Mesa Writer's Refuge --- Day 245

Walk: Mindful Body, Sacramento Street
Distance: 2 miles and teach yoga class


One of my writing friends who has been a resident artist there was the first to make me aware of The Mesa Refuge, a writers' retreat in Point Reyes Station an hour north of San Francisco.  When I had a place out there I would hear occasionally about the Refuge, but it was a quiet place not seeking attention, and I respected that so never attempted to locate it. Then last week one of my yoga students, who is an author and - turns out - has spent several residencies at The Refuge, invited me to a late afternoon gathering to raise money for a new roof.  So, finally, I had the opportunity to go there on a perfect, sunny, relatively windless day.

It is a lovely place, so serene I'm not sure writers do much actual writing there.  I suspect something more important than productivity is elicited in this environment.  Deep contemplation, renewal, inspiration, profound connections - these types of things.  In some ways you can write almost anywhere, but the inspiration that can accompany prolonged, protected solitude in natural beauty is really to live in a state of grace.  And then to take it with you back to your place of writing.

From the website:

Mesa Refuge History

The Mesa Refuge was created in 1997 by Working Assets co-founder Peter Barnes, who acquired and donated the property to the Tides Foundation. Since then it has provided shelter and inspiration to over 500 established and emerging writers, including Michael Pollan, Terry Tempest Williams, George Lakoff, Frances Moore Lappé, Natalie Goldberg, Jerry Mander, Lewis Hyde, Rebecca Solnit, Van Jones and many others. Books about ecology, democracy, justice and hope have been birthed here.

A note from Peter Barnes:

I started the Mesa Refuge because, as a young writer, I came to appreciate two things:
(1) the need of writers for uninterrupted time to think as well as write, and
(2) the particular magic of the Point Reyes area, with its wild and human-shaped beauty.

I wrote my first book while living on a ranch near Point Reyes in 1969. Later, I spent time at retreats in upstate New York, Bozeman, Montana, and Bellagio, Italy. Each of these experiences confirmed for me what the poet, Mary Oliver, has so beautifully said:

"No one has yet made a list of places where the extraordinary may happen. Still, there are indications. It likes the out-of-doors. It likes the concentrating mind. It likes solitude. It isn’t that it would disparage comforts, or the set routines of the world, but that its concern is directed to another place. Its concern is the edge, and the making of form out of the formlessness that is beyond the edge."

Today, these words adorn a wall at the Mesa Refuge. And I have seen time and again how true they are — how two or four weeks of ‘writing at the edge’ can be transformational for emerging writers, and rejuvenating for established ones.

http://www.mesarefuge.org/history

Day 244

Walk: Mindful Body
Distance: 10 blocks and take two yoga classes

No more conventions for '4 more years..'   Yea!  Back to business as usual: computer tech appointment that lasted three times longer than anticipated due to glitches, windows cleaned (whole new world!), Serena in the finals again, days shorter, Jeopardy and dusk soon.  Early autumn in many ways.

Catching Double Rainbows --- Day 243

Walk: Fillmore Street, de Young (Oceanic Art Lecture), Corte Madera return (warning: watch the dye in those cheap pants)
Distance: @2 miles





Last evening, San Francisco, CA  --  Real Pictures.  Imagine being at the park and seeing this!

Oh, so that's how you give a speech --- Day 242

Walk: Union Square, USF/Fromm Institute, Yoga Tree Hayes
Distance: 3 miles and take yoga class



Beginning


   Middle



End


FLAWLESS

Bye Elephants, Hello Donkeys --- Day 241

Walk: CPMC for 2 annuals, Mindful Body
Distance: 3 miles and teach yoga class

Here come the Democrats for three nights.  I want to hear Michelle Obama but am not sure when she will speak.  Also looking forward to seeing Bill Clinton again. 

Labor Day 2012 ---- Day 240

Walk:  Yoga Tree Hayes from car
Distance: 10 blocks and yoga class




Not exactly sure what Labor Day means these days. But hope you had a good one.

Mountain Lake Park Lore --- Day 239

Walk: Mountain Lake Park
Distance: 4.5 miles

There are places where San Francisco loses its coastal feel and turns East Coast or Midwestern.  One of my favorites - maybe because it is the closest - is Mountain Lake Park.  It has all the ingredients I remember from walking to watch my younger brother play Little League Baseball in a little park a few miles from our house.  Playground, baseball field with little boys swinging bats at least as long as they are, tennis courts.  It also has the largest fresh (?they're working on that right now) water lake in San Francisco (maybe beyond; I'll have to research) and a small beach where the ducks, gulls and other birds that aren't in the water walk among the picnicking/sunbathing families and children building sand castles and wading.

Among these birds for many years was a huge white swan named Myrtle who began by discreetly hiding in the reeds on the far side of the lake. But as the years went by, perhaps because she realized the beach was a bonanza of food scraps, Myrtle came out of the reeds and onto the beach much to the delight of the grownups and children. After a while, for her own swan reasons she occasionally nipped at a child or two.  This was tolerated because Myrtle was an institution by now.  But eventually she began leaving the beach altogether, running up onto the lawns and playgrounds, hissing and nipping at everything in her path.  I believe bird behaviorists were sent, but, one morning Myrtle was gone.  Turns out the powers that be relocated her, but the even more powerful powers (parents, etc) used their clout to have Myrtle returned.  So, return she did, and resume her aggressions she did, racing after children at breakneck speed until finally, quietly it was agreed that Myrtle would leave for good.  I don't know where she went; another thing to research.***

A few distinctly San Francisco aspects of Mountain Lake Park: 1. Its 14 acres were designed @1875 by William Hammond Hall who was influenced by Frederick Law Olmstead and who designed Golden Gate Park  2.It was once inhabited by a white alligator.  Nobody is sure how it got there but it certainly was a surprise, and removing it became quite a famous event because the editor of our paper, The Chronicle, a former Navy Seal married at the time to Sharon Stone, decided to save the city from this threat.  His mission was not a success although local reporters had a blast with it, and the alligator was removed by animal control whose job it actually was.  I don't know what happened to the alligator either.



Myrtle deciding what to do with all this tranquility.

***
My telling is apocryphal, according to the word around the neighborhood at the time of the events. For more factual accountings, here is a 1997 biographical article about Myrtle from The Chronicle:  http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Feathered-friend-on-the-mend-3239920.php 

And here's The Chronicle's 1996 accounting of the gator's removal: http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/The-Tale-of-the-Mountain-Lake-Monster-As-the-2967233.php

Back times 2 --- Day 238

Walk: Mindful Body, Clay Theater (Searching For Sugar Man - again)
Distance: 2 miles and teach yoga

Felt good to be back teaching today.  Then went another time to a movie I think warrants that - and that I highly recommend. There is much in it that affects.  For me, the music is not that compelling, although I really like the purity of the singer's voice.  On the other hand, Variety Reviews' Dennis Harvey says:  Rodriguez's music definitely bears further exploration for fans of literate balladeering.
Maybe go yourselves and decide.