Pancho and i love Cliff Gilker Park

Almost everyday my best friend Pancho and i go for a hike at Cliff Gilker Park in Roberts Creek. We love the miles of interconnected trails through the forest and beside the two cascading creeks. Everyday things change, plants and mushrooms, trees and ferns, birds and bees greet us anew each day. Yesterday we stopped to watch a frog leaping accross our path. Later we stood and watched a squirrel dismanteling a fir cone and eating its seeds while watching us with equal intensity.

Along the paths we often meet friends both canine and human. Everyone loves their dog or dogs, everyone beams as they walk through the oxygen rich, seeing the flora, hearing the birds sing and the water's fall.

There's many different types of people and dogs walking each day through the trails of Clif Gilker. Young and old, male and female, canine and primate all greet each other with empathy and compassion. Most often each family stops to greet and chat with the other, sometimes just a few words often longer. The dogs know each other as well, all of us have deleloped relationships during our special time in the park. We are a community, the dog walkers of Cliff Gilker Park, our connection to the park we love and the dogs who share our lives are a cherished bond.

Often when out in the broader community i'll meet a fellow forest friend and we'll stop to talk of anything and everything. Beyong our common joy of thre park our lives are often very different on the outside but what we share brightens our days and the lessons that our best friends teach us of unconditional love, of boundless joy and of the commonality of all existance carry over into the mundane world of buying groceries, doing laundry, or hitting the gas station.

We're heading off next to visit our friends, to breath, to listen and to dance through the real miracle.