Falling From The Moon

By Karin E Zirk

In the midst of Redwood Summer in 1990, twenty-five year old visual artist, Sapphire Larson, sets out to resurrect the hippie father who vanished under a cloud of patchouli fifteen years earlier. Not only a peace activist, but a prophet and Hollywood actor, the mythological father of her childhood holds the key to her success as an adult - or so

• Language: English
• Publisher: Talk Story Publishing
• Release date: Oct 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781734044614

Karin E Zirk

Karin E. Zirk earned her doctorate in Mythological Studies with an emphasis in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute in 2016. She has studied writing under Drusilla Campbell, Judy Reeves, David Bradley and many others. She has presented material at the Fates and Graces Mythologium: A conference for mythologists and the myth-curious in 2019 and 2020. She teaches workshops on engaging with the natural world through writing, mythology, and depth psychology at various spots of nature in San Diego County using imaginal methods to help participants find new insights into their creative work and themselves. When she is not at work in the technology industry, she is trying to save Rose Creek and attending peace and healing gatherings. This is her first novel. Find out more at http://www.KarinZirk.com

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praise for FALLING FROM THE MOON

"A search for a lost parent; a journey through a world that is close to many of us but seen by few; a bonding of women through the difficult circumstances of life. All of it moving along to the beat of a thousand drums offered up into the night sky. Falling From the Moon is a moving story told with compassion, at times a mystery in the woods and at others a heartbreaking family drama that takes place within the larger family of all humanity, as expressed by those who gather in peace to work toward a better way of loving one another. Zirk leads us by the hand to parts unknown, but by the end we are indebted to her as an initiate is to their first drum circle." 

—Chris Boyd, Producer, Director, Writer, The First Padres, Last Night in Edinburgh

"Falling From the Moon is the most authentic counterculture novel since Edward Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang and Ernest Callenbach’s Ecotopia. Her story of two women with different quests colliding at a counterculture gathering explores today’s alternative values in a setting that has never before been written about in such an up close and personal novel. It’s a page-turner whose waves of ideas will leave you pondering our social values for a long time to come."

—Garrick Beck, True Stories: Tales From the Generation of a New World Culture

"Falling From The Moon is a dreamlike invitation into a counter-culture ritual of peace, love, community and nature that exposes the imperfect humanity of the seekers drawn together in the redwoods while illuminating their yearnings for understanding and forgiveness. Sapphire’s story reminds us that our own stories hold the power to both wound and to heal. Our stories are not just our own."

—Mary A. Wood, Ph.D., Co-Chair Engaged Humanities and the Creative Life, Pacifica Graduate Institute

"Falling From the Moon kept me engaged from first to last page. [Karin Zirk] poetically explores two characters, Lauren and Sapphire, when they both attend a Gathering in Plumas National Forest in California, a mini-Woodstock, for two weeks. There both wrestle with their own dark night of the soul and learn in the process the liberating joy of self-forgiveness. Both deeply travel the mythic path of the heroine’s journey that draws into their sufferings a host of fascinating characters to both help and hinder their destiny."

—Dennis Patrick Slattery, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor, Mythological Studies Pacifica Graduate Institute Author of Riting Myth, Mythic Writing: Plotting Your Personal Story and The Wounded Body: Remembering the Markings of Flesh.

"I fell in love with Falling From The Moon by Karin Zirk; it has everything I want in a good read: compelling characters, an exotic setting, a story that keeps me turning pages and writing that bids me linger to savor the language. Set against the Gathering for Peace and Healing of the Planet in beautiful Plumas National Forest, this timely book reminds us of our need for environmental consciousness, and that love for one another and peace for the world are still ideals to strive for."

—Judy Reeves, Wild Women, Wild Voices"

"Falling from the Moon is more than a tale of a Sapphire, a woman endeavoring on a quest to find her long-lost father while ultimately discovering herself. The true star of this book is the canvas upon which the story is drawn. Exhibiting the keen eye of an ethnographer, Zirk’s writing conjures a world, brutally honest and rich with detail, allowing readers to travel through time and space not to any specific place, but to a temporary utopian moment."

