My long walk in Oceanside last weekend resulted in many cool photographs. First, enjoy two murals at the corner of Civic Center Drive and Horne Street.
The first mural was painted on the west side of the Northern Pine Brewing Company building. It’s by artists Gloria Muriel and Matthew Perdoni.
On the north side of the building is a long, very colorful mural. Cars parked on the street close to the artwork caused me to take photographs in sections.
The artist is Isabel “Chavela” Figueroa. The mural’s title is The Sacred Offering (La Sagrada Ofrenda).
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
Whenever I walk through downtown El Cajon, I make sure to pass by the Unarius Academy of Science. I peer through the front windows, wondering what weird new thing I might see.
Yesterday, I did find something new.
Yes, there were still displays concerning lost Atlantis, the future arrival of the Space Brothers, a Map of the Interplanetary Confederation, and students engaging in psychodrama as they reenact past-life experiences. But, lo and behold, there’s now a display that celebrates Nikola Tesla!
It’s titled The Unobstructed Universe of Nikola Tesla.
Taking photos through the windows of the building is very difficult due to strong reflections from the street. But here we go.
One sign calls Nikola Tesla a cosmic visionary and a dweller on two planets, and “If you wish to find the secrets of the universe, think of energy, frequency and vibration.”
This display seems apropos, as their website states how Unarius offers “…a course in self-mastery, based on the interdimensional understanding of energy–the joining of science and spirit.“
I don’t get the dweller on two planets, however. Tesla actually journeyed to Mars?
One of the Unarius webpages explains how Tesla thought we could communicate with beings from other planets. In 1899, he believed he had received a message likely from Mars.
Yesterday I also noticed the parking lot near the Unarius Academy of Science has a new mural. Here it is:
Have you seen their cool flying saucer car? I spotted it once during a walk through Coronado.
Just for fun, here it is again!
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I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
The free community event was hosted by the Native Youth Foundation and featured Native American culture, education, crafts, food, music and fun for the entire family.
The festival brought together tribes from around the Southern California region to honor Indigenous Peoples’ Day. It was a celebration of Native voices shaping the future.
I came by in the late afternoon as the festival was kicking off. When I departed about an hour later, a good crowd had gathered for this inaugural event.
I enjoyed listening to the Campo Bird Singers, visiting various booths and eating crispy tacos.
What are some of the things I learned?
I learned the people in the next photo represent Volunteer Escondido. They’re neighbors who come together to help build a stronger community and enhance the quality of life for all!
You can visit their website here! Check out their event calendar and perhaps you can participate as a volunteer in their good work!
I was interested to learn from the next group of smiling people that there is a National Native American Hall of Fame!
The organization, with its headquarters in Oklahoma City, honors Native American achievements in contemporary society, from the 1860s to present day!
Visit their website here! There are various ways that you can support them!
Look! More friendly people at the next booth!
They represent the La Jolla Generations Program, a tribal youth program of the La Jolla Band of Luiseño Indians.
They would be demonstrating basketmaking later during the festival!
In the late morning, the Campo Bird Singers were on stage performing traditional, sacred Bird Songs.
Lots of tasty food, including carne asada and Kumeyaay frybread!
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I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
This very beautiful Día de los Muertos mural was painted in San Ysidro in 2024. I saw it for the first time last weekend during a long walk.
The mural is filled with traditional Día de los Muertos imagery. It was painted by artists Berenice Badillo (@bbadillos) and Shirish Villaseñor (@shirishtheartist) on the long wooden fence at the north end of San Ysidro’s Cultural Corridor.
Curious? The art-filled Cultural Corridor stretches for a quarter mile along Cypress Drive, from San Ysidro Boulevard to the trolley tracks near the Beyer Avenue station.
Community organization Casa Familiar has been working to make the corridor more than a mere alley. It is a vibrant place that provides residents with physical and spiritual connection.
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I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
It’s springtime in San Diego, and the Sri Chinmoy Peace Garden in North Park is in full bloom!
Sri Chinmoy was a spiritual leader from India who taught meditation in the United States. What better place to meditate but in a place of tranquil beauty.
The Sri Chimnoy Peace Garden was established in 2013 and includes a statue of the spiritual leader and benches for quiet sitting.
The small garden, located off Adams Avenue just east of Arizona Street, has been maintained by the San Diego Sri Chimnoy Centre, which according to Google is permanently closed. As a sign explains, the natural setting is intended to enhance the beauty of the area and offer the community a place for reflection.
