Happy Interdependence Day, everyone! It’s July 4th, the pyromaniac’s favorite time of the year. Please be careful if you are lighting fireworks or playing with fire in any way. It’s hot and dry out there.
It’s been a quiet few months on this blog as I’ve turned my attention to other interests and writing projects, but fire season is in full, hot fervor. We need no more dark reminder than the recent deaths of 19 firefighters on the Yarnell Hill fire. I’ve been working on a written response to the disaster but have nothing that feels at all adequate to the loss. I am holding the fallen hotshot crew and their loved ones in my heart.
There’s a thoughtful New York Times opinion piece by Alan Dean Foster about why people, including the author and myself, choose to live in fire-prone landscapes.
Meanwhile, July 10 is the 5th anniversary of the Basin Complex fire’s entrance into Tassajara. David Zimmerman, one of the fire monks, wrote a stirring reflection for the occasion. You can read it here.
West Coast Live Saturday, Jan 19th!
UPDATE: Listen to the broadcast: West Coast Live 19 January 2013. The first few minutes are missing. Sedge started the interview by asking me about the human need to control wildfire and the notion that in Zen, you “let things be.” I said that the residents of Tassajara didn’t try to control the fire, they guided it, met it, befriended it.
Sedge: Those are not USFS firefighting terms.
Me: No, they’re not, these are Zen monks.
Sedge: They don’t get into suppression…
Me: Or opposition or enmity. Their idea was: Fire belongs here. The forest needs fire. We live here, with fire. Can we find a way to honor all of our needs?….
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EARLIER POST: I am thrilled to be appearing on West Coast Live talking to Sedge Thomson this Saturday January 19th, at Yoshi’s in Oakland’s Jack London Square! The show is live from 10am to noon. To see the show live, reserve tickets at Brown Paper Tickets, 800-838-3006. To listen, tune in to KALW 91.7, which streams the show live and for about a week after the first airing.
Tassajara Teaching
Just returned from a dip into the stillness and quiet of the Tassajara valley. At one point I found myself sitting in the same zendo seat where I sat last fall during the practice period. There’s a fairly large gap in the wooden tan (or platform) there. I was sure I could feel it through my cushion, and this used to annoy me. Like sleeping on a lumpy mattress. This time, though, I regarded the crack with a kind of tenderness. I came back to my room and wrote:
Everything you’ve broken,
Everything broken in you,
For this too,
Gratitude.
Squawking at Litcrawl
Twist my arm. OK, I’ll read with four other Squaw Valley Community of Writers alum at the Carte Blanche Gallery during SF’s Litcrawl. Pictured: Renee Moffett Thompson, Sam Barry, Seré Prince Halverson, Brett Hall Jones, Andrew Altschul, and Thad Nodine.
A Reading on the Ridge
On October 6th, I’m honored to be reading with poet Gary Snyder and fellow Bay Area writer Carolyn Paul at a fundraiser for the North San Juan fire department, the oldest fire department in Nevada County. Check out the great poster–and come if you can!
Fire Stories