—Michael I. Niman, Ph.D. Professor, State University New York, Buffalo, People of the Rainbow: A Nomadic Utopia

Contents

Prologue

The Calm Before the Storm

Finding the Yellow Brick Road

On the Front Lines

Taking the Road Less Traveled

Making Friends on the Journey

Tripping on Rocks and Falling into Potholes

Dreams and Re-Membering

The Cult of Motherhood

The Storm Looms

Sometimes the End is Just the Beginning

The Child Within

Synchronicity Saves the Day

Lessons on Mettā

Finding the Inner Goddess

Seeking Peace in Yeast

Greek Philosophy and Festering Wounds

Monsters Lurking in the Dark

Insight is Everything

The Past is Already Gone, the Future is Not Yet Here

Awakening

Within the Illusion is Reality

Sea Legs

The Wisdom of the Goddess

Eyes Wide Open

About the Author

Acknowledgments

To the indomitable Drusilla Campbell (1940-2014)

for teaching me that bones hold the story together

Prologue

Peace Prevails in the Woods

By Alana Roscoe

(Quincy Herald, July 1, 1990)

WE LOVE YOOOUU! COME HAVE SOME PANCAKES

It is morning at the Twentieth Annual Gathering for Peace and Healing of the Planet, and the kitchens have been cooking around the clock for the last two weeks. Echo Mine Road billows with dust, as new arrivals in multi-colored Volkswagens, fuel-efficient Toyotas, and rusty pickup trucks navigate the mountain roads and wedge their vehicles in between the Giant White Pines. I saw license plates reflecting almost every one of the fifty states, as well as Canada and Mexico.

United States Forest Service Ranger Leon Vale told me that ten to fifteen thousand people from around the world are camped at McGriver’s Gap in the Plumas National Forest, about thirty miles east of Quincy. More people arrive hourly in anticipation of the gathering’s main event: a silent prayer for world peace and planetary healing, scheduled for Wednesday.

Many of the campers told me they have been making the annual summer pilgrimage for ten years or more, participating in this ongoing experiment dedicated to creating peace on Earth and a leaderless society. Along the way, music is played, children are conceived, spiritual wisdom from Buddhist texts to the Torah is debated, and the late-night drum circles are fueled by large amounts of marijuana.

Dressed like gypsies in their tie-dyed t-shirts and bold Guatemalan fabrics, underneath these flamboyant exteriors are teachers, electrical engineers, military veterans, political activists, and runaway teenagers. Some people have even discarded their garments in an attempt to shed the trappings of Babylon, or mainstream society.

According to longtime gatherer Grizzly Bear Garth, preparations started in early June. We build it all ourselves. Kitchens and community workshop spaces. First Aid stations and fire pits. Last year we even had a nine-hole miniature golf course.

A huge concern among the local residents is the lack of sanitation facilities, but Garth told me, We dig military-style trench latrines in the woods and use bleach water for sanitizing hands and cooking equipment. The camp has medical doctors, registered nurses, herbalists, massage therapists, and healers of all types who look out for the health of the community. A crew of volunteers patrol the woods at night to ensure that all campfires are built in safe locations and have the required five gallons of water and shovel nearby, to quickly put out any escaping flames.

The kitchens are constructed from dead trees and scraps of plywood salvaged from dumpsters. Mud stoves and ovens abound, and blue tarps serve as makeshift roofs. A circle of tepees creates a camping area for the elders, and the center space hosts sunrise yoga and late-night storytelling.

At the two-story stage, built by the 411 Anarchist Performance Collective, Try Again said, "We’re just a bunch of street kids trying to awaken the environmental consciousness of America and create a family together. Come back tomorrow for Romeo and Juliet."

