2.14.2003
If you will be in the San Francisco Bay Area next Friday, the 21st of February, I'd like to invite you to attend:
Rhythms of the Sacred, Songs that Awaken and Heal
Presentation Theater, USF @ 7:00pm
Mosaic Multicultural Foundation is presenting the evening. Through their work with at-risk youth and with refugee populations, they've put together a collection of music from various cultures and traditions. The traditions, stories and rituals surrounding these songs will be presented by Michael Meade, Malidoma Some, Jack Kornfield, Orland Bishop, Julia Chigamba and Zimbabwean Dance and other teachers and performers.
These are songs that have been used by people across cultures in order to gain a sense of coherence and sanctuary. In these dark times, when the rattling of the swords and the din of rhetoric are so loud that we can barely hear ourselves think, much less hear each other. These songs and rhythms can help bear the burdens of living in harsh times.
Sunday, the 23rd, will be a workshop exploring ways to use song and other forms of ritual to bring healing and to steady the heart and the mind in difficult times.
Both events are benefits to support Youth and Elder Peace Initiatives. Donations are suggested...Call 800-233-6984.
posted by Lisa Thompson on 3:19 PM link | comments []
Some pictures from last weekend's post:
Looking back into Drakes Bay from Chimney Rock. Click for larger (282KB)
A younger male tries to make landing. Click for larger (132KB)
But the bigger male chases him back into the waves. Click for larger (111KB)
posted by Lisa Thompson on 8:58 AM link | comments []
2.9.2003
Out on the point at Chimney Rock, we are almost surrounded by water. Drakes Bay fans out like a blue oyster shell to the left, San Francisco sits far out in front of us across the sea, and the cliffed shoreline to our right heads north to the outermost point where the lighthouse sits. It's surprisingly hot after a night of frost. We hear the sonorous barking of sea lions from the buoy that sits about 1/8 mile out, and the low foghorn that doesn't cease despite the blue clarity of the sky. Waves crash at the foot of the cliffs below us to the right, and gentler waves lap below to the left. Birds call: gulls and occasionally a sparrow or phoebe, and from far off the strange throaty calls and bellows of Elephant Seals.
We watch GoldenEyes and Harbor Seals dive and from here can follow them for several feet underwater until they disappear. Three Sea Lions float upside down in a raft of fins and flippers. They drift with the current, slowly at first, but once they hit the mouth of the bay their speed increases. It takes serious study and suspension of awe to even determine how many of them there are, which fin belongs to whom: a frieze of sea angels.
The Elephant Seal colonies are beached here until the pups are weaned. Then the females will lumber off into the ocean, while the pups form peer groups and begin learning to swim in the surf until they eventually head off to sea themselves. Today, we see around a hundred of them, but apparently there are now 1500 pupping on our shores. The females come here for two reasons, to give birth and to become re-impregnated. Their mating system, where the strongest bull males mate with a large number of females takes its toll on the male population. We see a big male occupying a small stretch of beach alone. His flanks are covered with old scars, but the entire neck area below his snout as well as part of his head are pink and raw from recent fighting. A smaller male appears at the surfline and lets the small waves move him meter by meter up the beach. (He is marked with the number "13".) Finally he begins to use his flippers to push his huge self further onto the sand. But the bigger male isn't having it. He turns and slowly moves toward the interloper, then in a surprising burst of speed rushes the smaller male, chasing him back into the sea to find another beach. Afterwards, the big male raises his head to bellow in triumph. Later, we see what we think is this unbeached male cruising into Drake's Bay, seemingly in no hurry to try another landing elsewhere.
In another inlet we find a small colony: one huge male surrounded by twenty-one females and their fourteen pups, and just outside this priveleged circle, seven younger males are strewn about the sand. We watch for quite awhile. The pups aren't weaned yet, so this colony will stay here awhile longer. Aside from one skirmish between the females which doesn't come to serious blows but involves pushing, bellowing and biting that looks more like threat behavior than something meant to cause injury, this group looks relatively peaceful. They're like a big family that enjoys each other's company, lying skin to skin for hours and days, but that bickers ocassionally. One of the pups begins climbing over bodies to make his way outside the circle, and each of the females it passes gives him a bite on the flank. He finds a spot about 15 feet from the group and lies down.
In the surf the body of a pup rolls in and out with the waves. Crushed in a fight, or by an ill-timed sleepy rollover? Hard to say, but a friend of mine found another body with its head crushed on another beach last week. My guess is that until these youngsters begin to swim and become prized appetizers for the Great White Sharks here, being crushed by mom or dad would be their biggest worry.
It's whale migration season here too, and we are not disappointed. We watch a small pod pass, blowing and surfacing but not breaching. We also see a score of sea lions porpoise by and join the buoy group.
Besides the sightings I've already mentioned, we are priveleged to see Common Mergansers -- male and female, Common and Red Throated Loons, Double-Crested, Pelagic and Brandt's Cormorants, Surf Scoter, Horned Grebe, Bufflehead, Brown Pelicans, Turkey Vulture, Kestrel, Glaucous Winged Gull, Western Gull, Red Tail Hawks, Common Ravens, Black Phoebe, Song, White-Crowned and Savannah Sparrows, a Gopher, and a about a hundred deer in one large grouping spread out over the hillside above Elephant Seal Overlook.
My love for this place grows deeper by the day.
posted by Lisa Thompson on 12:28 PM link | comments []
Copyright 2003 Lisa Thompson. All Rights Reserved.
