Tassajara wrap-up...yet fire continues

Smoke in the mountains surrounding Tassajara (photo by Shundo David Haye)

If you've been reading this blog, you've gotten my personal story of the Basin Complex fire that's been raging in central California these past two weeks. My partner Gina, who spent those two weeks with a skeleton crew at Tassajara Zen Center helping to clear brush and prepare the area for fire, made it out safely on Monday.

This past Thursday, the fire raged through Tassajara. Thankfully, the five people who chose to stay behind to fight the fire are also safe, though trapped there because the road into Tassajara is now impassable. There was some damage, but because of everyone's efforts on Thursday and in the weeks before, most of the monastery was saved. David Zimmerman, Tassajara's director, wrote a very descriptive and harrowing narrative of the fire's visit.

Bodhisattva Alert: The fire has been devastating to San Francisco Zen Center, which is comprised of Tassajara, City Center, and Green Gulch Farm Zen Center. The Center relies heavily on revenue from the guest season at Tassajara to support all the activities and the many priests and Zen students connected with it. If you want to find out how to give 'em a hand to continue their good work, read this letter from SFZC president Robert Thomas.

And the Basin Complex fire continues to burn on and to threaten other parts of the beautiful Ventana Wilderness and the Los Padres National Forest, as well as communities in Cachagua, Jamesburg, and possibly Carmel Valley. To date, this fire has burned through more than 117,000 acres and is only 60% contained.

Tassajara: July 5 update

I am sitting here eating fudge mint cookies (all natural, of course) and feeling very relieved. I spoke with Gina a while ago and she has decided it's time to come out of Tassajara. She has already done so much...nearly two weeks of intensive physical labor to prepare the monastery for fire, should it arrive. There are still about 20 people down in there; they can't rely on fire crews for support anymore as a fire burning near Santa Barbara has taken first priority on the state fire list.

So here's your prayer assignment:
1) For Gina to get a ride out of Tassajara quickly
2) For the road to be clear so she can get through to Jamesburg, on the other side
3) For the safety of the remaining folks who are choosing to stay through, no matter what happens.

The current status, according to the Sitting With Fire blog, is that things are in a kind of holding zone... the fire is still very close, probably just about a mile and a half, but relatively cool temperatures have kept it in check. Temperatures are expected to rise over the next few days. Sounds like what they are encountering is not a raging wall of flame but rather scattered pockets of fire here and there. So best case scenario is that these fires will either by-pass or cause minimal damage to Tassajara, since it is thoroughly watered down now with a sprinkler system. But this is a fire, a powerful element, and is very much subject to what the weather does. And even the best case scenarios don't project the Basin Complex fire ending anytime soon... possibly not even until the late fall/winter rains comes.

If all goes well, Gina will be in a safer zone soon, I'll feel much more at ease, and this blog can go back to sabbatical type content... what's that saying? "Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans."

Tassajara fire update

Gina, on the left, and other Tassajara students
get ready for another day of preparing for fire
(photo by Shundo David Haye)

The fires continue to burn in the Ventana wilderness, and from what I can gather from my distant perch here in New Mexico, are creeping closer to Tassajara, perhaps within a mile and half away at this point. Gina calls me nearly every day and she is still good, offering what she can along with the handful of other students who chose to stay and prepare the monastery in case the fire reaches there.

My intuition is that they may need to really evacuate soon. This is big dharma, practicing with impermanence. From an entry today on the Sitting with Fire blog:

Lots of people like the Tassajara zendo and would hate to see it in ashes. Yet, this is a building which owes its life to a fire. A temporary replacement for the zendo which was destroyed by a local fire the year after Zen Center students fought hard to defend the monastery against the Marble Cone fire.

While we sit with the possibility of the fire reaching Tassajara we are playing with the idea of how we could take our cue from the seeds that need fire to open and use this fire to renew ourselves, our community and our places?

So, I continue to wait and pray for Gina's safety and that of all the beings and creatures in that beautiful land, and all beings everywhere.

Sitting in the Fire

Preparing for fire at Tassajara
photo from Los Angeles Times

It's Saturday morning, I'm in Medanales, NM, but a great deal of my attention and prayers are going to Tassajara Zen Center. I feel like half my life is there.

On Thursday night around 9:30 I spoke with Gina on the phone from inside of Tassajara (she can call me from the one satellite phone there, but I can't call her). She was actually in very good spirits -- along with the 10 or so other priests and students who chose to stay behind and help fire crews, she had put in a long day clearing brush and helping to create fire breaks to protect the monastery should the flames come down into it. She had made dinner for the fire crew the night before and was offering to give massages too... she said she was happy she chose to stay, and it seems that she is in her element. She is a brave woman.

The last updates had the fire at about 3 miles from the monastery with winds possibly coming in from the southeast which would push it even closer in that direction. There's an excellent story in today's LA Times about the fire and Tassajara.

Thanks for all your support and prayers.

Settling into New Mexico

I am settling into my home for the next two weeks here in Medanales, New Mexico. I’ll be housesitting for my friends Lisa and Djann. Hardly anyone has ever heard of Medanales, even in New Mexico. I doubt that it has a Wikipedia entry, but you can tell me! It’s about an hour north of Santa Fe, on the road toward Abiquiu (famous as Georgia O’Keefe’s home).

It’s been quite a week of traveling from place to place, and I’m only now catching up on this blog. There’s a lot more to say than what I’m able to write here. I still feel very much in transition, and am still concerned about Gina and a handful of other residents at Tassajara who have chosen to stay there and help fire crews to prepare for the fire, which seems to be headed in that direction. The most helpful sources of information I’ve found so far are the KUSP page and for a more personal take on it, the blog Sitting with Fire started up by the folks who are based in Jamesburg, off of Carmel Valley Road and at the start of the 14-mile dirt road that leads to Tassajara.

Even so, this first week in New Mexico has been good… here are a couple of New Mexico photos; one of my friends Kristin and Joseph who hosted me my first few days here and one of view from their Santa Fe patio. And many thanks to friends Sharon and Greg who gave me a place to stay for the past few nights at their beautiful, off-the-grid home in Medanales. Sharon took me for a super relaxing trip to Ojo Caliente hot springs this past Tuesday.

Above: Kristin and Joseph on their back porch in Santa Fe
Below: The view from the porch!