Author Archives: Bob OHearn

Late spring in San Francisco, 1958, and it had been such a beautiful day! I remember this 9 year old physical body seated at a wooden desk in the back of a grammar school classroom, oblivious to the yammerings of … Continue reading →

Ukiah, CA 1970 It was my last day off before I was scheduled to return to work at the residential treatment center and school for pre-teens where I had been working as a child-care counselor. I was tired but happy, … Continue reading →

“Let’s go surfin’ now! Everybody’s learnin’ how! Come on a safari with me!” ~The Beach Boys Summertime in California, early 1960s . . . If you lived in San Francisco, down by the Pacific Ocean, you may not have known … Continue reading →

In 1980, while traveling up the Indonesian peninsula from Bali to Bangkok, I was fortunate enough to be guided by a friendly Balinese to a semi-secret ceremony being conducted by a local priest/shaman at the mouth of a bat cave, … Continue reading →

I was 8 years old when first introduced to floral ecstasy. It was midsummer in San Francisco, and all of that summer was warm and bright, as I recall, but I’m sure we all like to remember the summers of … Continue reading →

The first radio show I remember hearing was The Shadow, circa 1951. Because radio shows required visualization based on memory association, my 3 year old imagination was inspired to add some emotionally-reactive interpretation to the echoing sound of a creaking … Continue reading →

2002 Today serendipity provided an opportunity for me to grab my Gal and drop over the hills past Sausalito, climbing through the eucalyptus so fragrant and familiar, then wheeling down past Green Gulch Sanctuary to the power point known as … Continue reading →

It is dusty and kiln-dried, mid-way along the crooked spine of the Atlas Mountain Range. Humps of browned and barren hills spread stuporous in relentless heat. Not a breeze is stirring. It’s 1979, and I have been trekking through Northern … Continue reading →

The biblical character Jesus was reported to have said, “The kingdom of heaven is within you.” Thus, he immediately refuted the notion of a separate God. Now, given the way things go on this lovely rock, a number of folks … Continue reading →

It was about 10 PM, and I was commuting from Boston to New York in late September of 1984. It had been a bumpy year, so to speak, and I was on the brink of a rather complex career turning … Continue reading →

In late 1973, after training for several years at a Zen Buddhist monastery in the San Gabriel Mountains in Southern California, I moved briefly back to San Francisco. One day I heard that a great Indian Yogi, reputedly capable of … Continue reading →

In the summer of 1969, Mike Magee and I embarked upon a fishing trip for steelhead — the great ocean-going trout — deep into the Trinity Alps of Northern California. This was to be a transformative trip for many reasons, … Continue reading →

Mt. Baldy Zen Monastery, 1971- 73 In the Sanzen Room, where Rinzai Zen Masters conduct formal interviews with their students, they require the aspirant to present their understanding with their whole being. Mere verbal play is rewarded with a quick … Continue reading →

In 1970, I was fulfilling my Alternate Service obligation to the Government by working as a Child Care Counselor at a residential treatment center for pre-teens in Ukiah, CA. During that time, I was renting a small cabin about 5 … Continue reading →

Returning south to San Francisco after a 6-month stint as a grateful hermit in the Sierras in 1970, my heart tugged me over to the Pacific coastline, where I eventually found myself leisurely touring along the supernaturally splendid Coastal Highway … Continue reading →

I must have read some bit of Eastern philosophy about needing to go beyond the mind in order to discover the natural state of true freedom. In any case, I began pondering that concept, until one night, sitting out on … Continue reading →

“God triumphs over the ruins of our plans.” ~St. Augustine Two of my early passions had been music – all and any music – and audio gear. During my summer vacations home from the Seminary, I worked in various jobs … Continue reading →

At the Catholic elementary school in which I was enrolled in the 1950’s, the usual curriculum routine was occasionally set aside for “Audio-Visual” presentations. Students were gathered into the auditorium, lights were dimmed, and the whir of a film projector … Continue reading →

It was to be the last summer of our childhood, although at the time we had only the vaguest sense that this incandescent chapter of our lives was finally coming to an end. We were too enraptured in the glorious … Continue reading →

Today a blessed breeze carries me back more than half a century to a little pier that juts out adjacent to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, called Fort Point. It is Sunday, and in the womb of that … Continue reading →

I was eight years old, and had just returned from the Catholic Youth Organization summer camp. When I stepped off the bus back in San Francisco, after 2 wonderful weeks of being on my own for the first time, I … Continue reading →

I was almost 6 when my father took me on my first vacation road trip away from home in San Francisco to visit his family in Bellingham, Washington, where I was to meet my his birth family for the first … Continue reading →

My maternal Grandmother was quite a woman for her time, or anytime, for that matter. Born into an Irish Catholic family in Chicago on June 18, 1888, she entered this world with a twin brother – she was named Rose … Continue reading →

I’d been on Earth for a couple of years already, but I have very little memory of the time preceding this day. I seemed to have mostly enjoyed a natural state, blissful, with no abiding sense of separation between a … Continue reading →