Beach Walking in Santa Monica

A Few Good Terns

2011-11-19T17:01:00.000-08:00

Rain last night and a sky full of spectacular clouds at 8 am today... the beach full of seagulls and sandpipers, but also a few royal terns... So spiffy with their fluffy upturned black feathers behind their ears, like Jimmy Dean or some other '50s rock star. The one on the right kept squawking at the guy in the center... he was imperturbable. (Or was he squawking and she impertubable?)

Dogs Not Welcome

2011-10-07T16:53:00.000-07:00

Dogs aren't allowed on the beaches of Santa Monica, Venice, Redondo Beach, etc.

People are working to get one beach set aside as pet-friendly. So far, no luck.

But today at dawn Stormy and I ventured out to Dockweiler Beach. We jogged on the bike path and made a brief photo stop near the breakers, but a lifeguard drove past and informed us that the fine for her outing would be $500 if he chose to ticket us.

No more beach trips for you, Stormy.

High above the beach...

2011-09-30T23:41:00.000-07:00

Today Roz and I walked the dogs on Inspiration Loop in Will Rogers State Park, about a thousand feet above the Santa Monica beach.

Just as we began, there was lightning, thunder, and rain... but later a partial rainbow and dramatic sunset.

We so seldom get huge dramatic clouds here... enjoying the beauty.

Last photo: looking south toward buildings and beach of Santa Monica with Palos Verdes Peninsula off in the distance.

Laguna Beach

2011-09-25T00:33:00.000-07:00

A walk on Laguna Beach with Sharon Billings, Karen Torjesen, and Jeanne Sales...

Cloudy and cool... but still beautiful.

Waves too big to surf

2011-09-20T13:02:00.000-07:00

Stormy waves arrived from New Zealand... 10-12 ft. high.

For the first day or two, no one surfed.

Then the brave ones ventured out again.

Shakey Quakey

2010-10-25T13:24:00.000-07:00

One of the fun things about beach walking in Santa Monica--and life in Los Angeles in general--is that The Big One could occur at any time.

The 6.7 earthquake a few days ago, Oct. 21, in the Gulf of California near La Paz and Cabo San Lucas, is a reminder of this fact. If you draw a line from the fault this quake occurred on, it goes north to about where the San Andreas Fault ends.

The Pacific plate is grinding north against the North American plate, and currently the movement is occurring right about on this continuing line.

Today there was a much smaller quake near Bakersfield, not far from the Tejon Pass, site of the biggest earthquake in California since records were kept.

That earlier Big One was in 1857 on the southern half of the San Andreas with ground rupture visible from near Parkfield CA down to Wrightwood (not far from San Bernardino). It was magnitude 7.9.

Here's the info on it:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/states/events/1857_01_09.php

The only buildings around at that time were Fort Tejon, some houses in Gorman, and a few ranches. Only one person died in that quake--when an adobe in Gorman collapsed.

Quakes have occurred on the southern section of the San Andreas fault about every 150 years, so we are due for another movement any time now.

This morning's 3.7 quake occurred in a field near Mettler CA on Highway 99 south of Bakersfield, 20 miles north of the San Andreas. Here's the info on it:

http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/recent/ci10826277_l.html

From the Santa Monica beach to Bakersfield to Palm Springs, we will all have front row seats for the next time the Pacific plate moves five or ten yards north against the continental US.

The 6.7 Gulf of California quake on Oct. 21 occurred at 11:53 am--an hour and a half after The Great California Shake Out at 10:21. This earthquake drill was the third widespread duck-and-cover exercise in California--the first two just in SoCal but this one observed throughout the state.

The shift in Baja California was almost in sync with the scheduled drill. Good vibrations.

Big Surf

2009-07-25T12:38:00.000-07:00

Weather from the south is bringing 20-foot surf to some California beaches, 10-foot surf to others.

I went to look at it this morning.

"Oh my God!" was my first reaction.

I've never seen such big waves on the Santa Monica Beach.

Some people were in the water with boogie boards but not close to the big ones, and at 10 am no one was surfing.

Waves maybe ten feet tall towered over people standing in the water fifty feet from them.

Hundreds of people were standing on the beach watching each one roll in, occasionally saying, "Oh my!" Many people were sitting under umbrellas.

Lifeguards were running up and down the beach holding above their heads an orange floatie with handles on it. I guess that was supposed to mean, "Stay out of the deeper water." They were also talking to people who looked inexperienced and were too far out.

Yesterday a man body surfing was thrown against the rocks of a jetty in Newport Beach and was drowned.

See http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-beaches25-2009jul25,0,3538892.story

Solar Eclipse in India

2009-07-22T15:52:00.000-07:00

By leaving India on July 18, I missed the longest total solar eclipse of the century.

Many people watched it from the steps above the Ganges in Varanasi.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-4806910,prtpage-1.cms

Tribute to the Fallen

2009-05-25T21:56:00.000-07:00

Every Sunday on the Santa Monica beach we see crosses placed in the sand for lives lost in Iraq---4,300 this Memorial Day weekend.

Veterans for Peace organizes this weekly tribute and protest of the needless loss of life.

