Today three weeks ago, my journey to California and to the May Call Day celebration at Mount Shasta started. In a few blogposts, I would like to share some impressions of this intense time. It was a pilgrimage to sacred places and sanctuaries of nature and above all to an inspiring group living with about 350 members from various places around the globe.
I could not participate in the mid-May group living with Sri Kumar in Miami followed by a sightseeing tour organised by WTT America.
However, Chuck, an American friend and a retired professor of psychology, had invited three friends and me for a tour through Northern California.
On 17 May, I flew with Mathilda from Zurich to San Francisco; Birke and Astrid came from Frankfort, and Chuck picked us up at San Francisco Airport.
They way through the customs went faster than we had expected, just 1.5 hours. Soon we were driving southward on the freeway 101.
The sun was already setting with a beautiful Taurus full moon shining over the hills when we arrived at the estate of Anu and Murali in Morgan Hill – a spacious garden with flower terraces and a beautiful huge villa on a hill.
Anu had invited us to come to their home although she was at the seminar with Sri Kumar in Miami. But her husband Murali and his parents, who had come from Visakhapatnam, gave us a warm welcome. And slowly a long day of 33 hours came to an end.
It was the night of the Vaisakh festival, and so we tuned into the energies with a profound morning meditation.
Later in the morning, our travel group set out to Monterey. I avidly absorbed the impressions of the beautiful landscape. In Monterey we made a stop at the harbor. It was an open day of the national Marine Sanctuaries. We had a look at a ship of the coast-guard which was surrounded by seals and seagulls.
Later we drove along the coast and walked a while through the wet sand of the bay. Old wind-torn cypress trees overlooking the rocky coast decorated impressive views over the Pacific Ocean.
After lunch in a huge whole foods market, we drove to a nearby mountain. A winding road led through lush vegetation until we arrived at a Vietnamese Buddhist monastery hidden in a forest next to Mount Madonna County Park (Kim Son Monastery 574 Summit Rd, Watsonville, CA 95076). Clouds were hanging deep and created a mystic ambiance. A retreat was going on in the monastery and so we could not have a look inside. At the parking there was an enclosed depot with huge statues of Buddha, Quan Yin and other saints – east meets west.
On the way back we stopped at a huge old tree standing in the middle of a crossroad and tuned into the energy of this old messenger of the plant kingdom.