Spring is a time for renewal–perhaps for the soul as well.
Sri Chinmoy – STUDENT OF PEACE – CHAMPION OF THE INDOMITABLE SPIRIT OF MANKIND
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I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
This afternoon, Danza Azteca Calpulli performed at the Annual San Diego Balboa Park Powwow, which is typically held on Mother’s Day weekend.
The colorful Aztec Dancers might delight the eyes, but those watching were reminded that their dance is spiritual–it’s a prayer.
The smoke of white sage blesses participants, purifying minds and hearts.
In a circle the dancers step to rhythmic drums and at intervals spin. The dance feels like a collective heartbeat, and the turning seems like the circle of life.
Perhaps I don’t know any better, but that’s the feeling I get. I like to quietly watch and listen.
You need to experience it yourself to develop your own feeling.
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I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
In 2022, the Native and Indigenous Healing Garden debuted at San Diego State University, to one side of the Communication Building. The circular garden, which also serves as an outdoor classroom, is filled with healing herbs that can be freely harvested. Life grows in sunshine around a central stone fountain.
The plants in the garden represent various indigenous cultures: the Kumeyaay, the Aztecs, the Mixtecs and Zapotecs, and other indigenous people in California and Mesoamerica.
Painted beside the garden on one side of the Communication Building, visitors will also find a large, very beautiful mural.
This website provides details about the 30’ x 60’ mural: Designed by students as part of an Arts Alive SDSU project by History Professor Paula DeVos and Art Professor Eva Struble, the artwork includes various plants, animals, and designs with deep ties to Native Indigenous culture throughout California and Mesoamerica.
If I lived near SDSU, I know I’d walk by frequently, simply to sit on the shady bench you see in my photographs. One feels drawn to this healing garden, the smell of sage and other life springing from the earth, and the quiet beauty of the place.
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I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
The San Diego Symphony has placed a community ofrenda in their box office lobby for Día de los Muertos. The beautiful Day of the Dead altar can be found inside the front entrance of downtown’s Symphony Towers. Step inside, turn left and you’ll see it.
The community ofrenda was designed by local Mexican-American artist Maricruz Alvarado. She has been creating beautiful ofrendas for 25 years.
(By the way, I recently posted photos of a gigantic skull that Maricruz made! See it by clicking here!)
Members of the community are invited to contribute photographs and other momentos to the San Diego Symphony ofrenda in memory of deceased loved ones.
I swung by for a look early this morning…
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) was celebrated today by the Old Globe in San Diego’s Balboa Park. Lots of family-friendly activities and theatrical performances were enjoyed by the public in the Old Globe’s outdoor Copley Plaza!
I enjoyed the first performance of this magical event: actors portraying Mexican folk passed through the audience, came to a grave in front of a beautiful Día de los Muertos altar, and summoned the spirit of a deceased loved one. The spirit came and danced with them, before finally departing.
The event would go on to feature other performances, including a puppet play and Drummers Without Borders. My camera captured their smiles before I headed off, as you can see in the final two photos.
Learn more about the Old Globe’s very colorful Day of the Dead event on their web page here.
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
Sacred Architecture of San Diego and Tijuana is a free exhibition now showing at the La Jolla Historical Society’s Wisteria Cottage. The exhibit features stunning architectural photographs in the cottage’s museum-like galleries.
You won’t see photos of “old” church architecture–with ordinary steeples, gothic decoration and the like. San Diego is a relatively young city. Many places of worship in our region were built in the 20th century, and consequently reflect a more modern, unadorned, experimental style.
I noticed that much of this “sacred architecture” makes use of simple geometric forms like triangles, circles and waves. The basic forms feel simple, elemental and universal, and yet the structures are often a bit strange: elongated as if striving heavenward, or modest and sheltering near the earth where we stand. Much of the architecture produces a sense of wonder–at least for me.
Notable architects highlighted in the exhibition include Irving Gill with his masterful protomodern designs, and midcentury modernists Richard Neutra, Albert Frey and Jaime Sandoval. Postmodern buildings include a church by Charles Moore. La Jolla’s own Sim Bruce Richards is also represented.
The exhibition is being presented in conjunction with San Diego/Tijuana’s selection as World Design Capital. These stunning architectural photographs will be on display through September 1, 2024.
In San Diego, I’ve enjoyed architectural tours of several prominent places of worship. You can read descriptions and see photographs by clicking the following links:
Cool San Diego Sights! 