Samu

Whew! The past few days have been busy with samu; in the zen tradition this is "mindful work", bringing your practice to the work and happenings of everyday life. We've offered our bodies to a couple of different projects.
1) The first piece of land ever in Ventura county has been given back to the Chumash. It's 6 acres in the middle of a ring of condos that, while they were being built, uncovered ancient burials in this site, which has been a sacred site of the Chumash for a long, long time.
We helped clear it and were wowed at the volume of work that can be accomplished by 16 hands and 2 weed-wackers in 4 hours. Julie, our host and the project leader for the tribe was amazed and so grateful. She's carrying a lot alone. We hit the Pacific(!) afterward to wash off the dust. Perfect.
After yesterday's Samu, we headed to Malibu to meet with Mati, a Chumash leader and environmental activist who leads the Wishtoyo foundation. We went to this site he's building (a traditional Chumash village) on a 8,000 year old sacred site on the ocean. After sitting in circle and sharing stories (we got to hear some of the challenges and old wounds of native peoples) we shared ceremony and sat around the fire swapping songs. We were honored to be invited and received and it was an amazing learning opportunity. Check their website for some of the incredible work they're doing.