Back in Santa Monica

2009-04-17T21:00:00.000-07:00

It's good to walk the Santa Monica beach again, but the beach of nothern Sjaelland near Odde is still in my mind.

I watch pelicans circle, then plunge into the water, black against the orange sunset sky.

I look at all the seaweed washed up by recent storms.

The waves here are larger than those in Denmark--this ocean stretches to Asia. This sandy beach stretches flat and wide, while so many beaches in the world have only a foot or two of sand.

I can't see Orion at sunset any more because it's low in the sky when the sun goes down. After dark I look up and the Big Dipper is in the right place, no longer overhead. The North Star lies far to the north again, not close to vertical as it was near latitude 60.

This world: so much beauty and mystery.

What a privilege to travel around it, observe the variety of its wonders.

O YHWH, our maker, how majestic is your name in all the earth! -- Psalm 8:1

Herre, vor Herre! Hvor herligt er dit navn over hele jorden.

On the Beach in Sjaelland

2009-04-10T23:00:00.000-07:00

We took a ferry from Aarhus to Odde in Sjaelland on a long narrow peninula and stopped the car to walk on the northern beach of a sea called Kattegat.

It was a warm, sunny day there--but brisk and windy later in Copenhagen.

On that beach were many large chunks of glassy flintstone in black and reddish brown. Material for axes and the tips of spears, I realized, and picked up several stones.

Later in the day we visited the National Museum of Denmark, where the prehistoric exhibit showed many flint tools and said the flint was found on northern beaches of Sjaelland.

Never have I seen knife-sharp flint on any other beach.

Under the North Star

2009-04-09T00:36:00.000-07:00

This week I've been walking Danish beaches in Roskild (former capital of Denmark, originally a Viking town), Copenhagen (no beaches, just ports and canals), and Aalborg (near another old Viking town with the largest number of Viking gravestones).

After rain yesterday, the sky cleared last night and I looked up at the stars but couldn't find anything familiar.

"It's because of the full moon," I concluded, wondering what the snake-shaped stars above my head were.

Not finding Orion or anything familiar in the south, where the moon was rising, I turned to the north and saw two pairs of bright stars I didn't recognize.

Now really puzzled, I looked for the Big Dipper--and realized the snake above my head was its handle pointing directly south.

Then locating the North Star, I realized it was almost directly overhead--strange place for it to be.

I'm far north of my usual location in Los Angeles and southern Colorado--but far enough north for that star to be almost overhead? I forgot to bring a sky map with me, so I can't really get my bearings at night.

In our hotel on Aalborg's outskirts, the second floor rooms have no windows except two sky lights. At 1 am the moon shone directly in on my bed.

There was no way to close the window, so I lay there until it passed, wondering at the night sky here.

Wind and Waves

2009-03-15T00:24:00.000-07:00

Today at sunset a strong wind blows ashore, making high surf. The newspaper says 4-6 foot in Orange County and 3 foot surf here, but the waves here dwarf people standing offshore to swim and body surf at sunset.

Pelicans like the weather, flying north along the shore in a steady stream of pairs and lone huge birds. Occasionally one torpedos into the choppy water to nab a fish.

Children run back and forth, chased by small waves.

After the sun goes down, beach patrol cars drive along the beach ordering surfers and swimmers to come in.

The moon refuses to rise, instead chasing around the bright side of the globe toward the sun.

I witness all this, and perhaps that's what we are here for: to witness.

A Long, Long Way

2009-03-13T23:04:00.000-07:00

We're close to the spring equinox. The sun sets at 7 pm and rises just after 7 am (of course, it's really 6 pm and 6 am, but we're giving ourselves an extra hour of daylight in the evening.)

I arrive at sunset and start jogging southeast toward the Venice break-water, invisible in the dusk.

Instead of shuffling along as I usually do, I decide to step long and high like some other joggers I encounter, but this soon tires me.

Then I'm asking myself, "Why did you think it was such a good idea to jog all the way to that breakwater and back?" It's maybe 3/4 mile each way or less, but at the moment it seems

far

away.

Why We Need The Beach

2009-03-12T23:49:00.000-07:00

Today I'm stuck in traffic on the 10 freeway, which reminds me of how important it is to everyone in Los Angeles to get to the beach, the mountains, a garden or a park whenever possible. It's the only thing that can keep us sane.

Sea Food

2009-03-11T23:07:00.000-07:00

Sometimes after walking on the beach I stop at Santa Monica Seafood to buy fish for dinner. Live lobsters from Maine... cooked shrimp... filets of swordfish and salmon... crabs... cod and yellow trout... a wonder to gaze upon.

Sunset, Moonrise

2009-03-10T22:13:00.000-07:00

A magical evening at the beach as the sun sets:

Windsurfers careen up and down the coast just beyond the breaking waves.

Seagulls float lightly on the airstream flowing ashore.

Plovers skitter on the sand and foam.

The full moon rises amidst tall buildings, just above the streetlights.

All's right with the world--or so it seems from the Santa Monica Beach.

Kayaks and Plovers

2009-03-08T22:47:00.000-07:00

I'm tuned to the sunrise and sunset. Though the clocks have changed, I still get up as the sun rises and jog when it sets. Tonight it sets at 7 pm, however, instead of 6.