I missed the anarchist version of this classic play but did meet PS, who looked the part of the drunken Mercutio and shared his vision of the gathering. The gathering is equal parts community and individuality, teetering on the verge of eruption.

The closest eruption I encountered was at Kid Korral. Dozens of children galloped through the woods and drove Tonka trucks through makeshift racetracks. My attempt at interviewing some parents was squelched by the shrieks of a toddler, whose bunny fell in the creek, and the excited shouts of the crew of eight-year-olds, who orchestrated a daring and successful rescue. On my way out of the gathering, Sapphire gave me a hug and invited me to return with my family for the peace ceremony.

If history repeats itself, after three weeks of celebrations, hundreds of meals, and thousands of Oms, the entire village will disappear and gatherers will return to Babylon. In a year, only the most experienced naturalist will be able to tell that ten thousand dreamers gathered in Plumas County to create peace, but participants will never forget their new perspectives on love, life, and community.

The Calm Before the Storm

Thursday, July 5, 1990

McGriver’s Gap, Plumas National Forest, California

(Day Ten of Sapphire’s Gathering)

The big drum only sounds well from afar.

—Persian Proverb

Sapphire

The fire-glow ricocheted off the drenched and gleaming flesh of the dancers. The drums pulsated around the circle: Boom, thump thump, boom. Boom, thump thump, boom. First, the deep vibrations of the dununs, and then the slap and wap response of the djembes. Drummers hunched over the drums strapped to their chests and hanging between their legs in prayer, forearms and biceps taut and flexed. Sweat and fire smoke mingled with the pungent aroma of burning weed. Jutting chins and bouncing heads keeping a beat. Outside the circle, the meadow receded into the darkness and the cold and everything else beyond.

Sapphire dissolved into the boom, thump, rumble of a hundred throbbing drums. Her hands wove the rhythm into the bonfire, while she joined hundreds of voices chanting, Hey yanna. Ho yanna. Hey yan yan. Her heart reverberated, and the thunderous roar of the drums compressed her lungs.

He had vaporized fifteen years ago, leaving faint traces of patchouli on her stuffed panda, the echo of an acoustic guitar in the hallway. Sapphire had painted him, twenty times or more, a pagan Jesus dancing barefoot in the park. Her tombstone canvases stacked up in her mother’s garage gathering dust and spiders. Her failed attempts to conjure his flesh had brought her to this gypsy gathering of ten thousand or more, tucked away in this isolated valley in the Sierras. For days, she had wandered the cobalt green meadows, speckled with golden wildflowers, and she’d struggled to recognize his smile on faces hidden behind beards, age, sorrow.

The tingling in her bones convinced her that her father would be here, somewhere. The drums mimicked his late-night storytelling voice. A sound so old, it reached beyond recorded history, beyond anything she could articulate. Foommm, bloop, foommm, bloop. A knowing that started in her feet and climbed up her body in waves. Fire, drums, hips moving. Her fingers flirted with the sky above: black canvas speckled with glitter.

Beside Sapphire, Lauren’s left hand rubbed her own rounded belly.

Hey, little one, do you like this? Her right fingers kept the backbeat on a djembe. Hey yanna, ho yanna, hey yan.

Sapphire tapped her fingers on Lauren’s djembe. Bump, slap wap, bump. Lauren looked at her, laughing. Sapphire shrugged her shoulders. She felt easy with Lauren, even though they had only been friends for a few days. Different beats flowed together and made one groove that she wanted to stay in forever.

The earth is our mother, we must take care of her, Kalmia called out.

They all responded, The earth is our mother, we must take care of her.

Three sisters danced together in a bronze shimmer of moist skin; hips undulating in unison, fingertips touching, and breasts swaying. Hey yanna, ho yanna, hey yan yan. First, they teased a blonde drummer into a frantic beat and then a redhead into a languid rhythm.

