Today is pub day for Fire Monks in paperback. I’ll be reading at Diesel in Oakland tonight to mark this happy occasion, but I’ll also be thinking about the people in Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah who are experiencing the same sort of weather that led to the Basin Complex fire that threatened Tassajara in 2008. Red flag warnings have been issued in all three states today as forecasters predict dry lightning, low humidity, and high heat–not the kind of forecasts fire managers like to see. May cooler temps come soon.
Paperback release on the horizon
Fire Monks will be out in paperback in June! I’ve just posted some new Bay Area readings on my Events page. Many summer and fall events are still in the works and will be added as they are confirmed.
In April, fire monk David Zimmerman and I spoke at the International Association of Wildland Fire Human Dimensions conference in Seattle. It was a heartwarming experience to present to such a receptive audience of fire professionals. Lots of great people doing good work studying our complex relationship with fire and the landscapes it touches.
San Francisco Zen Center is in the midst of marking its 50th year. Watch the August issue of Shambhala Sun for a feature I’m writing about Zen Center’s impact on establishing Zen practice in the West.
I’ve been quiet on the Huffington Post, but stay tuned. That will change soon.
Thanks to those of you who’ve sent such kind emails about Fire Monks. I love receiving them!
Ski-in Reading
I read last night at Tahoe Cross Country in Tahoe City–one of my favorite places in the world. I came off the trail post-ski that morning to find this great sign made by Valle, who runs the place with her husband Kevin. I arrived that evening to find the lodge transformed into a cozy living room. The crowd was lively and warm and curious–and they bought books. Hard to think of a day better spent…
Return to the Marketplace
Who knew that the first thing I’d publish after spending three months meditating would be a blog about mice–the kind that haunt kitchens and the lesser known kind that skitter about in the mind? You can read that blog post here. If I hadn’t accidentally deleted the picture I took on my iPhone of one of the mice before I released it, I’d post the pic, too. But the picture vanished, just as the mice seem to have vanished from my house since I posted that blog!
Who knew, also, that the German rights to Fire Monks would be sold while I was at Tassajara, spending my days on a meditation cushion (or vacuuming the plunges in the bathhouse, or training to handle a fire hose–photo below)? Feuern Mönche will be published by Theseus Verlag, who put out the German edition of Suzuki Roshi’s Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind.
And who knew that the book would be named one of the best books of 2011, alongside Bossypants and Charles Dickens: A Life?
Life is full of surprises. We say this, and sometimes we see how very true it is.
Gone, gone beyond
As of Sept 26, I’m entering a three-month practice period at Tassajara, so things will be quiet on this blog and on my Huff Post blog for a while.
I’m happy to say that Fire Monks is humming along, finding readers in places both expected and unexpected. Fire season will slide into snow season while I’m away. May the fires that have yet to start bring new life.
I wrote a parting commentary published today in the Duluth News Tribune. The Pagami Creek fire burning in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and the approaching 20th anniversary of the Oakland Hills fire closer to home have me thinking about our relationship with fire. It’s easy to feel animosity towards wildfire when it’s threatening our homes or our loved ones or places–especially when lives are lost. I understand that feeling.
But in the long run, fire is not our enemy. As Abbot Steve Stucky says in Fire Monks–fire is more like an old friend we have to be strict with from time to time.
Until we meet again, be well!
Latest (and last for a bit) Huff Po blog
…unless I find a way to blog from the wilderness…
What Meditation Won’t Do for You
New Huff Post Blog on Finding Time
My latest Huffington Post blog on a meditator’s expanded experience of time is here. The editors gave it a “How to” title, and it does end on a practical note, but it’s not a checklist or a receipe. (As Suzuki Roshi once said–and one of my teachers, renowned Zen chef Edward Espe Brown likes to quote–“You cannot eat a receipe.”) In the post, I offer my own experience of making peace with time through meditation practice. Bon appetit!
Fire Monks is a KWMR pledge premium
Tomorrow, KWMR Community Radio in West Marin will be airing an interview with me as part of their fall pledge drive and National Preparedness Month, from 10-11:30 am PST. And, they will give away free copies of FIRE MONKS as pledge premiums!
I am working on posting one or two more Huffington Post blogs in the next couple of weeks. After that, it will be quiet on fire-monks.com for the remaining months of the year, as I’ll be offline for three months of retreat–at Tassajara. Retreat isn’t exactly the right word for a practice period, but more on that later…
Mark your calendars: Just found out the paperback release date is June 26!
Decisions, decisions
“Good decision making is not a trait of the person, in the sense that it’s always there,” says a social psychologist in the recent New York Times Magazine article on decision fatigue. “It’s a state that fluctuates.”
I agree wholeheartedly.
Writing Fire Monks, I reached a similar conclusion. But decisions are not just the product of one person’s exertion of willpower. They are a complex combination of individual will and everything else—all of the environmental, cultural, social, and yes, biological factors also at play.
We can all make “good” decisions—thank goodness—but whether we are deciding whether to satisfy a sweet tooth or to risk our lives, decisions are ultimately just decisions—best understood when we resist simply labeling them good or bad and focus instead on understanding a decision’s many interconnected branches and roots.
HuffPost
Huffington Post just published a blog I wrote on decision-making. Read it here and pass it along to your beloved indecisive ones.