It's still windy but the adventuresome are out. Two people in kayaks paddle where the waves crash, occasionally riding one to shore without planning to.

Tiny plovers skitter near the waves, their bodies floating above legs that whirl like cartoon characters.

I stand close to the waves to take photos until one catches me and I'm wet to the ankles before I even start jogging. That's never happened before.

It's the Sabbath: nothing to do but play and rest.

Delight in YHWH, says Psalm 37:4, and you'll be given the desires of your heart.

What a command.

Okay, YHWH, I'm here delighting.

A Dark and Stormy Night

2009-03-06T22:25:00.000-08:00

Overnight we had wind and rain, with more cold wind today, so the beach is deserted.

I don't arrive until 6:10 pm, fifteen minutes after sunset. Stiff wind points each palm's fronds directly east.

There are no footprints anywhere, just wide stretches of pristine rippled sand.

Overhead the growing moon pulls the ocean to high tide and blots out Orion.

Venus stands lower in the western sky each evening.

I jog south to Venice in the darkness and return, thinking This is the last day it will be so dark at 7 pm.

What a relief that daylight savings time will start.

Greediness

2009-03-03T22:06:00.000-08:00

I come to the beach at sunset, eager for joy and beauty, greedy to capture it in photos, but the camera's battery is depleted.

The western sky is a thousand shades of pastel colors: blue, mauve, pink, peach, yellow. I want to carry photos home in my pocket, proudly paste them into my blog--but tonight I have taken an involuntary vow of poverty.

Does God rejoice in the changing beauty as much as I do? I wonder. Does God too want to hold onto particularly beautiful scenes, however transient? Or is every thing and every moment equally beautiful to the Creator?

I'm trying to accept my camera-less state when someone walking toward me stops and holds out a camera. "Would you mind taking my picture?"

"No, I'd be happy to," I laugh.

"Someone back there said no," she continued. "I guess she was afraid of me."

"Yeah, it's pretty scary here on this beach," I joked, taking several shots at various angles, silhouetted against the sunset sky and then with the fading light on her face.

She walked on, and so did I.

Beach People

2009-03-01T21:45:00.000-08:00

It's a warm Sunday, and the beach is full of people, even at sunset: children making sand castles or splashing in the waves, adults swimming or just gazing westward.

Santa Catalina Island stretches across the horizon to the south.

On the cement walkway by the parking lot, people on bicycles, low dune-buggy tricycles, roller blades sail past. Couples walk arm in arm, and homeless people sit on benches sizing up passersby.

On the sand near the waves, joggers pass each other wordlessly, not breaking the other's silent meditation.

We are agreed: "To bless whatever there is, and for no other reason but simply because it is, that is what we are made for as human beings." --David Steindl-Rast

What Does Venus Do?

2009-02-27T22:18:00.000-08:00

It's a glorious evening, three days past the new moon. When it gets darker, the moon stands in the west like a small smile with a dimple to its left, Venus.

As I stand there taking photos, a fresh-faced, bearded young man with scraggly hair and a backpack comes up to me and asks with excitement, "What's happening? Do you know what that is up there?"

"It's Venus," I say. "Venus and the moon next to each other. Beautiful, isn't it!"

"Yeah," he says, gazing up. "Yeah. What does Venus do?"

"I don't know. I have no idea," I say.

In my class on women and religion, I require my students to know the various Greek goddesses and their interests: Artemis, Aphrodite (aka Venus), Hera, Demeter.

But I think he means something else, like the astrological properties of this planet. I'm stumped.

"Yeah, I just thought you might know," he says, gesturing toward my big camera, on loan from John because he's in New York with my mini one.

"Well, actually, Venus is the second planet from the sun, closer than we are, and it's up there circling the sun, like that," I say, drawing a big circle with my arm around the vanished sun.

"And the moon is circling us, and they happen to look like they're next to each other tonight."

"Cool," he says.

"The moon was down there, below Venus last night, and tomorrow it will be further up in the sky, about that far from Venus," I continue.

"Okay, thanks," he says, walking away, leaving me still asking myself his question:

What does Venus do?

Ash Wednesday

2009-02-25T22:49:00.000-08:00

Much to reflect on tonight, walking in the dark on the quiet beach.

The slender moon, two days old, hangs beneath Venus.

"Dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return."

I look it up in Hebrew: "Afar atah, v'el-afar teshuv."

My sister Emily says this dust has several possible meanings, from worthless dust to interstellar dust from which all was created.

We are stardust, as the women of Sacred Emerging would say.

Why do all the church services leave out the address of this verse, Genesis 3:19? I think we don't want to be reminded that these beautiful words come from God's words to the man after his first sin.

T.S. Eliot captured the sadness of this day best in his poem "Ash-Wednesday 1930":

Because I do not hope to turn again

Because I do not hope

Because I do not hope to turn...

[I] pray to God to have mercy upon us

And I pray that I may forget

These matters that with myself I too much discuss

Too much explain

Because I do not hope to turn again

Let these words answer

For what is done, not to be done again

May the judgement not be too heavy upon us

Glory

2009-02-24T22:29:00.000-08:00

A glorious evening for running on the beach.

