so this is what the volume knob's for

one of my biggest surprises at tassajara was the full moon ceremony. conducted once a month, unsurprisingly, on the night of the full moon, the ceremony is for atonement. the line goes something like: "all my ancient evil twisted karma, which has its beginning born of my body, speech, and mind -- i make full confession of it."

also, the ceremony is rock n roll. greg fain, a big, tall, recently married, zen cowboy priest who wears elvis costello glasses and gave me one of the best hugs of my life, agreed with me on this. the ceremony packs everyone into the zendo, cushion to cushion, and involves a lot, a LOT of bowing and prostration: up, down, up, down, forehead to the zabuton, throwing all that karma back over your shoulders, heart beating fast and palms in gassho -- there's no stopping. atonement at a run.

i only got to attend one of the ceremonies, in august. i missed july because of my grandmother's death. that night, following the ceremony, still buzzing with spiritual feedback, jared pointed out the moon for me, and it was the brightest i'd ever seen it, out there in the semi-arid central california mountains east of salinas. it was gigantic, silvery white light shouting down, out, everywhere, dousing everything. how could it be a reflection?

that night i was on firewatch, which meant that i walked around the center grounds clacking some sticks together (clack-2-3-4-, clack-2-3-4-, clack-2-clack-4-...) and blowing out all the kerosene lamps, which provide pretty much all of tassajara's exterior light. every time i blew out a light, tilting up the glass and leaning close to the flame, in the moment it extinguished it was as though someone turned on another light behind me. i'd look over my shoulder, and there was nothing. just moonlight.

i was all stirred up. i went down to a far end of the grounds to sing, searching for a way to expel or express the energy, the insides of me blackening like the globe of one of the kerosene lamps. they smoke more when the wick is cut crooked. on later occasions, when anger and desire mounted and merged until i had no idea of what i was feeling, i would go charging up the steep dirt road out of the place, make it as far as the first lookout and stand there with the valley's panorama filling up my eyes, wondering what the hell to do.

atonement is just beginning to come clear. the ceremony, that place, lit a fuse, or helped light it, and it's only now, almost two years later, that the karma of envy and resentment is revealing itself to me for what it is. it is not a polite revelation, mind you. the powder keg has exploded; i don't know what will be left of me when this dies down, but in the meantime my poor tear ducts are trying to put the blaze out all on their own. good luck, tear ducts.

i'm trying not to force sense from this. the wounded childhood origins of poetry, of writerliness, fantasy and spirit, are coming to me, the compensation i took for my brother's (and others') blessed, vital unknowing.

In the room where I couldn't sleep with you
I felt myself smudged across the air, golden with pinewood,
As though the thumb of your unknowing
Took quick strokes from my forehead and shoulders.

what i can't figure, and won't figure, but try instead to put to rest, is the panic of not being enough, and this wasting, recursive, unnecessary pain. i only know one way to do that.