Curtis' Second Post

"Marin County north of San Francisco, where I live, has a number of retreat centers associated with Eastern spiritual traditions. When Nikki arrived, I was attending a seven week workshop at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. I decided to bring my camera to one of the sessions and take a few photos with Nikki. She is a Japanese lens, after all, and this is a Buddhist center. This visit inspired me to travel to another Buddhist center, Green Gulch Farm, which is associated with San Francisco Zen Center. The first three photos are from Spirit Rock. Here is a link to their website. Spirit Rock is about five miles west of my home.

https://www.spiritrock.org/home

Green Gulch Farm located off Highway 1 south of Mount Tamalpais, about twenty minutes from where I live, is both a retreat center and a very busy organic farm that sells its produce to stores around the Bay. They also service Greens, one of the first vegetarian restaurants in the United States that was created to support the San Francisco Zen Center. Greens is on the waterfront in San Francisco at Fort Mason.

http://www.sfzc.org/ggf/

http://www.greensrestaurant.com/about-greens/our-restaurant

http://www.sfzc.org/zc/display.asp?catid=1,5&pageid=1

 

This is a monastic community with students using a variety of options for housing, including the yurt shown above. And here is the path leading toward the gardens. Monks as well as those on shorter retreats work in the garden. The food served to those residing at Green Gulch is about as fresh as it can be. I've spent a weekend at Green Gulch, have attended Sunday morning meditations that are open to the public and have attended a conference on these grounds. It is a very serene place to visit.

A visit to Green Gulch can easily be extended with a trip to Muir Beach, Muir Woods or north along Highway 1 toward Stinson Beach. I did all those things with Nikki and will share photos in subsequent posts."