My Friend Sandra

 

My friend Sandra was a tiny woman with a commanding presence, fiercely penetrating eyes, and the most intense devotion to her teacher that I’ve ever experienced. I’d say that I met her by accident, except I don’t think that’s what it was.

We met as roommates when I shared a small dorm room with Sandra and a couple of other women the first time I attended the 10-day teachings given by my refuge lama, Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche, at a Tibetan-styled Buddhist monastery and teaching center near the top of a mountain in upstate New York. I didn’t know anyone there, and since I’m introverted by nature, I wasn’t looking to make new friends. But I saw something on top of the bureau where Sandra kept her things that got my attention—a side-by-side view of the 16th and 17th Karmapas, the one who died in Chicago in 1981 and the one who was born in Tibet in 1985—and I gasped. The resemblance was striking! Sandra and I fell into conversation, discovered we shared a reverence for Karmapa, and our friendship was born.

We got to know each other at mealtimes, when she told me about her experiences in San Francisco, Texas, and Alaska. She had been a student of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, a crazy wisdom master who was instrumental in bringing Buddhism from Tibet to the West. Sandra had worked in housekeeping, often as an executive housekeeper, most all of her life. I had known her for a while before she shared that she was an artist, and showed me a portfolio of beautiful black-and-white photographs someone had taken of her as a young woman in San Francisco, in Victorian rooms with bay windows suffused with light, holding totems of wood and feathers that she had constructed to honor the sacred feminine. 

We got to know each other at the front gate of the monastery where she went to smoke cigarette after cigarette. We had long talks about the dharma—the teachings of the Buddha—and how it might or might not flourish here in the West. We got to know each other on walks down to the pond where once we spotted a dark shape foraging for berries on the other side of the water—a mother bear!

Sandra had an intense way of questioning casual comments if she didn’t understand their meaning, and a way of looking at me with her clear blue-grey eyes that made me think she could see right through me—not in a disturbing way but almost a hypnotic way. I wonder if she could see auras. I’m sure this was the way she questioned and looked at everyone. I can understand how some might describe her gaze as unnerving, and how some people could perceive her as difficult. But those were not my perceptions.

I came to see, over time, how completely devoted she was to Karmapa, how everything she did—from scrubbing toilets, cleaning floors, changing bed linens, doing laundry—was done in the spirit of making an offering to him.

Once, she read me a long prose poem she had written about the monastery and how it was located at the center of a sacred mandala, with the rising sun and moon and the Hudson River to the east, the Ashokan Reservoir to the south, the shoulder of Mount Guardian to the west, and Indian Head Mountain to the north. I was shocked. I had always thought I was sensitive to earth energies, but Sandra described in vivid detail a sacred landscape that I inhabited but had not yet perceived.

I traveled to the monastery for a series of teachings that were given over several years, teachings that were particularly precious to me. On those visits, Sandra and I often found time to go into the nearby village for shopping, conversation, dinner, and a glass or two of wine. It was Sandra who—after finding out that Halloween is my favorite holiday—led me one October to a restaurant on the banks of a small creek, where we ate Chinese food and watched as dusk turned to nightfall and dozens of carved jack-o-lanterns lit the opposite bank of the creek. It was Sandra who visited me when I stayed “off campus” at an inn by the banks of another lovely stream, and led me up the bluestone rocks to a place where someone had painted gorgeous graffiti on the side of a little bridge. It was Sandra who began stacking stones in vertical columns around the monastery and arranging them into horizontal spiral patterns in the parking lot, offerings of beauty in unlikely places. It was Sandra who helped to plant and then tended two small trees that honored the first visit to the United States of her teacher, the 17th Karmapa.

I saw Sandra for the last time on Karmapa’s second visit to the monastery in 2011. We made plans to see each other the day after Karmapa left, but when I went up the hill, I couldn’t locate her. I knew she had been very sick, and that Karmapa had told her she could probably stop chemotherapy after this next round of it—and I had a bad feeling about her health. I think now that perhaps the reason I couldn’t find her was that she didn’t want to say goodbye. I don’t know how I would have managed to say goodbye to her.

Sandra was five years younger than I am. She died on December 28, 2011, the day after the annual Amitabha retreat began there at the monastery near the top of Mount Guardian. Amitabha is the Buddha of Boundless Light, the buddha who presides over Dewachen, a pure land that lies beyond the setting sun where inhabitants can continue their education by taking teachings from whichever Buddhist master they choose. After she had passed, word came from India that Karmapa said that he, himself, would give Sandra a personal escort to Dewachen.

Sandra was my friend but beyond that, she was my teacher. She taught me that there is no harsh dividing line between the sacred and what my mother would call “the real world.” Sandra taught me that doing laundry, scrubbing toilets, and stacking stones can be sacred work—that it’s our outlook that determines whether we experience the sacred or the profane.

And Sandra taught me about impermanence. One day, our lives will end. In the meantime, what is it that we have to offer?