Compared to the topless women in batik sarongs, Sapphire blended into the background of any situation. She tugged the rubber band off the end of her braid and swung her hair loose, fluffing it with her fingers. She shook her head—long, brown, white-girl hair. Around her, women had dreads wrapped in colorful ribbons. She tried to sway her hips, to be tribal, more mystical. More like Kalmia.

Kalmia, embodying Sapphire’s image of an ancient goddess, undulated her hips to the music. Her purple robes shadowed her movements; her face and hair, the color of burnt sienna. The drummers’ arms sped up. Harder, faster, louder. Thump, slap, rumble, blending to a frenzy. The voices grew silent, unable to keep the pace. The frenetic pace made Sapphire’s body jerk as she tried to keep up. Heart pounding. Short gasps of air.

BOOM! The drums stopped in unison. The crowd shouted, screamed to the sky.

In the moment of stillness that was not quite silence, Sapphire saw her mother clutching a bucket of white paint, slashing a brush against the canvas of her sixth-grade attempt at his portrait, in her mom’s mistaken belief that she could whitewash a thousand memories and erase his blood from her daughter’s body. Sapphire had run crying to her room, slammed the door shut, and hid in the closet, muttering. You’re not my real mother.

Sapphire yanked her mind back to the fire, and her father, and the drums. She planted a big kiss on Lauren’s tummy.

I love you, baby Lauren.

The conga to her left called out: Pop, pop, rap, pop, rap. The djembes responded: Slap, bloop, slap. The conga repeated: Pop, pop, rap, pop, rap, and then the dununs joined in: Boom, thumb, boom.

Kalmia added her voice, Earth my bo-o-dy. Water my blo-o-o-od.

As a flute warbled behind her, Sapphire sang, Air my breath.

Maracas rattled and bells clanged out, ringing high on top of the drums. Around her, djembes, doumbeks, and tambourines wove layers of rhythms on top of each other.

And fire my spirit.

Their voices rose across the meadow, like Tule Fog rising up from California’s Central Valley. In front of her, a bearded man slammed his palms onto the tightly wrapped skin of his djembe.

Lauren called out, Earth my bo-o-day. Water my blo-od, and rubbed her belly with both hands.

Sapphire smiled. Air my breath, and fire my spirit.

The circle spread backwards from the firelight. Flushed faces fixed their eyes on the sound that rumbled across the meadow to the white-trunked aspens levitating in the distance. Hundreds of voices, even more ecstatic bodies, flowed in harmony, oscillated in unity.

Sapphire imagined the moment she would find him, when her heart would recognize the man who was once her father. She danced alongside Lauren; her hands reached for the djembe, reached for the rhythm, four hands sharing a heartbeat on one drum. In her mind, she painted the scene: two women dancing under the stars by a fire. Two women and one drum. Faces lit from below by the golden light of the flames. Their bodies, dried leaves glued to the canvas.

She wanted to stay here forever, grooving inside the music, reveling in the sense of oneness she had experienced during her childhood in Griffith Park—Mom in a long lavender cape and tiara of daises, swirling with Dad to the music, while Sapphire banged on a beaded tambourine. When the sun began to set, they headed for Olvera Street. They ate cinnamon churros that left sugar on her face, while the Mariachi bands sang songs of lost loves and family in faraway lands. A place and time both near and incredibly distant, she thought.

A lanky man wiggled past her into the center of the circle, his long brown hair streaked with silver. Sapphire studied his features. He offered hands to the flames and swayed. Hundreds of bells on his pants jingled, as he stomped his feet.

Earth my body. Water my blood.

His face was too round for her father’s.

Sapphire grinned at his outfit, and the beat tugged at her. She rotated her hips to it, to the fire, and the night sky overhead. No past, no future, just oneness, until a poof of cold air slithered across her face. She looked up.

Engulfed in a black trench-coat, a kid in his late teens stared into the fire; yet his eyes, reflecting the dancing flames, saw horror instead of harmony. Sapphire had seen him at Dinner Circle a week ago, looking out of place. Beside her, Lauren danced, eyes closed. When Sapphire glanced back towards the fire, the kid was gone. She was not much older than him, but at the gathering, kid was more of a culture tag than an age. After all, at twenty-five, she was a kid to the older folks. And he was maybe twenty. Maybe younger.

