Tassajara Zen Mountain Center was the first to have men, women, and couples practicing together. Because nothing quite like this has ever been done before, many aspects of monastic life had to be determined. Whether to wear temple-type robes or American style clothes? Which ceremonies to adopt? How to arrange the living space? Kobun Chino Sensei and Dainin Katagiri Sensei (both of whom would later be called roshi) assisted Suzuki Roshi in helping the new students. A few other priests from Japan came later.
Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, a Zen master from Japan, came to San Francisco in 1959. Suzuki Roshi wanted a place in the mountains where Zen students could follow traditional practice, including meditation, study, and daily life. The opening day for Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, Zenshinji (the Japanese name) was on July 3, 1967.
Father President directed some of the escort to construct a large cross on the ground, and others to build in the open an enramada, of “bower of branches,” with an altar in its shelter, in preparation for the ceremony of founding the mission set for the next day.
“Very early in the morning,” the first day of the week, June 11, 1797, the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity, the reverend Fathers, the Spanish soldiers, and the Loreto Indians assembled for the dedicatory ceremony. The unusual stir in the camp, the ringing of the bell, the firing of the muskets, the smoke of the incense, the lighting of the Mass candles, the sight of the beautiful vestments of the priests – all attracted groups of [Indians] to the scene.
Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821. The California Missions continued to prosper under Mexican rule until the Secularization Act of 1833. What was left of Mission San Jose began to decline, and over time, the native populations were scattered. Very few were given their land, and many died of disease and starvation.
The site chosen for the only mission on the east side of San Francisco Bay had been inhabited for countless generations by the Ohlone Indians. Their village at this site was known as Oroysom. According to Spanish law, the mission's lands and resources belonged to the natives and would be put in their control when they had learned to manage themselves in the Spanish way.
At the Ohlone Indian village of Oroysom, Padre Fermin Fransisco De Lasuen founded this fourteenth of twenty-one Franciscan missions June 11, 1797. The Ohlone orchestra and choir became famous. By 1830 almost 2,000 Indians were living at the mission. The mission was secularized in 1836 and its lands divided into ranchos.
Steelhead are a threatened species whose decline in the Carmel River became a driving catalyst behind the state’s cease-and-desist order against Cal Am for the utility’s decades-long overpumping.
Over the long term, steelhead numbers in the Carmel River are on a downward trend. That is expected to continue as climate change continues warming the ocean and, locally, leading to more extreme droughts – just around 1 to 2 percent of steelhead that make the trip out to sea successfully return to spawn.
Info from MCW
Image from MPWMD
Photo by: Courtesy of Hall & Hall
From: SF Gate
A sprawling 14,000-acre property in the Carmel Valley will become a public nature preserve. Known as Rana Creek Ranch, the land is an important site for the Esselen Tribe, and the tribe will be able to access the land again after the sale. Wolves, tule elk, beavers and the California condor all roamed the land 200 years ago.
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) published in 2013 a Recovery Program for our distinct population of steelhead trout named the South-Central Coast Steelhead (SCCS).
The "grade" they gave the Carmel River steelhead recovery at that time was "Poor," as the numbers of adult steelhead in our river had declined to the low hundreds if even that many.
NMFS stated that to delist (remove) our SCCS from the Threatened Species list a number of conditions would have to be met including: mean annual run size of 4,500 adults, adequate ocean conditions, density of spawning fish, and certain fish genetic histories in our river.
What began as civil disobedience and casual opposition by Baltazar eventually turned into an attempted coup. Batazar fled the Carmel Mission in 1779 along with a band of several other mission natives. Baltazar turned south to the Big Sur coast, meeting his daughter and her people, the Sargentaruc, who organized ways to resist Spanish forces.
As Spanish forces continued to cut off resources and reinforcements to Baltazar’s rebellion, it became increasingly difficult to sustain the resistance. Baltazar died in the fall of 1780 of unknown causes, and many members of his group hesitantly returned to the missions for the promise of seeing their family and friends again.
Art by Louis Choris- “Indian of California.” Painting is not of Baltazar, but of a typical Ohlone man in the Bay Area and likely similar to what Baltazar looked like.
FROM: Point Lobos
The area in/around Point Lobos is known by many of the local indigenous peoples as “Isxchenta” (pronounced EESH-hen-tah). The Rumsen, Esselen, and KaKoon Ta Ruk peoples, who still live in the area today, have kept their cultures alive despite many attempts by settlers to erase them.
Approximately
96% of the Carmel River flows from the many tributaries in the Santa
Lucia Mountains, including San Clemente Creek and Cachagua Creek
subwatersheds.
In contrast, the combined flow from the Tularcitos, Rana,
and Chupines subwatersheds of the Sierra de Salinas produces only 4% of
the annual discharge of the Carmel River, but occupies 23% of the
entire watershed.
On the California coast between Santa Cruz and the famous Hearst Castle at San Simeon, no stream is more important for native steelhead than the Carmel River.
Through 1821, the Spanish built 21 Catholic missions in California to claim Native lands and convert Native souls. Journalist Carey McWilliams once compared this system to “Nazis operating concentration camps.”
By 1833, Franciscan missionaries had baptized 81,586 California Indians and buried some 62,600, who perished from disease, displacement, and starvation.
From: FIX
Image from: Wikipedia
"The Carmel River is small and picturesque, nestled in the hills of the Carmel Valley. The river itself is fairly small, only flowing about 30 miles from the peaks of the Santa Lucia and Sierra de Salinas to the lagoon at Carmel Bay. It is also a naturally intermittent system, with historic estimates suggesting the lower portions of the river may only have had year-round flow in about six of every ten years. Although these characteristics represent challenges for anadromous fish, it is believed that an average of 8,000 adult steelhead would historically spawn in the Carmel watershed every year.
As of 2015, for the first time in nearly a century, steelhead were able to move upstream unimpeded past the former site of the San Clemente Dam, which was removed due to both public safety and ecological concerns. Fish still face a barrier to movement at Los Padres Dam, but between January and May of this year, a total of 126 adults made their way to the dam."
From: FishBio
From: Carmel Valley Locals
The area in which the River Fire first gained traction hadn't had a fire in recorded history. This helped feed the flames that destroyed 43 structures and put about 20,000 people under evacuation warning.
Cal Fire previously attempted to carry out controlled burns but was stopped several times between 2013 and 2017 by members of the public who were leery of the controlled burn coming too close to their homes.
From: The Californian
