An August Settling

I have noticed that I don't usually write much in August. Maybe it's the heat, wearing the brain down to the sharpness of a dull pencil. Or maybe it's the fact that at the height of summer, those long days demand more action and less reflection. Words usually reserved for the written form instead come tumbling out in beer- and excitement-fueled encounters, those planned and those created by fate. But this year, the words themselves , and the thought processeses behind them, were more than a bit off.

Through June and July, the taking of short trips alternated with the hosting of guests, becoming like baubles on a string. The more they built up, the thinner that strand became, until it threatened to snap. At the same time, I was struck by the first real bout of homesickness in the 14 years I've lived here. I felt completely detached from the present, drifting back and forth between memories of last year's pleasant summer spent in Vermont's kinder climate, and escape plans made for next year. Where the mind goes, the emotions follow, until both completely slipped their tether. By the time August rolled around, this was all playing out in small mysterious injuries, general grumpiness, outright loathing for my adopted land, and a bizarre nervous energy that was apparent to anyone who had the misfortune to cross my path during those dog days of Kyoto summertime.

So I decided to take a small retreat. Miki headed home to Hiroshima for Obon, leaving me with four days for and with myself. I stocked up on food and didn't step outside the whole time, committing myself to silence, yet allowing myself to follow every whim. Meditation, books, music, and films. (It wasn't all silence I suppose, since one of the latter was Jimi's 90 minute Woodstock set, watched on the anniversary of the festival.)

On the fifth day, I found myself riding a bus through the dead countryside of north Shikoku, past bastard children of the moneyed bubble years now in decay. Our friends Yayoi and Seiichi are in the midst of building a house further south in the far more beautiful rural Kochi, hoping to eventually replace their Osaka artist basecamp. It is a remote place, with a half dozen farmhouses and an early Meiji-era schoolhouse, all stretched along a small but fast-moving river. The school has since been converted to a shared community space for the villagers. When I arrived, Seiichi and other members of Rustic Pans (who I raved about here) were leading a workshop on building and playing steel drums. These workshops are held every month, attended by people coming from all over Shikoku and West Japan. After the workshop, the four of us began to make dinner. Shortly after getting picked up at the centipede-like structure of Kochi station, we had bought supplies for the next few days. But they turned out to be unnecessary. Our quiet dinner sooned turned into a party. Within an hour about twenty people turned up, including most of the village, plus a couple of artists doing a circumnavigation of Shikoku's beaches and hot springs. The locals brought down veggies, booze, and ayu which been obliviously swimming not an hour before. The main highlight was the homemade sake that went down like springwater. Not once was I treated as 'other', which went a long way toward restoring some of the love I have for things Japan.

Since Yayoi and Seiichi's house was as yet uninhabitable, the plan had been to camp out front. But the village headman was kind enough to let us lay out our sleeping bags inside the school itself. It was lovely to walk the halls and classrooms early the next morning, the traces of childhood energy still there. I had expected to face a day filled with light carpentry and lugging stuff around, but after a mere hour of work, we were off to a nearby town for a curry in a minka restored into a cafe by a artist/musician. Turns out he and Miki had met in Kyoto years ago when he had come to visit her roommate. After our meal, he showed us around his art space in a massive converted factory, while white-water rafters floating down the river just behind.

Back in the village, we worked on the house for maybe a hour more, then broke for the day. (I can now see why they're still working on this place after three years. I look forward to coming back here again and again to continue this pace of the grasshopper.) After our respective baths, Seiichi was earnest in his wish to hide somewhere while having dinner. Every night for a week, the villagers had turned up to drink, and by now he was exhausted. Yet ironically, no one else turned up this last night. Mercifully, we all slept and rose early to make the long drive back to Kansai. I especially was pleased to get home long before dark, since I was setting off to Sado early the next morning...

On the turntable: Jefferson Airplane, "Takes Off"

On the nighttable: Alistair MacLeod, "No Great Mischief"

On the reel table: "Pitfall" (Teshigahara, 1962)

Learned in the Garden Today

Try sweeping with the iPod on. Something heavy coming through. Maybe The Mr. T Experience, for example. And the body begins to follow certain movements. Nothing like the classic Townsend windmill, or anything else that would startle the neighbors. No, it's more subtle, the move of a bass player perhaps, more fitting to the slim body and long handle of the instrument in hand. The move starts small, with a splay of the legs, back slightly arched, knees pointing outward in the way that the Japanese might call, Ron-Pari. Thus supported, the hips begin to sway back and forth, shifting balance taken up by the broom, busy waltzing with the leaves and the twigs and the dust.