Bless YHWH, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless God's holy name.

Bless YHWH, O my soul, and forget not all God's benefits, who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases. -- Psalm 103: 1-3

All this beauty spread across the sky, and then it's gone, replaced by darkness.

Where does the sunset go?

Earth and sky and sun make a kaleidoscope of changing colors and pictures, always changing, no matter how much we want each beautiful scene to stay.

Beachless Days

2009-02-23T12:08:00.000-08:00

Today is the fifth day that I can't take time to walk on the beach.

It feels like not going to church.

The sky is overcast but without drama, like a curtain between me and God.

The events that called me from jogging were good--a Sacred Emerging time of singing with Carolyn McDade and thirty-five other women, a Women-Church worship service, and today the preparation I need to do to teach tomorrow.

May I remember, "From the rising of the sun to its setting, let the name of YHWH be praised" (Psalm 113:3).

Even without the pleasure of dancing before Her on the sand.

Terns Turn Up?

2009-02-18T23:59:00.000-08:00

I've never seen these birds on this beach before, five of them standing casually among the seagulls at sunset. Are they terns?

Bright orange beaks and short black legs...

Where did you come from? Anyway, welcome!

Sunset Prayers

2009-02-18T23:37:00.000-08:00

Seagulls stand on the sand, facing the setting sun.

Humans also feel the sunset call to prayer, wherever they are.

A woman sits with outstretched arms as the sun sets.

Another bends to pick up bottles and debris from yesterday's storm, placing them in the bag she carries--her kind of prayer.

A man jogs backwards to see the sun set.

We're all built with a receptor that reads this golden light as a time to pause, perhaps to praise.

High Surf

2009-02-17T21:36:00.000-08:00

For a change we have weather: gusty winds, lightning, hail, heavy snowfall in the mountains, possible waterspouts while thunderstorms pass over the ocean. Our two links to the world, I-5 and I-15, are closed by snow, but by evening the rain in Santa Monica has mostly stopped.

I arrive at the beach at 6:30 pm, too late to jog the length of it, because I've been gathering and mailing information for my mother's last tax return to her CPA.

Going through all her records took me into the last two months of her life before she died last April.

That difficult time fills my mind now as I stand at the stormy beach after dark, looking at the high surf and turbulent sky.

I try to jog but stumble on trash washed up by the storm; better to walk.

The very first storm drain, usually covered by sand, has become an uncrossable stream. Each wave of surf pushes up the channel against the water gushing out.

I turn and walk back in the dark, grateful for a time to reflect and be alone with God and nature.

From 2003, when I brought my mother to California, through last April, I didn't have an hour in the late afternoon to spend at the beach. Every day by 4 or 5 pm I visited my mother, if I hadn't already been taking her to the doctor or some other appointment.

Sometimes I took her in her wheelchair to the pier and walked there with her. If I jogged, it was usually at dawn.

I'm stunned by the difficulty of my life a year ago, juggling her needs and mine as she faced her decline and death.

Regrets come to mind: why didn't I spend the full day with her on the day before she died? (Because I thought I had to teach my class, and I didn't know it was her last day.)

As I walk north, I realize the ferris wheel on the pier with its programmed kaleidoscope of colors is still displaying Valentine's images: hearts and the word L-O-V-E spelled out in sequence.

I smile and my mind eases.

There's so much mystery--but also love.

Under the Planes

2009-02-14T22:04:00.000-08:00

Jogging just south of Marina del Rey this evening... Dockweiler Beach, west of LAX. Homes above the beach have a great ocean view!

No one on this beach, a little spooky after sunset. Near the inlet to the Marina, there's a 40' sand berm above where I was jogging. What if a big wave came in, I thought, and I had to run up that sand hill? That would be a challenge.

Then, on the way back to the car, I passed this sign:

Leaving Tsunami Hazard Zone.

Weather for a Change

2009-02-07T20:52:00.000-08:00

After the hottest January on record, day after day of empty skies and unseasonable heat, we suddenly have weather.

For two days we've had cloudbursts pounding off and on at the roof. They left two feet of standing water at my freeway exit, Cloverfield Blvd.

Three storm drains sent water pouring into the ocean, cutting through the deep sand to make mini-canyons.

It's not raining this evening, so I'm happy to run on the beach and breathe the fresh air.

I have to take a running leap over the remnants of the streams or else walk nearly to the sidewalk to get around them.

Near one of the streams is a group of people bending over the ground, either doing mouth-to-mouth on someone or starting a small fire.

It turns out to be a campfire, forbidden on this beach--amazing that I can jog here a hundred times and still see something I've never seen before.

After days of flat, calm water the waves are loud and powerful tonight.

On the way back, brilliant Venus peeks through the clouds, and I glimpse Orion's belt too. In the east the almost full moon rises.

"How can I keep from singing?" echoes in my mind from the Feb. 6 daily reading in Open Mind: Women's Daily Inspiration for Becoming Mindful by Diane Mariechild.

She quotes part of the traditional hymn:

My life goes on in endless song
above earth's lamentations,
I hear the real, though far-off hymn
that hails a new creation.
Through all the tumult and the strife
I hear its music ringing.
It sounds an echo in my soul.
How can I keep from singing?

