Blue Heron Zen: Summer Turns to Autumn

3:55 PM Sunday. I want to start writing at least once a quarter about the important role that Zen mentors have played in my spiritual formation. And I need to say something about the role of Krishnamurti in all of this. I was first introduced to Zen in 1988 by an amazing mentor at the Albany Academy. Then I started reading in Krishnamurti and learning the rudiments of sitting meditation at a Zen center in Bar Harbor in 1989. But it was not until study of these two streams led me to the home of Enrico and Nadia Natali in Ojai, California, for a pivotal six-month apprenticeship in 1992 that I really began to put Krishnamurti and Zen together in earnest. I was twenty years old at the time. The zendo in the photo above is where I learned to sit daily with Enrico. It is also where I participated in my first week-long sesshin.  

Enrico and Nadia had a tremendously positive influence on my development. Some 24 years later, in 2016, I found myself homeless and in crisis in southern California. Enrico and Nadia took me in for a month and financed my safe return back to New York (via an important regroup with my brother in Kentucky, where I visited the Abbey of Gethsemane and acquired a copy of Thomas Merton's Spiritual Direction and Meditation). It's not an exaggeration to say that the Natalis saved my life twice. I will always be grateful for their wisdom and compassion. You can learn more about them from their websites:

• Nadia Natali
• Enrico Natali

I've continued practice in the "Blue Heron" school of Zen with varying degrees of commitment ever since 1992. When I stop daily Zen practice, my schizoaffective symptoms get worse. It can take a while, though, for the effects to be noticeable. I am convinced that my abrupt departure from serious study with the Zen Buddhist Order of Interbeing around the year 2000, and the gradual decline of my Zen practice in the years that followed, was a contributing factor to my eventual descent into serious mental illness. But it's a complex puzzle and there are many other pieces involved.

Now I am discerning a possible call to Christian vegan hermitage, blogging, and spiritual direction with a small caseload of clients. I am far from ready yet, and perhaps never will be, but I don't want to ignore a call from the God of Abraham (if that is what it is!) to responsibly discern this path. How, over the next decade or so (God willing), should I be thinking about the integration of my contemplative Christian inquiry, my mental health recovery journey, and Krishnamurti-informed Zen practice? It's a long-term question that only I can answer in the end, I know, but I think it's important for me to share quarterly updates about this stage of my "process" (a term familiar to those in Krishnamurti circles) with Enrico and Nadia.

Addendum:

David Allen, another major influence on my blog, developed Getting Things Done (GTD) while living and working in Ojai, California.

What this has to do with the Chumash on the indigenous Californian side is something to ponder with help from this short video titled Chumash Science Through Time: The Arborglyph.

Maybe down the road I will say something about the preliminary Chumash sun stick observations I made with my trekking poles while visiting Enrico and Nadia in 2016.

What all of this might have to do with the Chumash on the indigenous Jewish side is something for me to learn more about from the Messianic Jewish Theological Institute when I join them for class this Thursday (cf. Just Jew It: Reading Torah, Reading the Jewish People | MJTI School of Jewish Studies).

End 6:07 PM. Updated on 2025-10-06 to include the parenthetical regarding Kentucky and Thomas Merton.