I’ll admit that 20 minutes is not enough time for me to adequately say thank you. We will need many years to hear each other and say what needs to be said. We were introduced by a mutual friend, and again months later by another. These people who had known you for years were sure that once we met, we would adore one another. When I began visiting you, there was no way for me to know that our casual encounters would become a life altering kinship. We deepened our relationship in a tenuous time. Everything was fragile and unfolding.

On the Pisces full moon, I drove to the city with the intention to spend the fall of nighttime together. The moon was bright, coating your grasses and hillsides in cool moonlight, plenty to navigate your steep terrain without a flashlight. When I arrived, I called out and said, it is time to say thank you, I’ve missed you, now let me honor you. She welcomed me immediately. The hill seemed to open herself to me. The land so much wants to be honored. This was my first visit back, not just driving by in longing but getting to spend quality time together. This night the clouds were low, fog entangling the moon in a disappearing act. I could stretch out my fingers to the heavens and push the fog beyond my fingertips. The air hung wet and cold, reminiscent of nights spent wandering with one another through the winter months. I ascended the wooden stairs on the backside of the hill, and within a few moments, a coyote crossed my path. Gray fur glistening in its soft textures, bushy tail swinging. Coyote saw me, slowed their stroll, and slipped through the dried grasses down the hill. An auspicious welcome. I climbed the rocky curves of her back, the night wind picking up. 

After hours of retracing well imprinted paths, laying my body against her rocks, and observing the city in its glittering chaos, my body could only take being cold for so long. In our time together that night, I asked for guidance. I had arrived asking questions and planted hopes, including to hear Coyote’s howl. I had never heard one before. Following familiarity in the dark, I spotted the silhouettes of two coyotes playing on the hillside, slipping and leaping over one another in the dried, waist high grasses. I cautiously continued, knowing we would cross paths eventually, but I didn’t want to rush their moondance. As we drew nearer, one eyed me and quickly placed themselves on higher ground to observe me. We’d done this dance before. As they quickly slinked off, the other trailed slowly, without a hurry to avoid me. We began to orbit one another under the moon’s glow, until she looked at me, found a cozy spot in the grass, and laid down. I followed her lead and sat down on the stair across from where she lay, only a handful of yards apart. There we gazed at one another for a long while. She cleaned her paws, scratched her ears, tended to her fur, stared out over the cityscape. Time did not stand still but grew timeless in her presence. A moment in coyote time. When she decided to leave, I walked back to the car, joyfully whispering “thank you, thank you, thank you” with each step. While I sat in the car warming my hands, I heard something that was new to my ears but that my heart has heard all along. Without hesitation, I jumped back into the night and hurried back to the hill, bounded up the stairs, and crouched in the grasses so as not to disturb her in her crying out. There she was, illuminated under the misty waters of the moon, singing into the night.

Do you know you’re in a city? You must hear the sounds of cars and sirens and people all day in your vibrations, the push of their tires on your skin. The way your coyotes have to dart to find shelter and creep out for water. You must have watched the landscapes around you melt and be transformed by human hands, into the shapes of their wants and desires. Perhaps you too have been molded to what would satisfy hungry hands. A pleasant park to the visiting eye but you so freely show your wild nature to those who will listen.

You taught me to hike at night and to trust my instincts. When the hairs on the back of my neck would rise, when to stop, when to listen, when to hide, when to greet an old friend, how to return to my animal body and know that this is right. How to be without time and gracious with me when I’d arrive rushed, and say I only have 20 minutes today but I needed to see you. That’s exactly enough time to go from the beginning of the echium, the path along your base, past the painted rocks, past the parking lot, up your paved road winding to the top and back down. 

There were periods when I would come to you everyday. That I couldn’t sleep unless my feet had touched your earth, until I walked your paths, until I placed my forehead to the center of your labyrinth. I walk the labyrinth when I need to talk to spirit. When I need to know I haven’t abandoned myself. When I need to be honest with my heart. When I need to rage into the night and throw tantrums in the rocks when everyone else has left. I let myself cry and ask for your forgiveness and for spirit to listen and for my heart to open and for the aching to stop and for the forces to be kind. 

