Equinox

While sesshin is looming, we have a little ceremony to do before then, the Spring Equinox ceremony on Saturday morning. Now, I still don't know how many people are reading this, let alone reading this and coming to City Center regularly (which reminds me, thanks Shindo, Crowtales and Cafe Zen for your comments; I still haven't worked out how to acknowledge them within the comment space), but if you are coming on Saturday morning, this is one of those times where you can contribute to the ceremony, in this case seasonally appropriate words.
My strongest memory connected to this ceremony was at Tassajara, six or seven years ago, when Butch Baluyut called out 'baseball' in a sing-song voice that made everyone chuckle; he died of liver cancer before that season was over...
This year, we have the weather looking good, and the flowers in the courtyard are blossoming nicely. I don't think I need to worry too much about the ceremony. And a large part of that is down to the wonderful Head Chiden, Keith Baker. Keith's job is to set up the altars and ceremonial objects for any special ceremony we do, and he is such a pro he doesn't often need the instructions that abound in the ino's office on how to do each ceremony. I have already been grateful a number of times that I have come up from zazen and found everything beautifully laid out for a ceremony without my having to do anything at all, so thanks Keith.