On the turntable: Mr. T Experience, "Making Things with Light"

On the nighttable: Idries Shah, "The Exploits of the Incomparable Mulla Nasrudin"

On the reel table: "I was Born, But..." (Ozu, 1932)

Betwixt...

Autumn skies.

Summer heat.

How many seasons?

On the turntable: Willie Nelson, "Broken Promises"

On the nighttable: Jim DeRogatis, "Let it Blurt"

On the reel table: "Woman in the Dunes" (Teshigahara, 1964)

8/15

On this day, the day when the spirits of the dead return home from their summer holiday, about a hundred dragonflies hover over this valley, riding the currents created by the heat of afternoon, swirling as if tracing the smoke trails of incense burning in the houses below.

The cooling of the day brings with it the towering airships of clouds.  Much later, after the dark has come, the moon will rise full, backlighting the clouds into the shape of a fan, reminding us of the cooler days to come, cooing 'transience' in our ears as they brush past, ruffling our hair.

On the turntable:  Johnny Winter, "Second Winter"

On the nighttable:  Diana Preston, "The Boxer Rebellion"

On the reel table:  "Jimi Hendrix, Live at Woodstock"

8:15

If only the thinking of two people could come together as easily as two hands do in prayer...

On the reel table:  "Gembaku no Ko" (Shindo, 1953)

                                  "Barefoot Gen"  (Mori, 1983)

Tokyo Interlude

As an eco-conscious, card-carrying member of the Green Party, I have to applaud the fact that Tokyo trains are running their A/C at a higher temperature recently. It seems that gone are the days where entering a train was like taking a dip in a Canadian lake.

So can we now do something about all the B.O.? It's a completely different type of environmental hazard...

On the turntable: Radio Paradise

In the Can

Those fine baristas over at Chin Music Press kindly offer a short piece of mine as their weekly special.  While you're over there, poke around a bit and enjoy the joe...

(December 2018 addendum: the piece can be read in its entirety here.)

On the turntable:  Manu Chao, "B Sides"

On the nighttable:  Malcolm Gladwell, "Blink"

On the reel table:  "Megane"  (Ogigami, 2007)

Tokai Shizen Hoedown XI

I can't remember when I was down in Nara last. Probably two springs back, when I'd watched my mom and Maggie get pulled around by a young rickshaw driver. Today was a very warm July day, with the majority of the deer lounging listlessly in the shade. This time of year, their coats are shabby and their heads untrimmed, and as always, a few were panhandling the tourists for food. The museum had a special exhibit of the treasures of Horyuji, a few of which will never be seen by the public again. Very Japanese idea that, the value of something being based on how few people have actually seen it. What I did see, in spades, were the tops of many, many heads. As usual, it was too crowded to really see the exhibits, and the elbows of old women seem to get sharper every year. (Hadn't I once sworn never to see an exhibition in Japan ever again?) So I went through my usual pattern of being annoyed for about a half hour, until the sheer annoyance of it turned upside down and became comical. Most amusing was how, when a place opened in front of a display, a handful of people would make a quick move to fill it, reminding me of the movement of hungry carp jostling for food. Mostly, I found the whole experience disappointing by the fact that there were so few sculptures on display. The best stuff was in the permanent exhibit, housed over in the beautiful Meiji-era wing. Plus lots of space in which to gaze and dream. Fascinating how the statues began to transform through the centuries, losing their distinct Indian flavor to become more Chinese, then eventually become what we are used to seeing in temples throughout this country.

Miki and I grabbed some food, rudely eating on the train as a subtle form of revenge on the pointy-elbowed brigades seated around us. The end of the line was Tenri, where we planned to start one part of the Yama-no-be trail, the most ancient of Japan's numerous old roads.

Tenri is a small city which rose around the growth of the Tenri sect. (Think Salt Lake City.) The train station was at the open mouth of a long shopping arcade, which seemed to thrive despite similar arcades across the nation dying with a spectacular sucking sound as money is pulled out of the countryside toward the capital. Here were shops selling vegetables, selling robes, selling toys, selling Buddhist paraphernalia. Millions of pilgrims passing through have brought the money back from the capital again. At the opposite end of the long arcade is the main headquarters of the Tenri-kyo. The complex is surrounded on all sides by massive dormitories with pitched, Chinese-style roofs, making me think of housing projects crossed with the hotel in the film "Spirited Away." A massive temple serves as the heart-center of this space, space being the key word here since unlike most other Buddhist temples, there was no alter bearing candles or images, merely a large pit open all four sides. It was if four temples had been fused together, with an entrance at each cardinal direction, facing toward the dormitories beyond. At first I cynically thought that this religion has no center, but Joseph Campbell later informed me that within it is a post that marks the spot from which mankind evolved.