With you I grieved the loss of one, two, three teachers, my beloved co-conspirator Emily, dearest Lisa, Aunt Lyn who I barely knew but thought of often, my beautiful Molly pup, the most unforgiving love I’ve ever known, and the world as I knew it. 

Thank you for holding me together. How many days I came to you, hurried, broken, unbearable, and would leave less heavy. The days I’d run up your steep road, heart pounding, feet throbbing, needing to feel something different. I’d lay myself down on your hillside when I needed to feel my body on the earth. Buried my face in your grasses and let hours slip by watching your fuscia flowers twinkle in the breeze. When I couldn’t lift my arm from such intense pain, you gave me a place to practice punching and lifting and reaching again in the nestled safety at the top of your trails, the side that faces Twin Peaks. When I was sure my heart had shattered, you pieced me back together with your firm presence. Being with you was a balm, an anchor, the paths I used to retrace my life.

I miss you when I’m not with you. In every home I’ve lived in in San Francisco, I could see you from the window. In the first, from my bedroom. In the west facing view, I’d watch the sun melt over your edges and disappear beyond you from my bed, my feet dangling out the window. In the second, from the kitchen. Again facing west, I’d admire the fog so desperately wanting to commune with you.

Thank you, Bernal. 

Thank you for all of the nights you allowed me to walk amongst your trails, learning your paths like winding scars. Thank you for caressing my legs with your tall grasses and wildflowers. Thank you for introducing me to Red Valerian and Echium that surround your base. For encouraging me to inquire about the purple and white blossoms whose name I’m yet to learn. Blooming in Buttercup and California Poppy on your hillsides, intermingled with the exposed rocks, ivy, and fallen branches gathered in your crevices. Thank you for teaching me to listen through the wind, its caressing of the eucalyptus leaves. Thank you for exposing your ancient layers of rock, red clay in color, a living record of history in the clear layers, emulating water in stone. Thank you for gifting your neighbors with sweet blackberries, whose thick brambles always leave me gleeful and bloodied. Thank you for feeding me. Thank you for listening, for holding with such tenderness my shame, my triumphs, my dreams, my longing, my stories. Thank you for allowing me to embrace you, and to be embraced in return. Thank you for welcoming me when I showed up tattered, imperfect, and lonely. Thank you for celebrating the holy moments and when I fell in love again. Thank you for holding my body and guiding my feet. Thank you for being my refuge when the world was so confusing. When it still is. For seeing me in all my seasons and teaching me to pay close attention to yours. Which flowers bloom and when. Watching you come alive with lush green grass, bursting with flowers, and morning dew after the rains. Watching you wither gray and become dormant in the summer drought. You gifted me the awe of witnessing hawks hover and dive, hunting in daylight. From your peak was where I watched Venus conjunct Jupiter in the sky, visible to the naked eye, the sun setting, the horizon glowing. Where I learned the constellation and origin stories of Cassiopeia. Where I’d sing to the stars and weep at the immensity of time. Where I’d watch the gophers peer from their underground tunnels as I admired the epic views from the benches. Where I learned to be with the spirits of those I’ve never met and whisper a prayer each time I pass the altar for Alex Nieto. 

The night with Owl.
The night Coyote and I watched the city together.
The night of the coyotes that ran into the street.
The day of the dancing butterflies.
The night of the black beetle crossing my path.
The day the coyote rolled in the sun and lounged in the grass.
The day someone covered your labyrinth in flowers, nestled in the center. I came back each day to watch them wither, dry, and decompose.
The nights it was just you and I and we danced with the night.
Countless sunsets. The occasional sunrise. Your entirety glowing tangerine in the first light of day.

Robin Wall Kimmerer asks her students if they love the earth, to which they reply of course. She then asks them if they believe the earth loves them in return. With you, I feel that truth in every cell of my being. 

Thank you, Bernal. Thank you.