Sacred Springs Stories, Part 2: My Ichetucknee Story, Springs in Buddhism & Closing Remarks

Ichetucknee Head Spring

My Ichetucknee Story

The first time I went to Ichetucknee, it was a beautiful sunny autumn day in 1969, the year before the State of Florida bought the land that became the state park. My two roommates and I were the only people there! After being in the water for a while, I left Chad and Pam splashing around in the spring and walked up the little hill (where the restrooms are now), spread out a big towel, and lay down in the sun.

It wasn’t long before I started to hear pspsps whispering, like you’d call a cat. Pretty soon the whispering got louder, and finally resolved into a spoken language—a language I’d never heard before.

I thought there must be someone in the woods so I stood up and did a 360-degree turn, but there was no one there.

I later learned from my parapsychology teacher that this kind of auditory hallucination is common in places where people have had intense emotional experiences.

I didn’t realize it then, but that was when the Ichetucknee marked me. To this day, it is one of my very special—sacred—places, what Carlos Castaneda called a “power spot.”

I never figured out what the language was. Maybe it was the language of the nagas.

Springs, Water & Nagas in Tibetan Buddhism

A naga from the Rubin Museum's traveling exhibition, "Himalayan Art in 108 Objects," at the Harn Museum of Art in Gainesville, Florida

I have it on good authority from some of my Tibetan Buddhist teachers that there are beings who may live in our springs who are invisible to most people, although some are said to be able to see them. (I’m not one of those.)

These beings, called nagas, have the torso of a male or female human and the lower body of a snake. They like springs and they like magical trees, and sometimes they guard Buddhist teachings that they reveal to humans when the time is right.

There are three types of nagas. The good ones serve the dharma, the Buddhist teachings. The mutable ones can alternate between being good and bad. You don’t want to mess with the bad nagas.

One thing all these nagas have in common is that water pollution makes them sick. And when they get sick, they take revenge on the polluters by sending natural disasters and diseases, particularly skin diseases.

Now, most of you won’t believe this, and that’s OK—I don’t expect you to believe it. I believe it because I’ve heard it from my teachers and I know them to be trustworthy, and also because I’ve been interested in strange things—what one of my friends calls “the woo-woo”—since I was very young.

But even if you don’t believe nagas exist, isn’t this idea a remarkable analogy for what we are experiencing now—water pollution, natural disasters and diseases? I’m reminded of people like one very respected elder in the springs defender community who can no longer go into the water because he gets a rash from algae.

The Buddhist teachings I’ve received lead me to believe that our human minds are connected to our external environments in ways that we may not completely understand.

17th Karmapa's (Ogyen Trinley Dorje's) Monlam Pin

This slide shows a pin that was designed for a Buddhist prayer festival by the 17th Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, who leads one of the Buddhist lineages I’m affiliated with. He thinks of the Earth as a benevolent goddess and here’s what he wrote about his design of that pin, which speaks to the idea that human beings and Mother Earth exist in an interconnected relationship:

Now the time has come when the earth is scowling at us; the time has come when the earth is giving up on us. The earth is about to treat us badly and give up on us. If she gives up on us, where can we live? There is talk of going to other planets that could support life, but only a few rich people could go. What would happen to all of us sentient beings who could not go? What should we do now that the situation has become so critical? The sentient beings living on the earth and the elements of the natural world need to join their hands together—the earth must not give up on sentient beings, and sentient beings must not give up on the earth. Each needs to grasp the other’s hand.

Note that he mentions the importance of joining hands with “the elements of the natural world.” In Buddhism, those elements are earth, water, fire, air and space—not just outer space, but the space between things.

The last thing I’ll say about the tradition of Tibetan Buddhism is this: The essential nature of the element of water is considered to be a Buddha—a female Buddha called Mamaki. So water is a sacred element in this system.

How do we hold hands with Mother Earth? What would be different if we talked about our springs not as “resources” or “recreational opportunities” but as Buddhas—as living natural systems? What if we told our stories about springs with reverence? What if we understood water as something that’s alive and sacred with which we exist in relationship, as something that deserves our care? Because for a lot of us, that’s what water is.

Can we hold hands with Mother Earth and with our priceless springs on a spiritual level? And what might change if we elevated our relationship and our stories in that way?

Closing Remarks

One last thing and then I want to close with couple of snippets from literature.

I think those of us who first encountered the springs, as I did in the middle of the 20th century, may be the last people who know what a healthy spring is supposed to look like. And I think it’s important that we document what our springs have meant to us. So I encourage you to share your stories with your children and grandchildren and with as many other people as you can. Tell your stories, share your photos, make art, write music, honor our sacred springs with your creative gifts in whatever ways you choose. Document, document, document!

Here's a poetry snippet from “Life Chant” by Diane di Prima, who was in that cohort of American poets that includes Jack Kerouac and Gary Snyder:

may the wind deal kindly with us

may the fire remember our names

may springs flow, rain fall again

may the land grow green, may it swallow our mistakes

And this is a favorite, from the novelist Charles Frazier:

The spring rose up from its deep source and smelled of wet earth and the stones at the center of the world. Whatever you believe, and whatever God you pray to, a place where clean water rises from the earth is in some way sacred.