Miki and I entered and knelt awhile, enjoying the cool air and soft tatami. In the short time we were there, dozens of followers came in from each of the four doors, knelt before the open space before them, and did these perfect half bows. Then they'd start in on a chant, their hands tracing out a series of mudras in time to the rhythm. It was beautiful to watch, especially the kids tracing out smaller forms with their tiny fingers. Beside the families, there were also a few young couples, dressed as if this were part of the day's date. Many of the followers wore uniforms similar to judo practice tops, all black, and wrapped with that thick belt coveted by martial artists worldwide. One young guy sitting in front had a powerful and mesmerizing voice. I could've stayed here all afternoon, had we not had a 16km hike before us. I honestly felt really moved by what I saw, at the sheer faith that the followers displayed. I sometimes wish I had a strong unwavering faith in something, but for now I'll have to trust in my cynicism.

We stepped outside, past the shoehorn wallahs armed with the tools of their trade. In front of me, I was surprised to see two foreigners stop their bikes, do a perfunctory bow, then ride off again. Were these two members of this religion, or merely a couple of JET teachers working locally and made to do this as part of their living here? Puzzled, I moved on.

The rest of the day, we wandered in the shadows of the mountains, without actually entering them. At Isonokami Shrine, we watched the sacred long-tailed chickens, flitting from branch to branch like kids on a jungle gym. The trail took us past quiet ponds shaded by lily pads, between ancient burial mounds, and along waterways which fed the many fields and rice paddies. It was like walking through the Kojiki, but for the stones inscribed with passages from Basho who walked here a couple millenia later. These served as a reminder that time plods ever on, and is constantly being marked by bright minds attempting to make sense of our brief place in it. The day was growing hotter, so we took refuge in the shade of a house in one of the many villages we were to pass through. Someone had laid out some complimentary tea and sold veggies on the honor system. The reading material on a shelf nearby was very, very nationalistic, somewhat contradicting the open approach to strangers. Later in the afternoon, a squall broke overhead, but we sat happily on the steps of a small temple, enjoying the rhythms the rain played on the surface of a pond. An hour later, the rain caught us again, the two of us running to the shelter of somebodies makeshift barn. Further on we climbed up to a small shrine atop a tomb. Littered about were the bodies of about a half-dozen freshly killed crows. Well spooked, we quickly moved on. We entered the forest then and the shrines and temples began to take on a thicker concentration. This slowed our pace significantly, and we arrived eventually at Sakurai Station well past dark. Riding the train north, we sat tired but happy, out footfalls having taken us along one of the nicest hikes in the Kansai...

On the turntable: Bob Marley, "African Herbsman"

On the nighttable: Malcolm Gladwell, "Blink"

On the reel table: "Fort Apache (Ford, 1948)

Extra Innings

Been watching Ken Burns again, his "Baseball" doc this time around.  In the opening minutes of the first disc, where they're talking about the spirit of the game, I found myself suddenly overcome with great nostalgia.  In 14 years, it's the first time I've ever felt homesick.  Maybe it was my spending most of last summer in the States, where the days are long and life is meant to be lived out of doors.  And what defines summer better than Baseball? 

Jump to the series' seventh disc, this one opening with a Billy Crystal interview where he's talking about a childhood memory of going to Yankee Stadium.  And I begin to waver in my decision to convert to a Boston fan.  Until the end of his anecdote, where he begins to use words like history and tradition, and I know that I made the right choice.  It's best to leave those teams in the past, for that is the only place I can still see the lineup whose names I still remember.  Chambliss, Randolph, Dent, Nettles (my man!), Jackson, Rivers, Pinella.  Thurman Munson behind the plate, Guidry and Goose Gossage  standing 60 feet, 6 inches away.  And Billy Martin on the dugout steps, one eye on the field, the other to the owner's box, both eyes filled with fire.

Yet ironically, my greatest memories of the game are of the Sox.  Sitting on the front porch with my grandfather, he working his pipe with his teeth, me drinking my iced tea, both of us in absent-minded concentration on every word coming out of Fenway Park and straight into our transistor radio.  In that shared space, in that silence, was the birth of my meditation practice.

On the turntable:  Jakob Dylan, "Seeing Things"

On the nighttable:  Ian F. Svenonius, "The Psychic Soviet"  (Brilliant! Hilarious!...Brillarious!)

Hippo Birdy Two Gnus

'Twas my birthday today. With every passing year, I strongly believe that I didn't grow up, just grew taller...

Cheers to the Tokyo gang who helped me celebrate. More like y'all celebrated, and I sat with my 50 yard samadhi stare, the latest victim of a yogic overdose.

Thanks especially for not singing that goddamn song...

On the turntable: Bob Marley, "Babylon by Bus"

On the nighttable: Paul Auster, "Leviathon"

Wednesday Morning, 4 A.M.

