William Wordsworth says that poetry is "emotion recollected in tranquillity."
Three years after the Basin Complex Fire, I'm not sure "tranquillity" is exactly what I feel...
But I've seen the early, prototype version of Magnus Torén's commemorative slide-show of the Basin Complex Fire — and it is definitely poetic. It features the photography of over 30 local photographers, accompanied by smart, lively musical twists and turns.
Magnus' slide-show isn't only a past-tense retrospective on the fire. But rather it takes us on a new journey through so many of the emotions we felt three years ago — and it helps us experience that journey in a new light. That is, it helps our own recollection, in the deepest sense of that word.
This journal might have looked sleepy lately — but actually there's been alot of behind-the-scenes work going on. I've been interviewing and reading through paper records pertaining to the Mescal Ridge firebreak that protected the communities in and around Palo Colorado Canyon during the Basin Fire.
Much new information — and many new questions — have been coming up. I'll report on all this as a few more details begin to coalesce.
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Note
The photograph for HMML's slide-show announcement is by Kodiak Greenwood.
Sharpening the Alaskan millOne notable tradition in Big Sur is that of legendary woodsmen. And that tradition is still alive.
Though this journal won't do justice to his diverse craftsmanship — both in metal work and with wood — our friend and neighbor Brian is a skilled artist in both fields.
This deadfall madrone has been lying on the earth for years.
It takes imagination to size up this beautiful downed tree anew.
And to begin working with it consciously.
Until the new imagining begins to appear.
And begins to organize itself neatly.
We'll have to stay posted in order to see what comes up next. But the care and craftmanship have just begun.
"Cool Water," a new show of canyon artist Melissa Lofton's oil paintings, has just opened at Range Mercantile in St. Helena.
The show runs until September 23.
"[Melissa's] painting is inspired by her love of the natural world, and this series is an expression of her fascination with water, the driving force of all nature."
Melissa maintains a studio at her home on Green Ridge and another in Carmel.
So the beautiful motifs and color and rhythms in her work help awaken that dreaming beauty within and around oneself as well.
"Is there a lovelier place to see live music in California than Big Sur's Henry Miller Memorial Library? Alas, Los Angeles, there is not. And as if to add insult to regional injury, they've gone and booked an excellent lineup of summer and fall shows that could easily pull audiences well beyond the library's 300-capacity lawn."
And the above accolade couldn't even foresee Wednesday night's stealth, invitation-only Red Hot Chili Peppers' concert — which was a surprise inauguration to the band's upcoming world tour celebrating the release of their 10th album, I'm with You.
But no better prelude to what would transpire than the introduction given by Henry Miller Memorial Library's president Maria Garcia Teutsch:
"Once again Emil White's little cabin plays host to a mad group of geniuses, The Red Hot Chili Peppers. We would begin by thanking them for supporting us here, hanging as we are on the the side of a continent, with condors overhead flipping the bird to extinction.
Big Sur resident Flea at Wednesday's stealth concert at HMML. A fan photo that appears in Spin magazine."And the Red Hot Chili Peppers are on their own cliff edge at the beginning of a world tour, with a new album humming and vibrating, waiting in the wings to be released next month, and we, the few joyous souls gathered here in this tiny canyon, get to be a part of its first flight, what a rare moment to be alive under these redwoods, under these stars close enough to 'drink.'
"We are also very grateful to the kind people at (((folk YEAH))) without whom this most special event would not have happened with such gossamer strings of perfection. Thank you.
"As a coastal watershed, we here at Henry Miller Library know something about the fragility of this ecosystem, and the beauty inherent in the Big Sur community, our neighbors, on this, our 30th anniversary season.
"It is important to us to maintain our commitment to artistic freedom, to the environment, to inspiration, and for this we could ask for no more fitting band than the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who are also close to their thirty year anniversary, and who, in all that time, have never failed to 'let her rip.'"
In fact, just within a single person who experiences the fire, there are already many fires. This isn't just a matter of how we remember either.
For instance, watch and listen to Mako Voelkel's 16-second awe-filled observation of the fire on Flag Rock.
After 16 seconds of videotaping, Mako thought to herself, "I guess there's something else I should be doing now."
Click on the above image for a slideshow of events at Tassajara. This first photo is courtesy of Johan OstlundSo while Fire Monks tells the story of how "zen mind met wildfire at the gates of Tassajara," it actually tells both one story and many stories, about one fire and many fires, since the fire always changes — and our view always changes, too.
Trail to the Wind Caves, September 2008.Fire Monks is the opportunity to walk with others who met the fire. And so it is an opportunity to remember how you met the fire, too — and to recollect how you might want to meet it the next time it appears.
I don't know how well you know Tassajara. But by its end, Fire Monks becomes a book about neighborliness, too — what creates and what stresses it.
In other words, it implies a central question: what is the relationship between a monastery dedicated to a prescribed practice and the wider community outside the monastery's gates?
Suzuki-roshi's memorial, September 2008Or asked another way...to whom does Tassajara belong — and who belongs to it?
Tassajara CreekI know the answer for myself. Or I know my current answer.
The practice of Tassajara is a gift to the mountains-and-rivers in which we all live — just as the mountains-and-rivers in which we all live are already a gift to Tassajara. Tassajara is one of our many secret hearts.
As David Zimmerman, one of the monks who returned to Tassajara to meet the fire, says, "When you meet the fire, you meet yourself."
September 2008.We who live in these mountains understand that we will keep on meeting fire.
And the gift of living in these mountains is the particularly acute opportunity they give us for meeting ourselves as well.
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Notes
Colleen Morton Busch's Fire Monks:Zen MindMeets Wildfire at the Gates of Tassajara has just been published — coinciding with the three-year anniversary of the Basin Complex Fire. Colleen weaves extensive interviews and research, together with her own experience as a Zen practitioner, into a vivid, first-hand account of the story/stories of how Tassajara met the Basin Fire. Like others I know who have read the book already, I couldn't put it down. It also provides helpful background — and raises pointed questions — about the "fog of war" and fire politics that still obscure our understanding of the Basin Complex Fire. Like Abbot Steve Stucky says, Colleen's endnotes deserve a close second reading on their own.
Friday, September 16, 2011 at 3:24PM 
