Estero Trail

Estero Trail
7 miles
3.5 hours
Start: Sir Francis Drake Boulevard
End: Estero Trailhead
Includes: Estero Trail, Home Bay, Drakes Estero

Hike 21
May 3, 2013
Seven of Cups
Attraction

The seven of cups shows a man from behind beholding a vision of seven cups emerging from a fog. Each cup holds a symbol of earthly attractions for example: beauty, wealth, adventure, etc.

With this card in mind, my friend Piro and I set out on the Estero Trail. Piro dropped me at the intersection and I met up with her at the parking lot. I am systematically walking the trails and roads, so I needed to walk that one mile of road. The total hike was six miles.

The walk started out with the familiar ranch scenery, cows and whatnot. I encountered a snake: dead, upside down in the middle of the road, not squished. I wondered how it could have died.

Luckily the cows were skittish and got out of my way. I got to the parking lot and met up with Piro.

Near the beginning of the Estero Tail we encountered a stand of trees, an unexpected forest. I later learned it is what's left of a Christmas tree farm. The cool dappled light was refreshing after the miles of scrub that surround.

The path opens onto a bridge which crosses Home Bay in Drakes Estero.

We admired the blue lupine and talked in hushed voices as we watched a gopher popping his head in-and-out of a hole a few feet away.

The trail rose up over the estero allowing a view of the oyster racks from Drakes Oyster Company whose headquarters are nearby on Schooner Bay.

We walked past the lone eucalyptus and some of the most idyllic cow pasture on earth.

We turned back at the head of Sunset Trail, which is slated for next week. I will get to know this trail well, since I will have to walk it several times to get to the more outlying areas.

Piro and I talked about relationships and attraction. In this earthly life none of us lives alone. We are constantly in relationship with what and who surrounds us. Our surroundings influence our activities, like the trail influenced our hike.

We could have walked anywhere, but because of social convention, comfort, ecology and many other reasons, we opted to stay on the trail. There is a constant flow of unconscious influence and conscious volition guiding our lives.

The seven of cups offers beauty, spirituality, wisdom, adventure, riches, accolades and danger as possible attractions. Attractions pull us into action. If they are conscious, we decide how to interact with them. If they are unconscious we respond to them nonetheless.

Our path to happiness becomes clearer when we take time to see to what we are responding in the world. If we are unconsciously responding to fear, we are likely acting to avoid what we are afraid of. If we are conscious of it, we may decide to approach what we fear and resolve the relationship so it no longer controls us.

If we become conscious of what attracts us, we can pursue it in earnest. When we use our volition to draw desired objects and experiences into our lives, they influence us all the more.

I think of it as choosing books for my shelf. Whatever is on the shelf is what I will likely read. What I read influences what I think. What I think influences what I do. What I do changes the world. We change the world positively when we consciously pursue what attracts us and resolve the relationship within our deepest values and good wishes for the world.

We are what we do. Our relationship with the world is an ongoing dance of expressed volition within a flow of existing activity. Here I think of myself as a blood cell whooshing through the circulatory system. I have my separate function and identity, but I cannot exist outside the whole.

Of the seven cups, riches have beguiled us most as a society. If we take time to understand what exactly about riches attracts us we can begin to resolve our relationship in a constructive way, control of our lives and clean-up the trash.