A volunteer shares, “I usually sleep late on Saturdays to make up for rest of the week but it was a great opportunity to hang out with fellow meditators at the beautiful Muir Woods so I didn’t want to miss it. My alarm rang early – I did my practice, had breakfast and was off to Muir Woods. It was a chilly morning but it was a clear day and what a gorgeous drive. Met up with other Ishas there – around twelve of us and perhaps a total of over 100 volunteers. We chatted a bit and then got to work as part of the ‘Blue Heron’ team. Some of us were ‘flossing’ – taking mulch out from between the wooden boards, while the rest were weeding. It was a little challenging in the beginning with numb fingers, but we got used to that soon.
The park staff thought this was the perfect activity for us meditators – because flossing was meditative….and I would say they weren’t entirely off! It was fun working together with others and interacting with other volunteers. We were rewarded by some beautiful sunshine within a couple of hours and greeted by a lazy banana slug too! We took a break around 11am for our practices. We were creative – hustled a few chairs and sat in the sunny part of the park and some did Shoonya while others did Isha Kriya. After enjoying the sun, it was back to work…we wrapped up around 12:30 and then had a great vegetarian lunch served to all the volunteers. We again found our favorite spot in the sun and enjoyed our lunch with hearty helping of jokes. Then it was time to bid adieu….all in all a wonderful morning close to nature and friends and got an opportunity to get a physical workout for a great cause! Thanks to the volunteers for organizing this event and hope more can join us for future events.”
Another volunteer shares, “The trees [Redwoods] were just monstrously grown behemoths. They were just huge, and I heard that most of them live to a 1000 years and drink 500 gallons of water a day. (That’s a lot of water, thank god they are near the ocean, I thought). That’s quite a history standing right in front of me. The woods hike was just fantastic. It was dead silent yet completely vibrant. I wished I could just stare at that silence forever. But finally after 10 hours of an awesome day, it wastime to say good bye to Muir woods. What an intense day it was. I would do it anytime again.”
Photo courtesy of ParksConservancy.org
A few brand new volunteers joined for this event too:
“It was a great day to be outdoors, and it was also my first time meeting members of Isha SF Bay. I would love to get together again with the Ishas.”
“The volunteer experience was awesome and met interesting people. A Saturday well spent!! I was looking for a yoga and meditation group for a long time now and I am glad I found the Isha foundation. Also, I signed up for the IE online classes and its going good so far.”
Great job everyone!
Great story SF Isha volunteers! You are an inspiration to me and I am sure many others!
Awesome !
Wow..That’s a wonderful way to spend a Saturday. Good going SF Team!!
Thi is lovely you guys!
Thanks for posting. It is, like many have expressed, very inspiring move! It is nice way to share our volunteer professional skills and it is good for the community :)
Love,
Bhakti