This shot was taken from the ISS (International Space Station) on September 20, 2012, and shows the region around Mount Shasta, a 4300 meter peak in northern California. It’s technically dormant – it erupted last in 1786. In geologically recent history it’s erupted every 600 years or so, but that’s not a precise schedule, so geologists keep an eye on it, as they do many of the peaks in the Cascades. As well they should.

From A Refreshing Shasta – Bad Astronomy Blog

Shasta Abbey is in this photograph by the way. Amazing photograph. Thanks for the link J.

Bunting fluttering from the guttering – Edmonton Canada

These Buddhist flags were strung along the front of the house where the Edmonton Buddhist Priory had its’ home back in 2004-2006. I took this picture in the winter with, as you can see, snow on the ground. Ah, those cold crisp and bright days. Sometimes the wind would get up and the flags would billow and flutter pleasingly.

Flags are so welcoming. We don’t see this particular style so often out for the public to see and most people don’t know they are Buddhist flags. Everybody on the other hand knows what Tibetan pray flags are like. Of recent times temples have been making their own bespoke flags with symbols such as a wheel or a lotus stenciled on them. Colourful and jolly and most often used at the time of the Buddha’s Birth (Wesak) in early May.

In Edmonton these flags were permanently attached. So much so I remember struggling to get them down when the Priory moved to an apartment in June of 2006. One chap, who became a regular attender at the Priory, told of how he was out walking one day and saw the flags. Knowing them to be Buddhist ones he knocked on the door and was amazed and glad to find a place to meditate which was just around the corner from where he lived.

For those who know their meaning these flags are great advertising. They got at least one person out of the cold and onto a chair to meditate.

This post is in gratitude to the couple of friends in East Asia who have send a parcel of these flags as a gift. I believe they will come in handy some time in the future.

San Francisco Zen Center is celebrating Fifty Years of Wisdom and Compassion. And this evening there is a special event I think I would go to, if I were in the Bay Area right now. And the same event is also running tomorrow afternoon too. I visited the SFZC in 2008 and was impressed by the building, as well as the people I met. Now the author (Julia Morgan) of the building, the architect, is being celebrated at the event tonight. Here is a description of what it’s all going to be about.

The event will take place at the San Francisco Zen Center and is a moderated panel discussion among architects who will offer insight into the design process for a particular kind of quiet space. The architects will show one or two of their own designs for religious buildings as examples. Addressing the parallels between the practice of design and spiritual practice, the idea will be to showcase the commonality of spiritual spaces by looking at various buildings and the spirit behind their designs. This event will consider Julia Morgan’s designs for religious structures, as well as what constitutes a sacred space and what is involved in the design process to create them. The dialogue of the panel will explore the relationship between the practice of design and the language of how ritual is created.

Yes, I am particularly interested in design for spiritual practice. In particular small spaces for individual retreats. At the Field of Merit project we are looking to construct individual hermitages. Not the grand structures Julia Morgan designed of course. She was herself a grand woman of her time and well ahead of her time too.