Across the fire, the three bronze sisters continued their devotion. The drummers continued to pound their instruments, and their thunder roared into the ground and the sky above the treetops. The jingle-bell man continued hopping, and Sapphire wasn’t even sure she had seen black-trench-coat kid.

Finding the Yellow Brick Road

Wednesday, June 20 to Monday, June 25, 1990

San Francisco and Santa Cruz, California

Environmental Groups Oppose Logging of Dead Trees

A coalition of radical environmental groups filed suit in Federal Court yesterday to stop the logging of dead trees. Their argument is that standing and fallen dead trees provide habitat for the Spotted Owl, which was recently placed on the federal list of threatened species. They argue that dead trees are the most important parts of a healthy forest, as they anchor soils and thus prevent erosion; shade new seedlings from intense sunlight; and provide habitat for scores of insect-eating bats, birds, and small mammals.

(San Francisco Daily News, June 20, 1990)

Sapphire

Sapphire got off the #22 bus at De Haro Street and started up the hill. A pack of motorcycles rumbled past and the stench of burning oil rose through the warm afternoon, reminding her of the dust in the crumbling cardboard box of old letters she had found in her mother’s basement last week, words that told a family story she had never heard. Hand-scrawled letters and typewritten artifacts had revealed her mother’s financial ties to her father, and left the taste of half-spoiled milk in her mouth.

Sapphire recited the words he supposedly had written to Mom on a piece of yellow construction paper fifteen years ago. The universe has other plans for me. Tell Sapphire I love her very much. Divorce me if you wish.

Taking a deep breath, she ran two blocks up the hill, to the ten moss-stained granite steps leading to her mother’s front yard. Rolling back her shoulders, she climbed the stairs, unlocked the front door, and entered, hoping that her mom was by herself, or maybe not there at all.

Mom?

The silent house ignored her. She peeked into the kitchen and then wandered into the backyard. Her mother’s garden, a jumbled mix of sweet-scented roses and pungent white sage, contrived to hide the shady stench of the past.

She found Mom kneeling in front of a tangle of peach-hued roses, trowel in hand.

Mom glanced up, flashing green eyes as she smiled.

Hi, sweetie.

Are the guys at the game? Sapphire needed to have this conversation without her stepdad and half-brother here. This discussion was about events that happened before her mother started her new family.

Mom set down the trowel and brushed the soil off her freckled hands.

Where else would they be? She stood up and headed toward the house. Are you thirsty?

Sapphire followed her mother into the kitchen, noticing the faint streaks of gray in the long pale hair cascading down Mom’s trim back. The odor of garlic and yeast, woven into the wood furniture, reflected childhood memories that Sapphire had reworked with oil paint on canvas for years.

Mom half-skipped across the room towards the refrigerator, opened the door, and grabbed a gallon jug of apple juice. Sapphire took two glasses from the cupboard and set them on the counter. Mom poured. A dance of familiarity between mother and daughter, the tasks completed in harmony.

Sapphire sipped the thick juice while she rubbed the knot in her right shoulder. On the wall by the sink hung a childhood photo of her on the Santa Monica Pier Carousel—the frame covered in dried bunches of basil, sage, and mint. In the picture, a tie-dyed kid with tangled brown hair galloped across the ocean on a carved wooden horse. She remembered waving to her parents and the salty smell of deep blue sea and French fries, and the gold and green mane of the horse. When she had dismounted, she told Dad how fun it was to ride a wild horse across the sea, and he believed her. He always believed in her, then.

She looked at Mom across the kitchen counter, noticed the crow’s feet around her eyes, the creases between her eyebrows. Sapphire faltered. A touch of vertigo swirled through her head, and she grabbed the counter to steady herself. She took a deep breath and knew she was finally ready to freefall through whatever happened next.

