Reclusland

The weirdest shit happened to me today, and given this, I thought it best to make an official notation of it here.  Add my fuel to the fire, so to speak.

I’m home visiting the family for Christmas, and this morning, after meditation, go for a walk to the local Starbucks (about 45 minutes away by foot).   Growing up, I never used to walk around my town; everyone drove everywhere, and it just seemed strange to be the only one walking alongside a busy street.  But almost 10 years of living in New York makes gives you an immunity to both traffic and to being thought of as strange, so now I’m happy to walk anywhere.  After 6 hours on a plane, I could use the exercise anyway.

So I’m walking alongside a highway, and I come upon a little plaque placed next to a small lake (a man-made lake, created after I left town).  It talks about the watershed of the area, and how three rivers come down out of the Gabilan mountains and conjoin (mere minutes from my house) to flow down a man-made watercourse called “Reclamation Ditch” and out to the ocean.  Reclamation Ditch runs through an agricultural field which used to be one of the areas “10 ancient lakes”.  When I was a kid, the field would flood in the winter and we would go out rafting.

After reading the small plaque, I look up to the mountains and commune with them briefly, thanking them for watching over my town, and for the water which they send down to irrigate the many fields of Salinas (agriculture is pretty much the only business in town).  Feeling good for being a sort of spiritual caretaker for my community, I walk off along a bike path next to the river to Starbucks (somehow, I always seem to know how to get where I’m going, even if I’ve never gone that way before).

The rest of the day is uneventful, for the most part, until I call up a friend from high school.  He says “did you feel the earthquake this morning?”  I say I had no idea, but he tells me that apparently there’d been a earthquake sometime shortly after I’d finished my mediation in the morning.  And where was the Earthquake?  “The epicenter of the 4.1 quake, which the USGS reported at 36.676°N, 121.301°W, lies in the Gabilan mountains directly east of Salinas. “ The very same mountains I would be praying to later!

Now, it’d be pretty awesome if I could make out like the earthquake happened as a response to my prayers, but it didn’t, and that would be a bit of a stretch anyway, even if the timing of the events had worked out that way.  Still, maybe something in me noticed the earthquake, and brought it to my attention as I was out walking.

***

Bonus weirdness:  I decided to look up the feng shui significance of three rivers joining, and the first page I come across is this one:

“Located in Sichuan Province at the confluence of the Min, Qingyi and Dadu Rivers, construction of this gargantuan monument commenced in 713 (during the Tang Dynasty) and finished 90 years later, in 803.  It was the tempestuous waters that raged at this Buddha’s feet that prompted the monk, Hai Tong, to erect this statue of Maitreya (a Boddhisattva) to `appease’ the water spirit that was thought to be responsible for the numerous accidents that occurred on that spot.  Interestingly enough, with the completion of the Le Shan Buddha, the usual flooding – and deaths – stopped…and the City of Le Shan became safe and prosperous!”

Wait, which “boddhisattva”?  Maitreya? Shit…