Near the end of March 2020, ten days into the Bay Area’s shelter-in-place order, I reached out to Fire Monk David Zimmerman to inquire about the parallels between his experience protecting Tassajara Zen Mountain Monastery from a wildfire in 2008 and his current experience, as abiding abbot at San Francisco Zen Center’s City Center, during the coronavirus pandemic. Here is our exchange. May it open your heart, settle your mind, and help you to remember that we’re in this (and every) conflagration together. CMB: Is your experience during the 2008 Basin Complex Fire … [Read more...]
Hope nevertheless
Fire Monks readers will remember Jane Hirshfield, if they don’t already know her poetry, as a steady, calming presence in the 2008 wildfire threat to Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. Because Jane lived at Tassajara during the 1977 Marble Cone Fire, she didn’t panic; she just got busy, meeting with visiting firefighters and Tassajara residents to share her knowledge and experience, but also clearing leaves, brooms, any potential fuel, away from structures. They didn’t know for sure that fire would reach Tassajara, but residents started preparing in case it did. … [Read more...]
Listen to Fire Monks!
In January I had the honor of recording the narration for the audiobook of Fire Monks with the pros at Live Oak Studio in Berkeley, California. There's a nice write-up by the studio here. It’s been more than a decade since fire raced towards Tassajara, but the subject of wildfire and how we humans live with it is only more pressing today. Eighteen million California trees died from drought and beetle infestation in 2018 alone—and that’s a decrease from 2016 and 2017—making ready, upright kindling. The Camp Fire of the same year tore through the community of Paradise in … [Read more...]
Op-ed in the Monterey Herald
Read my August 20 opinion piece in The Monterey Herald about why history doesn't have to repeat itself as the Soberanes Fire burns towards Tassajara. Photo by Mako Voelkel … [Read more...]
The Practice of Befriending
The return of wildfire to the Ventana has me thinking about Myogen Steve Stücky and his enduring teachings about befriending wildfire and even - gulp - our own impermanence: Read my latest blog post on Huff Po. … [Read more...]
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