Sacred Springs Stories, Part 1: Background & Opening Remarks

 

Background

When I was let go from my job with the Ichetucknee Alliance, I didn't think my work on behalf of Florida's freshwater springs was finished. But I was puzzled about what might come next. Every time I consulted the tarot cards, they told me to "join heaven and earth."

I floated an idea to do just that to several people I know in the water advocacy community, and most of them replied with enthusiastic agreements to participate. It took quite a few months, however, for the full-blown idea to manifest.

The result of that manifestation was the program "Sacred Springs Stories" that was held on February 6, 2025, thanks to the great generosity of Bob Knight, Haley Moody and the good people at the Florida Springs Institute's Welcome Center in downtown High Springs, Florida. You can see the flyer for the program in the image above.

There will eventually be a video of the program, but I also wanted to post here some of what I wrote for remarks that I made there. I couldn't say everything I wanted to say because of time constraints, but since this was likely my "swan song" for my work on behalf of our springs, I'm posting what I wrote here as a partial record of the event.

I hope those of you who were able to be there enjoyed our presentations!

Opening Remarks

I’m starting this evening by talking about our current zeitgeist, or spirit of the time, to acknowledge how many of us are feeling these days. Here’s a quote from one of the Tibetan Buddhist teachers I’m familiar with—the 16th Karmapa, Rangjung Rigpe Dorje, who talked about living through what he called a Dark Age and how our minds are connected to our environment:

It's called the Dark Age because the more uplifting and meritorious qualities of the human world are diminishing whereas the gross and neurotic aspects of the human qualities are more present and becoming more apparent. One could say that it's like clear water that diminishes or dries up, allowing you to see the mud and clay appearing. This kind of situation has to do with the quality of the human mind.

I assure you that we are here tonight not to dwell on the idea of a Dark Age, but to offer some inspiration, beauty, and upliftment to all of the human minds gathered in this space. Thank you for taking the time out of your busy days to join us. Let’s get started.

Calligraphy by Joon Thomas

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

This beginning of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s 1797 poem “Kubla Khan” may well have been inspired by Florida’s freshwater springs as they were described by William Bartram in 1791.

Over 200 years later, I heard echoes of “Alph, the sacred river” at Rum Island Spring. I had finished swimming and was coming out of the water when I saw a young woman standing on the bank, looking at the spring. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” I said. Her response? “It’s sacred.”

When I first read this quote by Gus Speth, these words jumped out: “The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy, and to deal with those we need a spiritual and cultural transformation. And we scientists and lawyers don’t know how to do that.” (A reference to the human mind, again)

Science—the kind of science that’s done here at FSI and in our universities—is absolutely the bedrock upon which our work toward springs health stands.

But science alone is not enough.

The reflections of the human mind that we find in the social sciences, arts and humanities are just as important for springs restoration as geology, hydrology, and systems ecology—but these human dimensions haven’t been given as much attention as the hard sciences, and that needs to change. Why? Because our springs are living systems and they need living people to join hands with them by doing more than just studying the problems, raising awareness and filing lawsuits.

What Speth was talking about is culture change—changing the mental paradigms of how we live on Mother Earth, one heart at a time, so that we can change the behaviors that are causing damage. Those changes must include the idea that we humans exist in a relationship with Mother Nature who sustains us. Humans and natural systems are interconnected.

When the Gainesville water writer Cynthia Barnett introduced the idea of a Florida water ethic, she too was suggesting culture change.

Another writer, Janisse Ray up in Georgia, stresses that stories are the building blocks of culture. To change our culture, we need to change our minds and our stories—the stories we tell ourselves, our families and friends, and our neighbors.

There are some thinkers who are even starting to say that it is relationships, not atoms, that are the building blocks of the universe—but that’s a topic for another time.

This gentleman is suggesting that stepping outside our culture may give us new perspectives, new ideas, new inspirations. As you listen to our storytellers, please think about how you think about our springs and about the stories you tell about them, and how that is either similar or different from tonight’s stories.

Can we tell stories that include the kinds of relationships we have with water? Stories that rejuvenate our hearts, minds and communities as well as our springs? Stories that weave our fleeting earthly experiences with the timeless spiritual truths we know to be sacred?

We won’t tell you how or why you should consider something to be sacred; that’s for each of us to decide. Just know that there are many different reasons that places can be called “sacred.” One of those reasons is that people sometimes have extraordinary or even paranormal experiences at some spots. These experiences occur in all the world’s cultures and you may hear some examples tonight. Because these experiences can neither be proven nor disproven, we encourage you to listen with open minds and to understand that the importance of such experiences is revealed through what they mean to the person who has them.

One of my spiritual teachers has suggested that to inspire real environmental change, we must evoke new emotions in people. After each story, there will be a pause of one minute. Please hold your applause until the end of the program and please use that one minute as a kind of meditation, to open yourselves to inspiration or to think about what feelings or ideas came up for you during the presentation.

(to be continued in Part 2)