I was going through my media files from my trip to San Francisco last spring. Found this great 13+ minutes bit of footage taken from the entrance onto the Bay Bridge in Emeryville, CA through arrival in SF and on to the Transbay Bus Terminal on Folsom Street. It’s fun!

The ride was cathartic. Light fog off the water. History traveling by one frame at a time. The rumbling of the bus. The even tone of the driver as he chats it up with the passenger in front of me. It’s a mesmerizing meditation of the senses, bringing one into a vibrational frequency of stillness where the best ideas are born.

I had just arrived in the early evening hours of April 3rd to begin my annual Translation Tour. Little did I know at this magic moment the miraculousness that awaited me in The Golden City. Though not blogged about yet, I had a series of transformational occurrences that happened to me while there. I was led around the streets of SF by an intangible, energetic force, the one I now refer to collectively as Oliver. I was shown how easy it is to connect with frequencies outside of myself… outside this realm of reality. I also discovered I had a troop of guardians sticking close by me – I’d say for protection, but in retrospect I wonder of what I was to be protected from. So now I view it as more of an effort to keep an watchful eye out for, and to be in companionship with me.

Staying in a hostel made the experience of guardian watching both stand out and easy to accomplish. The Hostel International (HI) on Mason Street in downtown SF was the place. It was so much more than I expected Reminded me of dorm life with lots of international tour groups of high school and college aged folk frequenting the place. Spotting a guardian, as well as their adversaries, became a game to me. Most were well versed in the ways of hiding in plain sight. A few seemed more apprentices getting on the job experience. They looked at me way too much. Followed me even more. So, I’d duck into obscure staircases or rooms and wait for them to walk by, spying as they peered in every open orifice along the way. So many stories… So much fun play. I, too, watched as they’d trade off, almost like shift relief. One leaving a main gathering room just as another entered. It was a great opportunity for me to hone in on those skills of observation I didn’t yet know I had. (see blue “HOSTEL” sign in the photo to the left for HI location on Mason St.)

Then there were the streets. I walked them until the tread on my shoes wore thin. Many times I stepped with intent – the intent to release happiness onto the waiting crowds, in the form of its frequency equivalent. So, I’d go out, pop in my ear buds to manage the mood, raise the vibration of my feelings of love, joy, gratitude; mixing emotional concoctions of varying degrees and volumes, and then out on the concrete where I’d let go. I even ran into one guy, an energetic contemporary, who sent it right back to me. Our eyes met only for a moment – AFTER I felt the gift and tried to identify where it was coming from. That’s when he smiled at me. A 6 foot something, medium-black skinned guy with gorgeous greenish brown eyes, a huge chest and a huger heart. The sidewalk passing was like walking by a cloud – as if he was there and wasn’t at the same time. Who and what he was I still don’t know, but that wasn’t the point, to me. I was connecting! Finding folks with resonating signatures, and they, me. In all of my nearly 15 years of working in New York City, never had I enjoyed the sort of city-fied high-five I did there in San Francisco.

There were so many more densely grounded individuals who did what I’d call, reject the wave of feeling. Some right near me. Other’s along another walkway. Their reactions gave them away. I, hands held down by my sides, palms forward. They, all buttoned up, hand in pockets, on devices, attention laser focused on some point of future return. It was as if they recoiled when the wave hit them, seemingly bouncing it off like a rubber kick ball. It was fascinating, and I loved it. All of it. Then I’d go back to the hostel, crawl into my comfortable bunk bed and ruminate on the experiences had. (see image of my 1st room at the hostel taken in the mirror. I was bed 5. And… don’t think the total of 5+6=11 was lost on me. It only added to the magic!)

Needless to say my ride from the bus back to the train station a few weeks later was a completely different experience. I’d been transformed along the avenues of San Francisco and now I was awake to the aliveness of everything as it waved along the passenger windows, and into me.