Smooth Sailing

2009-02-03T20:30:00.000-08:00

A serene evening with a Santa Ana weather pattern, hot winds from the north east deserts instead of the ocean. That leaves the water flat and calm, waves small with only a light slap as they turn over.

The daytime is too hot for this time of year, in the 80s. Kids are swimming in the ocean, even after sunset.

Bountiful Beauty

2009-02-01T20:44:00.000-08:00

I pause to look northwest, toward Malibu and the Santa Monica Mountains, before jogging down to the Venice breakwater.

This evening, as February begins, there's nowhere else I want to be.

I'm astonished at all the beauty on this planet and in the surrounding skies.

When I leave Colorado, or Iguazu Falls, or some other beautiful place, I feel sad to return to Los Angeles, but the truth is that there is plenty of beauty, wherever one turns.

Artemis and Aphrodite

2009-01-29T21:11:00.000-08:00

The sun has just set, leaving a thin line of gold as if someone had made a short mark on the ocean's far edge with a flaming pen.

Two geese fly over me and the palm trees lining the boardwalk.

Behind one palm shines Venus, and below it the crescent moon.

Below the dry sand stretches more beach wide and flat at very low tide, shining with gold because there's no incline to drain the water.

I jog down to the Venice pier, exulting in the streak of rose-orange that grows at the horizon.

As I come back the rose fades, but Venus and the crescent moon shine over my left shoulder, blessing me.

In Greek mythology they are Aphrodite, goddess of love, and Artemis, virgin goddess of the hunt.

Usually they live far apart, but tonight from earth they seem to stand together, blessing everyone on all the beaches, hills, and plains.

Lights glitter on Palos Verdes Peninsula, in Malibu and Santa Monica.

For the moment all the day's work and the earth's sadness have vanished. It's enough to be jogging on the beach with these two presences looking down.

Spring at Mt. Baldy

2009-01-25T17:48:00.000-08:00

Mountain walking today near the foot of Mount Baldy near Claremont:

Grass is fresh and green after the rains.

Young yucca plants burst with symmetrical energy like firecrackers.

Boulders of white quartz and granite lie in piles, washed down from above.

Snow Walking in Colorado

2009-01-01T11:48:00.000-08:00

I leave today to drive to Colorado for a week and have no internet access there, so there will be no blog entries.

If all goes well, I will soon be walking amid waves of bright snow--that is, after negotiating icy roads and probably putting chains on the tires a few times. (Not my favorite thing to do!)

Sunset on 2008

2008-12-30T20:56:00.000-08:00

The year ends with a beautiful conjunction of Venus, the crescent moon, and Jupiter all in a line pointing down into the ocean toward where the sun has set--and then just below and to the left of Jupiter, Mercury as well.

The planets didn't show up in my photograph, so I offer only the beach at sunset.

Mercury in its tiny orbit will soon turn back toward the sun, while Venus still rises toward Aquarius. I am amazed at the width of its orbit and can't even visualize how wide Jupiter swings--it seems stationary just east of Sagitarrius, a marker for the reach of both Mercury and Venus.

I do my first beach jog in four weeks, having let the end of the semester, the Christmas rush, and visiting family members deflect me from exercise. Last week's storm has sculpted the sand, making a two-foot bench where there used to be a smooth slope.

Two days ago I walked with my mother-in-law on the boardwalk, past the various offerings of the sidewalk merchants and past the drumming circle--not a real jog. We saw Venus, Jupiter, Mercury and even the faint line of the beginning crescent moon in its first day past the new moon phase.

New Moon with Venus & Jupiter

2008-12-01T19:56:00.000-08:00

Fog rolled in again this afternoon, much deeper than yesterday, so walking at the beach while a spectacular show moved invisibly overhead was not an option.

Driving up to the Santa Monica mountains above the Getty, I found what I wanted: clear sky with the crescent moon now above sparkling Venus and smaller Jupiter.

Tomorrow when the moon hopscotches further away from these two, I'll jog on the beach even if a blanket fog covers me.

Holy Night

2008-11-30T19:32:00.000-08:00

Fog from the Pacific drifted in about 4 pm, making the splendid conjunction of Venus, Jupiter, and the new moon impossible to see.

No point beachwalking in the fog with a spectacle like that taking place just above the mist, so I drove to up to the mountains, just above the Getty Museum.

Clear sky stretched above the soup bowl of clouds--and the crescent moon below brilliant Venus (-4.3) and more distant Jupiter.

I watched until the crescent turned orange and set behind the hills, pulling the planets after it.

The first day of Advent, of the new year in the Christian calendar...

O holy night! If only the beauty of the heavens could create peace on earth.

Smoky Days

2008-11-16T11:59:00.000-08:00

Again, not a good day to jog. Even on the beach, the air is hazy with ash and smoke, the scent of fire is strong.

Sunset came just after 4 pm yesterday as the sun turned into a huge red ball and descended into the bank of smoke blown over the ocean from the fires to the east.

Today it rose similarly, an eerie orange glowing from within the tan smoke covering the sky. Like yesterday, the disaster sixty miles away appears both on my television screen and in the air when I walk outside.

