where wednesday [sara]

You're stuck with me this week...ha ha! It's week 10 of Where Wednesday...enjoy!

There are many ways to arrive at the decision that a place is important to you...maybe you find yourself in a certain spot everyday, maybe a significant event took place there, or maybe you just get a good feeling in a place that makes you glad it exists.  I had one of those good feelings recently at the Green Gulch Farm.

Green Gulch Farm is part of the San Francisco Zen Center. They offer classes in meditation and farming practices, among other things. 

"Our effort at Green Gulch is to awaken in ourselves  and the many people who come here the bodhisattva spirit, the spirit of  kindness and realistic helpfulness. This is how we offer our  understanding of Buddha's Way."

The farm is nestled into the hills just above Muir Beach.  We passed through the farm at the halfway point of a long hike and saw a few winter vegetables growing, but the fields were mostly resting...the farm composing itself for the coming spring. It smelled like green. The adjacent garden area was so beautiful, welcoming, interesting, and peaceful...with trained apple trees, an adobe tool hut, herbs, and lots of little friends to stop and say hello to...

I love places that have so much effort and thought put into them, yet do not feel 'off limits' or fragile. I appreciate their ideas of kindness and helpfulness, and I've been thinking about my quick stroll through there since the moment I left. I'm sure that visiting on another day, in another season, under different conditions, in a different mindset will change the place for me (not necessarily in a negative way)...but on that day of discovery I felt inspired...I felt potential...I wanted to sit and take it all in...I wanted to be a gardener...I wanted to get my hands dirty...I wanted to do yoga in the grass...I felt happy to be there. 

Where Wednesdays are a regular feature where I and a series of guest bloggers talk     about places that are important to us, be they work spaces, outdoor  spaces, sleeping spaces, places we visit, places we live, places we drink coffee, etc. etc.

[do you want to talk about a place or space that's important  to you? let me know and I'll set you up with a Wednesday!]