Community – Page 2 – Forgiveness Walks

August 21, 2019September 16, 2019

Oregon Coast Trail: Water Shuttles

August 21, 2019

“$40 cash would make that happen” I heard the voice on the phone say. John was arranging a shuttle across Netarts Bay with Zach at Big Spruce RV. This would be our third water shuttle in three days on our walk of the Oregon Coast Trail. It was 1 o’clock in the afternoon and Netarts was about 8 miles away. Not bad. We could make it. What John and Zach had arranged was a site for the night at his RV park and a shuttle across the bay in the morning, about a quarter of a mile ride. That was great because having a known place to camp plus the shuttle were two essential services we needed! read more

August 16, 2019September 16, 2019

Oregon Coast Trail: Underway

Favorite Tide Table book on the northern coast.

We slept in the van, across the parking lot from the trash compactor!

Classic landmark of Fort Stevens State Park is the wreck of the Peter Iredale

One of our first Oregon Coast Trail posts

South Jetty of the Columbia River, northern terminus of the Oregon Coast Trail

Our journey starts by walking north on the beach in Fort Stevens State Park

August 14, 2019

Our first three miles of the Oregon Coast Trail is a shakedown for the rest of the trip.

The Fort Stevens State Park staff who registered us for the Hiker Biker Site said we could park our van there for the extent of our trip! They are really supporting us as hikers, including providing a secure parking space for the whole month we’ll be on the trail! As we wandered around the back lot behind the employee area where we understood we could park, a smiling park staff said, “Can I help you?” She excitedly pointed us to the correct spot, delighted to have Oregon Coast Trail hikers. She also answered our query about where to get a tide table, a necessity for hiking the coast, with directions to Bornstein’s Fish Market, “the place with the best tide table – and good food too!” read more

August 15, 2019September 16, 2019

Oregon Coast Trail: First Day

August 15, 2019

I walked all day along the beach and didn’t have to turn back.

Last Spring, while walking on the beach in San Diego, I wondered what it would be like to just keep walking along the coast, all the way to Washington. Today, on our first full day on the coast of Oregon, I got a taste of that! I liked it! Of course, this beach, from Fort Stevens State Park to the town of Seaside, may be unique with its pure brown sand and no shells or rocks. I wore my new sandals and enjoyed them as I walked in and out of the surf. I did have a break in issue with abrasions on the second for of each foot. I taped them up with the sports tape in my pack, which isn’t as good as the self-stick gauze. I’ll have to get some. This is exactly the reason I decided to carry two pairs of shoes! I haven’t decided which is best for the mixed terrain of this walk. I switched to my trailrunners and socks for the last couple of miles. They were so much better on the dune leaving the beach and the two miles of road walk through Seaside. read more

June 8, 2019July 2, 2019

Big Sur and Dreams

June 7, 2019

One refreshing and challenging aspect of my partnership with Hiker John is that he takes me to new places! This week’s place was an area of California that’s completely different from the desert! Big Sur. Meaning the big south, it’s the 90-mile stretch of the Pacific Coast between San Simeon and Carmel, South of San Francisco and 350 miles north of Los Angeles. It’s uniquely rocky and steep, craggy oak covered mountains plummeting down to crashing breakers, broken by short stretches of sandy beaches. read more

February 1, 2018February 1, 2018

What If?

January 31, 2018

My Super Blue Blood Moon experience today filled my senses with awe and my soul with awakening! A few days ago I realized that the view I would get from my employee housing here at Anza-Borrego Desert State Park would limit my experience to just the beginning of the totality phase of the eclipse. “That’s not good enough!” I declared. As a creator of fulfillment (in difference to a settler for whatever comes), I asked, “Where can I go to get the fullest eclipse experience? I need to be able to see the horizon!” Where better to see the western horizon than the west coast! read more

January 21, 2018January 21, 2018

Job Advice Please

January 21, 2018

Summer is coming! Every year for the past seven years, the ATC offers me a ridgerunning job! I love that job! It’s work I enjoy doing and feel good at, and the venue is the absolute best for me. It’s in the dream job category of getting paid to do something I love doing. Here’s the catch, though. As the years go on, I want to add another description to the “what I love doing” category. I want to add, “supporting, inspiring, coaching others to create radiantly fulfilling walks” to my list of job duties. read more

December 18, 2017December 18, 2017

Personal Forgivenesswalk

December 18, 2017

I admit, I didn’t publish yesterday’s post until today after sleeping on it. I was not willing to be that vulnerable, to show up stuck in my S.T.O.R.Y. (Sustained Tale Of Repressed Yearning).

Well, as journeys through a Radical Forgiveness transformation go, I have moved another step along and can now recognize the value of yesterday’s upset. I was experiencing the first of the five phases of Radical Forgiveness: Telling the S.T.O.R.Y. and having it witnessed and validated. read more

October 31, 2017November 8, 2017

Sunrise Beauty

October 31, 2017

John and I have watched the sunrise together for 18 consecutive days! I had requested of him that we do something special and unique together, something that sets our partnership apart and becomes a sort of ritual. He suggested observing the sunrise together first on October 14, my second day back at work in the Visitor Center here in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in southern California. That’s an easy thing to do where we live in employee housing. Just a fifty-yard walk from our house we can get an expansive view of the horizon! We’ve discovered that the sunrise is unique every day! The colors and clouds play with each other differently in combinations and patterns that astound us anew each day. We’ve also noticed that the effects of the sunrise, light playing on the east facing mountains, varies markedly as well! The mountains just west of our house catch the magenta pink glow of the first light. We have to watch carefully, though, because sometimes the pink begins a partial minute before the sun shines above the horizon. Sometimes, it appears at exactly the same time. One morning, the flat brown hue lingered, as if the glow just didn’t get turned on! read more

August 30, 2017August 30, 2017

Thanks, Louise Hay

August 30, 2017

Louise Hay passed away today. Her work gave language and acceptance to self-love as a path to loving others. It was my sister, Claudia, who first shared Louise’s words with me. I remember taking the cassette tape into bed and listening, with amused astonishment, to that deep, soothing voice enticing me to be grateful for every little thing in my life. At the time, it actually seemed a bit silly to be thankful for the morning light, and for my body’s basic functions, and for water, and breathing. Her visualization of walking to the ocean of abundance to scoop up goodness, asking, “What are you using, a teaspoon?!!” really jarred me. Aghast, I noticed that I was! read more

May 28, 2017May 28, 2017