Green Gulch Farm has its own time-honored place in California history. Obsidian blades and arrowheads from Miwoks are still found in furrows. In 1838, it was a Mexican land grant, Rancho Sausalito. Portuguese ranchers and workers from the Azores settled the land as one of several interlocking dairy ranches. Then, after the Second World War, George Wheelwright drove past with his wife Hope, and bought the place shortly thereafter. A physicist and co-inventor of the Polaroid Land Camera, Wheelright developed the land and raised prize Hereford bulls.

In 1972, after his wife died, Wheelright was unwilling to abandon the land to developers. Instead, he decided to grant the property to a non-profit organization with the proviso that they maintain a working farm and keep the trails open to the public. He finally settled on the Zen Center which had expressed a deep affinity for the land. Soon after, expert gardeners like Alan Chadwick from UCSC arrived and inspired five original Green Gulch farmers with his "imaginative energy". He also taught them the fundamentals of biodynamic farming and French-intensive style organic horticulture.

Thirty years later, Green Gulch has created an entire community founded in the practice of Zen Buddhism in the Japanese Soto Zen tradition as taught by Suzuki Roshi. They have transformed the barn into a Zendo, built a large kitchen, a dining room, a conference center and a guest house. The property is also home to an authentic Japanese Tea House and Tea Garden, and hosts numerous programs open to the public including two formal, monastic-style practice periods every year plus regular lectures and classes.

But the centerpiece is still the Farm. Organically cultivated in row crops, with the second field given to hand-cultivated vegetables such as the baby lettuce supplied to Greens Restaurant, the 1979 creation of Zen Center carpenters, where it is fashioned for the table by the culinary artistry of Chef Anne Somerville, a pioneer of fine vegetarian dinin

Green Gulch is run by a dedicated band of volunteers. For the most part the work is done in silence and mindful presence is cultivated.In the midst of each days work is a superb daily lunch, usually an enormous organic salad, with pasta or rice and atleast one soup prepared from field produce and herbs served with homemade bread. The vibrant food is enhanced by the scenery as the volunteers lunch outside at long tables on a deck, under Redwoods surrounded by hills.

For those who decide to participate in a program there is one caveat: the daily schedule is sobering, literally, since no alcohol is allowed on the farm, even wine with dinner. Entry level guest students stay 1-2 weeks. Programs for apprentices run six months for the Garden and Farm and three months for other disciplines, including the kitchen program which has turned out some notable culinary talent over the years. Apprentices rise at 4:30 in the morning, meditate, breakfast, work until lunch, eat, work, clean up, meditate, and have dinner. It is at least a 12 hour day.

The evenings are scheduled for studying or reading and in the summer, the apprentices will often walk out to Muir Beach and play guitar and sing. Green Gulch is local treasure. A unique place with a delicate, yet enduring beauty. It is a place where the land is allowed to speak profoundly in the richness of silence, imparting to those who are able to listen a nurturing solace and a new respect for all life.

Through our growing experience in farming and greeting guests....we've come to acknowledge and appreciate the mystery of plants, the cycle of seasons...and the study of ourselves, which is Buddhism. (Mick Sopko, Green Gulch co-director)

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