Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

After spotting Mercury, Venus, and Saturn yesterday, I went with some people up the western ridge after sunset today to see them. I think experience and contemplation of the physical solar system is a good supplement to the practice here, the Dharma. Too bad I can’t force people to appreciate it. But I think it is useful to see these things in the sky and attach them to the abstract knowledge they have that these planets exist. They’ve all seen pictures of the planets, and although these tiny points of light in the sky are less impressive, there is a visceral impact looking at them, knowing that is them. That is really Mercury, Venus, and Saturn going around the sun, all in different and in similar ways.

It was enjoyable, and they did have a sense of ‘wow’, looking at those planets and Jupiter higher up in the sky. It was pleasant looking up at the night sky, and as a bonus, we watched the full moon rise over the eastern ridge. Happy Summer Solstice. Someone noted that he was up at dawn, and then there on the ridge at dusk for the longest day of the year. The weather has been nice and clear. The past two weeks have been like San Francisco with fog making days overcast, pulling back to the ocean to give a few hours of sun in the afternoon, but always chilly. Not very Summer-like. Not very satisfying.

We haven’t been having Dharma talks on Tuesday mornings since the nuns have been eating up in Solidity Hamlet, so instead we’ve had work meditation. Kind of a bummer, or can be a bummer but doesn’t have to be. If not in the mood, it’s a bummer. In the mood, the work is very nourishing. Today, a good sized team of us worked on clearing out the camping area for the retreat when Thich Nhat Hanh comes in September. They’re expecting a lot of people camping. The poison oak is pretty treacherous. Two of the laypeople already got it really bad. I got a small rub on my foot, but not from working, from skulking around Clarity Hamlet yesterday. It doesn’t itch, though, just a quarter-sized area of nasty blistering. Weird.