I want to find Dad.

Mom smacked her glass down on the counter.

Startled, Sapphire backed up, her right eye twitching. You don’t have to see him.

Mom rubbed her head, tangling her short hair then smoothed it back down again. It’s not that simple.

What’s not simple?

John. You.

He’s my dad.

I know that, sweetie. But, Mom shook her head. Why now?

Why now? Because now I know you lied to me. You could have told me when I was a teenager, or anytime during the last fifteen years.

I was just trying to protect you.

From what? Sapphire sputtered. Finger-painting with Dad?

Mom lowered herself into an oak chair by the window and pressed the glass against her cheek. He was in love with being a father but not parenting.

What’s that supposed to mean?

It’s complicated.

I’m twenty-five!

Sapphire knew that if she failed to find her father now, the rest of her life would consist of dead-end jobs and painting images of a world that no longer existed. She drew herself up, as tall as her five-foot-four-inch frame could muster, keeping her focus on the box of letters that unraveled Mom’s story.

I have a right to know why my own father abandoned me. She paused. Or were you going to lie to me forever?

Mom pulled out the chair next to her. Sit down, Sapphire.

Just tell me. Sapphire paced between the table and the counter. I need to know what happened and where he is now.

Mom leaned into the table, elbows and hands pressed into the dark worn oak, and she buried her head in the crook of her left arm.

I don’t know, she mumbled.

Sapphire wanted to rip the scab off her mother’s wounds and let the blood spill on the floor to clean out her own invisible lesions.

I know the money you give me every month isn’t from Grandma Johnson. It’s from Dad.

Her mother shook her head. That’s not true.

Don’t lie to me! Sapphire yelled. Not anymore.

Her mother stared at the floor.

That box of my old college papers I took from the garage last week. Some of your old letters were in there as well.

Sapphire gazed out the window at the downtown skyline, the sharp lines of skyscrapers helping her stand tall. She would not back down now. When she glanced back at the table, the woman was pale.

It’s Dad’s residuals I get every quarter. Why would you hide that from me?

It was child support.

Sapphire shook her head. I was ten years old when he left. I’m not a child anymore.

I know. John must have put you as the payee. It’s your money not mine.

Why did you tell me it was from Grandma?

Her mother stared at the wall.

Sapphire turned away and walked towards the kitchen counter. Holding onto the countertop, she touched the things she had known all her life: Aunt Lena’s copper pot, the birch ladle Great-Grandmother Johnson brought on the boat from Sweden. She wondered if the ladle really came on the boat. With all the lies in this family, it probably came from an antique store in Santa Monica.

Mom said, Even John’s former agent doesn’t know where he is. She paused. The money comes from the Screen Actors Guild, not from your dad.

Sapphire paced in front of the window. Staring at the things in the kitchen, she tried to process her mother’s words.

I was only nineteen when you were born. John was twenty-three. Everything changed so fast.

Sapphire collapsed into a chair. I know. You dropped out of college and Los Angeles was overwhelming. You’ve told me that stuff a million times. But you never tell me why he left us. Why he left me. You never tell me the truth.

Her mother took her hand. Sweetie, I love you so much. All I’ve ever tried to do is what’s best for you.

You pretend like he never even existed. Sapphire yanked her hand away. Why don’t we ever talk about him? Why aren’t there any pictures of the three of us together in this house?

What about Brandon?

He’s your husband. Not my real dad.

Mom stood up and shuffled toward the window, clutching her glass of juice. The apricot glow of the sinking sun enveloped her.

Sapphire crossed her arms across her chest and waited.

The times were different back then. And, your dad… Well, he and I had different ways of dealing with it.

The hum of the refrigerator reminded Sapphire of staying up late with Dad, drinking hot chocolate in a silent house when everyone else had gone out for the evening.

"I was tired of everyone else. I hardly saw him. He spent his days with Ananda or Spirit or Mary, and I spent mine wondering how much longer he