Weather reports for today are "smoky and sunny with decreasing winds gusting up to 40 mph."

I'd been planning to visit a church in Santa Clarita today, then decided against it because freeways in that area were closed, but at 7 am today it looked doable, so I went.

Interstate 5 was almost empty, so I flew up it, observing fresh billows of smoke from the northeast near Pacoima Reservoir, below which Sylmar lies. North of Hwy. 118, near the Sesnon fire of a month ago, a ridge of orange flame burned to the left of the freeway.

I turned onto Hwy. 14 and drove past blackened hillsides dotted with white wisps of smoke from various trees and bushes still smoldering. To my right billowed huge clouds of an active fire behind the first ridge.

The service at The Sanctuary, a Foursquare Gospel church, was worth the drive. www.thesanctuarychurch.com Even at the 8 am service over 100 people sang praise songs before two huge screens with words and photos, led by an eight-person band.

The pastor preached on "Crossing the Gay DiVide," urging members to reach out in love to gays and not batter them with the need to change their sexual orientation. He asked for contributions to give $10,000 to the LA Gay & Lesbian Center designated for AIDS/HIV services--to balance the $2500 the church gave to Yes on Prop. 8.

After church there was a strong wind; clouds of smoke just south of Hwy. 114 were reddish brown and billowing more dramatically, but the sky was brilliant blue elsewhere.

As I drove back to Santa Monica, I entered the smoke plume coming from Orange County. The sky turned from blue to yellow-brown.

I thought of my sister and her husband preaching at Presbyterian churches in Orange County today. He is a chaplain to OC firefighters and they expected to be up all night last night.

It will be warm today, but I'm keeping my windows closed in an attempt to keep ash and smoke out of the house; even so, the scent inside is strong.

Walking for NO on Prop 8

2008-11-03T19:43:00.000-08:00

I made a new friend today: George Finger from Staten Island, New York, who flew to California a week ago to work for the NO on Prop 8 campaign.

He'd never been to California before, so he took a few hours out of his training for election day efforts to drive to Santa Monica and see the beach here.

Proposition 8 is the second attempt in the last ten years to ban gay marriage in California.

George is straight and married, but his Christian convictions and his friendship with a lesbian woman led him to be here this week. That friend Jeanne Sales is also my friend, and she suggested he make a side trip out to see the sights and meet me while he is here.

He works as a chaplain with Education for Ministry, a program of theological education-at-a-distance, http://www.sewanee.edu/, and identifies as both an evangelical and liberal Christian.

We drove out to Point Dume in Malibu, where I take all first-time visitors to the Los Angeles area. A walk on the cliffs above crashing surf, a beautiful sunset, and a Mexican meal back in Santa Monica--who could ask for more?

Tomorrow he will be up at 4 am to be at the polls in Claremont before 7 am, where he will provide information on Prop. 8 to anyone standing in lines 100 feet from the voting booths.

On Jogging

2008-10-20T22:49:00.000-07:00

"I'm going to jog on the beach," I announce, leaving the house at 6 pm this Sunday evening.

Actually, I don't give a hoot about jogging.

My real goals are solitude, beauty, and the presence of God.

I'd like to go sit on a mountain top for an hour, but starting from sea level in Santa Monica, I can't do that and be back in time to serve dinner at 8 pm.

I used to go sit on the beach, but I'd feel guilty as the joggers whizzed past, so I've joined them.

I avoid the sidewalk crowded with bikes, runners, and walkers. On the sand, dodging waves, I'm alone except for a few others I pass.

I've had a lot of human interaction today, driving to Claremont with three other women, participating in a women's liturgy, and driving my friends back, then talking to my husband and two daughters at home.

I need some alone time, but to announce that while walking out the door would feel anti-social. Jogging, I say. Everyone approves of exercise.

The beach give me beauty as well as solitude. The sky is luminous, wide and open with a band of pink deepening to red where the sun has set.

It's low tide with a huge area of flat wet sand for running, wider than Wilshire Boulevard.

Sixteen pelicans fly southeast. Venus appears in the darkening sky. Beneath a line scribbled across the low sky to the north, the Santa Monica Mountains are solid blue-gray as if filled in by chalk.

Where there's solitude and beauty, God's presence is usually not hard to feel.

Often I catch hold of some Bible verse and repeat it as I jog. For tonight, Psalm 42 will do:

As the deer longs for the flowing stream, so longs my soul for you, O God.

Then I'm driving home again, taking chicken out of the oven, trying to pry my daughters from television and the computer, John from a playoff game for the World Series, so we can eat together and then retreat to our separate worlds.

Fire in the Hills

2008-10-13T21:47:00.000-07:00

Not a good day for jogging.

A brown smear across the blue sky erased the Santa Monica Mountains this morning as I began my drive to work.

Usually winds from the ocean blow gas fumes east, but today Santa Ana winds from the Mojave Desert sent soot and smoke directly southwest to my neighborhood.

Taking the 405 north over Sepulveda Pass, I saw a white plume on mountains to the northeast and soon entered the driving smoke storm.

Palm fronds churned and other trees' branches flapped in the wind channel at Nordhoff Blvd., my exit for the CSU Northridge campus.

