Bird-Tetsu... Ko-mei... Bird and Bunny. We go together like peanut butter and chocolate. But before there was an "us" there was a long road. Here's some backgroud you may or may not know about us.
Kotetsu Thomas
Kotetsu was born in Boise Idaho in the year of the Wood Rabbit to a devoted spiritual seeker, Shayshoshewa Dawe. His childhood was full of the natural world, spending time in national forests of Idaho, playing in brooks and amongst the pines. Once he started school he was slower to learn than his classmates, but his artistic talent began to shine. He spent hour on end playing with his Legos making all sorts of creations, making up elaborate stories of derring-do and high adventures. His hero of his youth was Superman, and Kotetsu often donned a cape that his mother made for him, and when it was tattered she sewed a new one.
A spiritual seeker himself, Kotetsu joined his mother’s Temple, a group of people that care and pray for the wellbeing of all. By the age of 20 he struck out on his own trying to find the meaning of life though job, love and college, but losing spiritual practice along the way. The fire had not died, however, and when times got to their lowest the winds of change blew on the coals reigniting his spiritual practice! Feeling he need to devote his life to finding a way to embody divine truth in his daily life, Kotetsu looked for monastery where he could practice. In the summer of 2007, He came to Great Vow Zen Monastery for the first time and stayed six weeks, thinking simply to lean about meditation and monastic life. By the time he got back home his mother had talked to his friends and family to help to support him to go back to Great Vow to live. Blown away by hearing of this, Kotetsu decided to change the course of this life. On January 3, 2008 he started on four and a half year residency that changed his life forever.
Daimei Birdie
Daimei Birdie was born in Portland Oregon. Her parents are lovers of nature, animals, books and making the world a better place, and she learned these values from them. In fact, her first word was "bird," followed shortly by "book." Daimei has three half sisters that are a generation older than her, so she is in the unusual position of youngest AND only child.

Daimei has always been a spiritual seeker, who first pestered her parents into taking her to church, and then chose to leave it at a young age after becoming interested in the idea of an Earth Goddess. She went on to study Applied Theology academically, as well as practice paganism and hermetic magick, study tantric dance, and eventually wound up at a "sit" with a zen group, which was the last place she expected to find herself... let alone to feel so at home. And there she stayed, eventually deciding to spend four months at a monastery to deepen her practice.
The story of us
It's often said that the strongest relationships are built on friendship... but at first, she thought he didn't like her, and he thought she was chasing him around. When Daimei came to live at the monastery, she was assigned to work in ZenWorks, making meditation cushions under Kotetsu's guidance. They soon found they had much in common while repinning and re-sewing crooked zabutons, munching on hollyhock at lunchtime, meandering the paths on the monastery grounds, and talking late into the night on the tea couches (on nights off of course!).
They both have a strong spiritual practice that balances Buddhism and earth centered beliefs, they both love animals and nature, they're both geeky, and they've got the same sense of humor. After becoming close friends while Daimei was living at the monastery, they found that their feelings continued to grow, and when Kotetsu chose to return to lay life, they became inseperable.