man-made environments deplete. Psychologists have learned that attention is a limited resource that continually drains throughout the day. A crowded intersection—rife with pedestrians, cars, and billboards—bats our attention around. In contrast, walking past a pond in a park allows our mind to drift casually from one sensory experience to another, from wrinkling water to rustling reeds.
Or, to put a name to it, Attention Restoration Theory.
The genesis for Roaming Zen was perhaps my shuso practice period at Tassajara in 2012, where I noticed that I derived as much energy from being on the trails or up the road, among the trees and by the creek, as I did from the hours in the zendo. It was also crystalised by a visit to Tassajara with a group from Young Urban Zen a year or two later: after the days of work, a group of us set off for a hike along the Horse Pasture trail, and at one stage, hearing all the talk of people’s pre-occupations and mundane affairs, someone in the group asked if we could all hike in silence for a while and properly take in the surroundings. Afterwards, the agreed verdict was that the silence had transformed the hike.
And so, having tried versions of it at City Center, Green Gulch and Tassajara, one of my favourite things to do these days is to gather a small group of people, and lead them around a chosen route, cultivating mindful presence through walking and sitting quietly in the midst of city life.
There are so many little corners of San Francisco that lend themselves to the activity, surrounded by beauty, views, and sometimes quiet. We have visited forests, hills and canyons, creeks and beaches, staircases and alleys, lakes and hidden parks; we have listened to birds and waves, watched butterflies, bees and coyotes, smelled flowers and ocean spray. We have looked over all sides of San Francisco and to the mountains beyond.
I like to give credit to OpenStreetMap, for featuring much more detail in paths and trails than I ever get from Apple Maps or Google Maps – I would not have found some of these routes without it – and FoundSF/OpenSF History for filling me in on what used to be in the places we visit.
Shundo David Haye - Zen Priest 