Elf Land (Sunol-Ohlone Regional Park)

I love the feeling of returning. Seeing these open hillsides of scattered oak again is a relief of sorts. Landscape is something I’ve always been sensitive to, and I feel more aware of different aspects of myself here – I am a different person here than I am in Washington, but recognizable. My roots in Washington are deep – the sword ferns and cedar trees and winter wren song feel like my part of my soul, but part of it is here too. So, there is joy for me in being here and also a sadness that it is so fleeting. But I also have learned to appreciate the small amount of time I have in some of these places because it makes it that much more precious. I can’t return if I don’t leave.

I love the freedom of wandering the hills. The fences here have gates that open, and they are meant to be walked through. Today we climbed Flag Hill, high above our camp. Feet on the dark, rich soil it seemed I could feel it’s strength and life flowing up through my and into my body and the sky was so close. It filled me with energy so big that I had to run. To be high up, walking through meadow and open forests, feels like flying with the red-shouldered hawks and turkey vultures that ride the thermals below us.










I love tracking, but I don’t always love to stop and look at individual tracks for very long…. I just want to know who made it and then keep going, preferably following the animal. At midday when our two groups meet, Marcus gets right down in the mud with a set of tracks and starts asking great questions about gaits and foot morphology, pulling me into looking more closely. Almost before I realize it I’m imagining the creature that left the tracks, picturing how it was moving as it left them, and feeling in my body what it might be like to be that creature, moving in that way. What would the air have felt like on my skin? What smells were on the air? What are my predators and what is my purpose in the moment? The tracks were those of a newt, and we found dozens of them mating in a pond just over the hill and past some cows.

I love birds and I will gladly stop in the middle of the trail and nerd out on the subtle differences in voice that indicate “mood” or distinguish one species from another. I also love to share these things and ask people the questions that help them learn to distinguish without my telling them. Nuttal’s and Acorn Woodpeckers call from the oaks, surrounded by flitting Plain Titmice and Chestnut-backed Chickadees. A Brown Creeper spirals it’s way up the trunk of a tree, and California Towhees forage on the ground punctuated by the occasional familiar Spotted Towhee. I am pleased to have so many people asking to look through my binoculars…

I love to play. After lunch there was a spontaneous break into a very childlike place of being fully uninhibited and in the moment, and making games from whatever is present – playing with the world… Racing Matt through the meadow to the fence around the old barn (he’s really fast), and turning to watch the rest sprint towards us with their eyes closed. The fence became a balance beam for Yusuke, and Ryan came around the corner of the barn with PVC pipe he found for jousting.










I love plants, even though I said to my group at the beginning of the day that I wasn’t interested in stopping to look at plants. Returning to camp by a different route we walked down a ridge through lanes of grandmother oaks, on carpets of miner’s lettuce, chickweed and stinging nettle just starting to rise from the soil. The miners lettuce here is lush and vibrant, with leaves as big as the palm of my hand and thick like spinach. We grazed, nourished in body and soul by this abundant land.
In a different life (or what seems like it now) I found pleasure in wandering the hills and mountains alone or with one or two others, and resented the presence of larger groups on the trail. Here though, at Wilderness Awareness School, and with this group of people something has shifted. I am grateful for the company of people in different life-stages, from different backgrounds and perspectives, and with varied interests. Everyone here has a passion for something in life and in nature, and we interact with the whole of life and this experience more fully together than I could on my own. At our lunch stop some of us watch vultures soaring, some talk about children and watch a pocket gopher emerge from it’s burrow, and some go gather nettle and miners lettuce for our evening salad. Forty of us are spread across this landscape climbing rocks, tracking newts, watching coyotes and climbing trees – and at the end of the day we come back together to share our stories, sharing in the lessons and beauty of this place.

I love these people who I’m blessed to work with and teach and learn from. I love my life. I notice that again, sitting here in the evening before dinner writing this blog next to Kristi as she scrolls through pictures from our day. They are beautiful pictures and capture a moment in time, in my life, in our lives and as I look at them I am amazed and thrilled that I was there, a part of those pictures of people who are clearly having a great time. I hope you enjoy them too ☺

Tomorrow I will post this from the road as we head further South to Quail Springs Permaculture Farm. A stark and beautiful landscape, scarred by deforestation and erosion, but healing now through the watchful eyes and loving hands of it’s caretakers. I will leave you with a picture of the forest floor on the move. Great trunks of oaks like pillars with a high ceiling of green. A carpet of brown leaves, dry so quickly after the rain, that seems to shift and jump from one place to another. Dark-eyed juncos, perfectly camouflaged to this place, feeding in a flock and moving in fits and starts. If there were elves, they would live in these hills…