The campus itself was only occasionally in the direct blast when wind direction shifted but leaves and trash flew through the air.

Don't exercise, don't breathe, the administration advised in an email. I already had something like a smoker's cough just from walking too fast.

With the 210 freeway closed and the 118 just north of campus soon to close, only half the students showed up. It's Columbus Day but not a day off for CSUN.

At 2 pm with the fire about a mile north, my department chair came around to say classes were cancelled. I didn't tell her my husband had called two minutes earlier from the LA Times with that news and a report that two deaths had been caused so far by the fire.

Stopping at a gas station to fill up, I had to shield the tank from drifting flakes of soot.

A year ago yesterday Malibu Presbyterian Church burned to the ground.

It's the old joke, California's four seasons: fire, flood, drought and earthquake.

October Twelfth

2008-10-12T19:47:00.000-07:00

October 12 and time grows short in the northern hemisphere, daylight time, that is.

I arrive at the beach at 6:35 pm, but the sun slipped under the ocean horizon at 6:22. The burst of rose gold on every tree and western-facing building has gone, replaced by grey.

A month ago I could arrive at this time and still enjoy the sunset, but now I must arrive at 6, punto, or jog mostly in the dark.

Every year, every day we have this reminder: the light fades. Darkness grows. Perhaps that's why the earth is tilted, rather than a perfect vertical on the plane of its orbit, so that we will learn to "number our days," as Psalm 90 in The Book of Common Prayer says. If every day were exactly twelve hours of sun and shadow, we might learn to expect sameness, eternal life. Instead our days wax and wane, as our lives do.

Yet we "do not go gentle into that good night." We want the light to continue. Every sunset has sadness as well as glory.

When I texted Marie a few weeks ago, "Today's the fall equinox," she texted back, "Ah :( I don't want there to be less sun."

Last January 10th or so, when the staff of Sunrise Assisted Living finally put away the Christmas tree and decorations, my mother commented, "I don't want Christmas to be over."

I argued with her, "They're just putting the things in boxes--they'll be out again next Christmas."

But she knew there would be no more Christmases for her. The twinkling lights were put away for the last time, and she was sad. Three months later, she died.

I've turned sixty now, and I keenly feel the lesson of the fall months as the daylight hours shrink. Yes, the sun itself will burn out eventually, scientists tell us, but homo sapiens had figured that out thousands of years ago. We had learned to fear that the sun might not come back; we built bonfires to help it return.

As I jog, the full moon stands high in the southeastern sky to my left, and Santa Catalina Island floats purple and serene forty miles across the water directly south. It's a beautiful night.

A pile of fresh flowers catches my attention, lying on the higher sand a few feet from the advancing waves: pink and red roses, orange glads, a touch of yellow too--none with stems, just a mound of blossoms offered to the sea.

The sky swells rose, then crimson, where the sun had been, a parting gift to everyone on the continent's western shore. Darkness spreads from the east.

Near Venice Beach the beat of a drum circle grows louder than the surf as I approach. Someone is swinging blue lights on a six-foot rope, like a juggler.

I pass couples embracing, groups of people sitting on the sand to face the sunset, attentive.

"You go, girl!" a female voice shouts at me, and I smile back, laughing at the implication that I'm a real runner, like my friend Mike Smith who ran the Long Beach Marathon today. Her words remind me that there's a culture here of watching and appreciating jogathons, triathlons, and such events--even my humble efforts, my first jog in two weeks.

At the Venice breakwater, I turn and jog back. It's dark now but there's still a band of red at the horizon. I stumble over an invisible pile of seaweed.

As I pass two dark figures sitting on the sand, the strong sweet scent of marijuana drifts on the air.

I'm still thinking of my mother, who died six months ago, just past the spring equinox, how she wanted to hang on to lights and life.

The lilac bush I planted in Colorado has felt the first soft touch of snow, has shivered under a snowfall of two or three inches by now. Have its leaves dropped off? I wonder.

My mother's ashes lie underneath the lilac, secured by sod, serene. I know she's happy to be there where the wind blows and snow falls, no longer trapped in Sunrise Assisted Living.

And is it light or dark where she is?

The hymn in church today declared,

When we've been there ten thousand years,

Bright shining as the sun,

We've no less days to sing God's praise

Than when we've first begun.

She's beyond the waxing and waning of earth time, sun time. Perhaps she is indeed in the presence of great, eternal light.

It's been six months since her death, I say, six circlings of the moon.

But she does not count days and years: if she has consciousness of some sort, she knows only eternity and praise.

I stand gazing at Venus low in the sky, Jupiter, and Saggitarius. Black and grey have replaced the bright sunset; evening chores call me to return to earth time.

Ugly

2008-07-24T10:53:00.000-07:00

I wake at 4:15 am, still on Rio time, and try to go back to sleep, finally getting up at 6:30 and driving to the beach.

I deserve an early morning jog because I've just returned from two weeks of travel; I need to reconnect with this bit of earth and sea before returning to the drudgery of normal life.

I expect the Santa Monica beach to look a bit drab after Rio de Janiero, but I'm not prepared for ugly.

