Gary Snyder at 83

Pulitzer-prize winning Beat Zen Buddhist poet and eco-activist Gary Snyder turned 83 last week. Don't know how I missed this. He's a role model and hero of mine. This from Practice of the Wild:

"Our skills and works are but tiny reflections of the wild world that is innately and loosely orderly. There is nothing like stepping away from the road and heading into a new part of the watershed. Not for the sake of newness, but for the sense of coming home to our whole terrain. "Off the trail" is another name for the Way, and sauntering off the trail is the practice of the wild. That is also where - paradoxically - we do our best work".

[NOTE: Go here for nice film profile of Gary Snyder. A belated happy birthday and best wishes for many more]. 

Murciélagos

Murciélagos, or bats, are the main pollinators of the Agave species used to make mescal. In addition to the graphs and data tables that were on the walls of the meeting room where the mescaleros presented their work (see Mescal Re-Visited), the monitoring teams had also drawn several posters about the importance of bats. Wonderfully whimisical and informative. Three of my favorites are shown below with approximate translations of the text:

Pollinators of Agaves: The Maguey Bat. Through pollination, the maguey bats insure the genetic diversity of the agaves and reduce their vulnerability to pests and disease. The fruit bat eats fruits. Take care of all of them.

We have to take care of bats because they benefit magueys through pollination and also in the production of fertilizer (guano) and the control of pests. There are also bats the suck the blood from livestock and transmit disease. We should be very careful with them because they are dangerous.

Take care of bats and other pollinators. With posters in public places in schools, clinics, and stores. Or talking with friends and your children about how you shouldn't bother bats. Don't put insecticide on fruit trees.

[NOTE: Those are my black Converses shown in the lower right of image 1 and 3. The wind was blowing the posters away before I could photograph them].

Mescal Still

Mescal still at Acateyahualco in Guerrero, Mexico. The fermented Agave mash (see Mescal) goes in on the right and is cooked, cooled, and the resultant distillate drips out into the plastic jug on the right through the green funnel. Flowers and blue cross are a nice touch. [NOTE: A high resolution copy of this image can be dowloaded here. Nice desktop image for your computer - especially for mescal aficionados].

Pop Quiz

After everyone had finished making their Biltmore sticks (see What I Do), I had them line up and measure the diameter of a nearby oak tree. They were to measure the tree, but not tell anyone else what they got. When everyone had finished, we compared the results. Everyone was pretty nervous about this, but they (almost) all assigned the tree to the same 5 cm diameter class.

What I Do

Last week I gave a three-day workshop on community management of forest resources in Santa Cruz, El Rincon with Miguel Alexiades, Patricia Negreros, and Citlalli Lopez. About 40 students from several different institutions and communities participated. We had a first day of basic concepts and made Biltmore sticks (see Biltmore Stick). The second day we went to a nearby tract of tropical dry forest and ran inventory transects and counted and measured trees. Super steep site, and some of the slopes were in excess of 100%. I slipped a lot.

And then we took the data and made a big table showing the density and basal area of different tree species and drew size-class histograms of the most abundant/valuable ones. The final - and most important - step in the whole process is to try to figure out what all of this means in terms of management, i.e. what needs to be done to insure that a species continues to grow and reproduce while it is being exploited. This is what I am try to do in the image above (thx, Miguel). This is what I do for a living. Helping communities define a conceptual path through a forest of data to make things better. For all beings. Gassho. [NOTE: The last day of the workshop ran very late, and we were still talking about diameter distributions and regeneration rates at 9:00 PM].

Mescal Re-Visited

Great meeting yesterday with the mescal producers in Acateyahualco, Guererro (see Mescal). Five years ago I showed them how to monitor their Agave populations to avoid over-exploitation and to ensure future supplies of mescal. They have been doing this every year since. They know exactly how many seedlings, and juveniles, and adults they have in the surrounding dry forests, and exactly how many they can harvest each year. The number of small plants in local Agave populations has actually gone up.  Very proud of these guys. [NOTE: Image above shows a mescalero from Acateyahualco testing the alcohol content of his product. Can be as high as 72%. Whew. Powerful stuff].

Dharma Week: Day 5

Original Post: Sunday at Shwedagon
Date: September 9, 2008 at 11:17AM

[NOTE: Posted from my hotel in Mexico City. Off to Guerrero tomorrow by bus at 5:30 AM. Had a wonderful meeting this afternoon with my friends at GEA (see Meeting in Acateyahualco)]. 

One Sunday in early January of 2005, I spent a quiet morning at the Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, Myanmar.   There is a palpable serenity and magic here, which, I am convinced, is at least partly due to the eight strands of Buddha's hair that are enshrined on the site.  There is also an impressive banyon tree (Ficus religiosa) which is said to have been grown from a branch of the original tree in Bodh Gaya under which Siddhartha Gautama attained enlightenment. [NOTE: The monks are "bathing the Buddha" with little cups of water]. 

Dharma Week: Day 4

Original Post: What About Me?
Date: July 30, 2010 at 9:12 AM

[NOTE: I am off to Guerrero, Mexico early tomorrow morning. I'll post as I can, but the retrospective will have to be put on hold until I get back. Stay tuned]. 

I have always been moved by this 2006 video from Sakyong Jamgön Mipham Rimpoche. Listen carefully to the words. 6.8 billion people chanting this mantra every day. Explains a lot.  

Dharma Week: Day 3

Original Post: Drink Tea, Stop War
Date: May 31, 2011 at 10:06 AM

A somewhat oblique continuation of yesterday's Memorial Day post. Paul Reps (1895-1990) was one of the first haiku poets in the U.S., and, together with Nyogen Senzaki, was the editor of the wonderful collection of dharma stories, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones (1957). This was the first zen book I ever read.

James Ishmael Ford offered this beautiful story about Paul Reps yesterday on the Sweeping Zen site:

"At one point Reps had traveled to Japan, with plans to visit a respected Zen master in Korea. He went to the passport office in Japan to apply for his visa and was politely informed that his request was denied due to the war that had just broken out in Korea.

Reps sat down in the waiting area. He had come thousands of miles with the plan to study with this master in Korea. He was frustrated and disappointed. What did he do? He practiced what he preached. Reaching into his bag, he mindfully pulled out his thermos and poured himself a cup of tea. With a calm and focused mind, he watched the steam rising and dissolving into the air. He smelled its fragrance, tasted its tasty bitter flavor, and enjoyed its warmth and wetness. Finishing his tea, he put his cup back on his thermos, put his thermos in his bag, and pulled out a pen and paper upon which he wrote a Haiku poem.

Mindfully, he walked back to the clerk behind the counter, bowed, and presented him with his poem, and his passport. The clerk read it and looked deeply into the quiet strength in Rep’s eyes. The clerk smiled, bowed with respect, picked up Rep’s visa and stamped it for passage to Korea. The Haiku read:

Drinking a cup of tea, 
I stopped the war."

[NOTE: I have spent a lot of time in visa offices around the world, and am thoroughly humbled by the patience and creativity exhibited by Mr. Reps]