Overcast with heavy morning fog, the sky and sea are grey and flat. I can see nothing in either direction--no mountains north or south, no Santa Catalina, just the pier in grey to the north and the line of low buildings stretching south to the Venice breakwater.

It's a very low tide, so at least there's a wide strech of firm, walkable sand turned solid by the repeated wash of small waves. The waning moon must be pulling from the west, moving toward a noontime plunge into the ocean.

The water is dirty brown green, and when each wave finally peters out on the flat expanse, it's pushing yellow froth that remains on the sand after the water recedes. The bubbles collapse and leave a line of yellow circles, an archipelago marking the waves' furthest advance.

Why do we pump our sewage out a few hundred yards from shore? I wonder. Isn't this supposed to be a civilized place? Rio has favelas but keeps the water on its beaches clear and clean, except in the inner harbor where ships dock and unload.

At the breakwater, I startle crabs who scramble sideways across the rocks to escape my view.

A woman is dancing ankle deep with the ocean waves as her partner, so I attempt a samba.

There's beauty in every corner of the world, I tell myself, but it's hard to be back in Santa Monica after the stunning morros and beaches of Rio.

Fourth of July

2008-07-04T23:26:00.000-07:00

** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** At sunset a huge smoke plume from fires north of here obscures the Santa Monica Mountains: Big Sur and Goleta are still burning, as well as areas in the Sierras and around California.

I also see a black layer of smoke at the foot of the mountains, extending from today's fires in Malibu eastward toward Pacific Palisades and Santa Monica.

The air is pungent with fires and firecrackers, cigarettes and marijuana.

Tonight's tide is two feet lower than on July 1, giving me enough room to jog on wet sand, but at 8 pm there are still hundreds of people on the beach. The air is 75 degrees, the water probably close to that, though the sun has set.

I dodge soccer balls and frisbees, sandcastles and excavated pools, families, children, lovers, elderly women walking alone.

I'm wearing a light jacket that has two inner pockets, my cell phone in one and my car keys in the other, but it's too warm so I tie it around my waist, hoping nothing will be bounced out of those pockets.

About a hundred yards down the beach, I realize the phone is missing. Yikes--all my phone numbers, four days before I leave for a big trip. As I turn and start running back, the keys fall out of the other pocket and a big wave erases footprints where I had been walking.

My cell phone, somewhere down the beach, being washed out to sea? Not again--this happened two years ago. How could I be so careless?

Slowing down, I study debris on the beach in the growing darkness: clumps of seaweed, food wrappings, the handle of a broken shovel.

Suddenly I see a young Latino man coming toward me with his hand outstretched, my cell phone lying in it. I must have just jogged past him.

"Oh, thank you so much!" I cry, taking the phone.

He smiles and turns back. I open the phone and yes, it's still working though a little wet and sandy. He must have picked it up quickly, before a wave covered it.

Brimming with relief and gratitude, I start jogging south again, keys in one hand, cell in the other.

The Venice breakwater is fully visible today, though tide's still high and I can't walk out there.

I take a photo of the red and smudgy sky and start jogging back, illegal firecrackers exploding around me on the beach and in the sky. I'm jittery, startled by each one, resolving to jog in the morning on the next Fourth of July.

Dogs, also illegal, and their owners appear on the beach as usual after dark, and the scent of marijuana wafts past me more often.

A thin white sliver of moon appears in the sky, turning orange as it descends into the smoke. Later I check and see, yes, we are two days past the new moon.

I stumble into a hole filled with loose wet sand, probably dug for a child and just now sloshed with sand by the waves.

The sky glows a deeper rose now, and the ferris wheel on the pier in red, white and blue changes from a pinwheel to a rotating Gothic Cross to a rumpled American flag pattern. With blue and red in the sky, white in the crashing waves, I don't need any more spectacle than this.

At home John and I celebrate the Fourth by eating hotdogs grilled outside, and I don't tell him about losing my cell phone.

Very Pacific

2008-07-01T22:52:00.000-07:00

The bowl is full this evening, spilling onto sand, almost lapping the wooden ramps of lifeguard stations. I've never seen a tide this high.

There's no room for jogging, just a choice between deep dry sand and sloshy ocean transgressing the North American continent.

It's 8 pm as sun sinks behind the Santa Monica Mountains, red sky smudged with grey by fires further north.

How pacific the ocean is at this moment, though still capable of sudden, sly swipes toward my shoes. Dimly after sunset I see two surfers bobbing in small waves not strong enough to ride them to shore. One slosh of salt water forces me to sprint a few yards inland on deeper sand.

The Venice breakwater has become just a broken string of small rocks occasionally disappearing in the waves. Sea stars and anemone stretch, crabs stalk far below water, enjoying the rich diet this tide brings them.

Instead of walking there, peering into crevices and hopping from boulder to boulder, I'm standing forty yards away where shore is tonight, the higher bank of sand now under assault.

Early July sky stays bright long after sunset. At 9 pm Scorpio still is invisible except for the red glow of Antares, and Jupiter is the only planet I can see among the planes taking off from LA International Airport.

A mile north the new ferris wheel changes from turquoise to red to a patriotic blend of color, anticipating the Fourth of July.