Dawn's coming light awakens me.

Hear the season's first cicada,

As I pee.

On the turntable: Fela Kuti, "Roforo Fight"

On the nighttable: David Mitchell, "Black Swan Green"

On the reel table: "The State of Things" (Wenders, 1982)

Between the Sheets

I think I've  figured out why the old Chinese euphemism for sex was "clouds and rain."   Here in the Kyo we've just passed a torturous series of muggy days where the temperature hovered around the number at which LP records used to lazily spin.  

A storm had been flirting with us all week, driving up the barometric pressure, causing any movement to become clumsy and awkward, any thought thick and slow.  So this morning, when the storm finally made her move, tearing open her bodice, thrashing about, and writhing in violent and boisterous passion, it brought a release that was almost sexual.

On the turntable:  Ry Cooder, "My Name is Buddy"

On the nighttable:  Amy Willard Cross,  "The Summer House"

On the reel table:  "Onibaba"  (Shindo, 1964)

I Coulda Had a G8!

Gone are the sirens and flashes of light

Gone are the helicopters, chopping noise through the muggy sky

Gone is the cell phone's fractured reception

Gone is the cluster of armored buses before a fortified city hall,

soon to be reclaimed by the breakdancers and para-para drones

Gone are the solitary cops, walking beneath the bridges like Victorian-era whores,

making you want to look but not be seen looking

Gone are the farrowed cops, a Baker's dozen in every neighborhood

Gone are the streets barricaded with your tax money

Gone are the trash bins sealed like dirty secrets

Gone is the fear of being stopped for being whitey on a bike

Gone, gone, because gone too are Condi and her seven friends.

On the turntable: Thelonious Monk, "The Complete Riverside Recordings"

On the nighttable: Edith Shiffert, "Kyoto Dwelling'

On the reel table: "Jean de Florette" ( Berri, 1986)

Going Down the Country (Pt.2: Omine-san)

On the map, I notice I can follow a road due north from here to reach Yoshino. I think about hitching but I'm anxious about being late for my 5pm appointed arrival time. I instead take a roundabout journey by train back up the coast. On the trip down, I hadn't noticed all the hotel construction around Tanabe, the jumping off point for Kumano Kodo's western edge. Towering high over the sea, these will serve as temples to the new Gods. At Tanabe, I don't have to look up from my book to register that someone has finally taken the seat beside mine. When I do turn my head, I see a young guy grinning creepily at me. His repetoir expands as he begins to chew the skin flaking and peeling at the end of his thumb. He continues this for another 90 minutes. When I disembark at Wakayama, I half expect to see him gnawing the stump of a wrist.

I take a local train that drags itself across the waist of the Kii-Sanchi. Kids in track suits begin to load us up, until everyone funnels out somewhere. With a bit more space, I turn away from my book and crane my neck toward the window. While Wakayama has some beautiful spots, I think neighboring Nara the more beautiful of the two, maintaining a bit more self-respect. At Yoshino station, I take the cable car to the village which covers the mountain. It's a summer Saturday, but there is almost no one around. I have some time to kill, so I talk awhile with a couple of shop keepers. One guy teaches me the proper way to blow the Horagai, that giant conch shell heard bellowing throughout the mountains around here. There is only a single other customer here, trying out these shells as well. He shows some accomplishment in his chops by creating a series of notes; far more impressive than my own bovine imitation. The owner tells me how during the war an American bomber crashed near here on its way back from bombing Kobe. One crew member survived, only to be tossed off a precipice higher up the mountain. Tomorrow, I'll be dangled by my legs over the same precipice, confessing my sins and hoping for a kinder fate.

At 5, I go up the step of Kimpusen temple. It's a massive structure, the roof supported by tree trunks the size of redwoods. I am joined by 22 other men, to be led by five yamabushi in a couple days training particular to their sect. I've done some of this before, with their brethren up north in Dewa Sanzan. While the hiking doesn't faze me too much, I'm immediately confronted by something I'd should've seen coming but didn't: seiza. The chanting begins, tempered by the clash of bells and pounding of drums, and for some reason, I start thinking about Han Shan. The fervor of the chanting builds up steadily, paced exactly by the loss of feeling in my legs. With seiza, I'm usually good for twenty, twenty-five minutes, but this goes on for twice that. When it's done, I will some blood into my feet in order to stand. Another guy literally has to be propped up by his armpits like the wounded in some war film.

More seiza quickly follows, as we eat dinner silently, oryoki style. After which we're finally allowed to stretch our legs as we go through the usual round of self introductions. The temple's head priest comes down to give us a pep talk, emphasizing that one of the main goals of this training is to come together as a group and become one. (This same point comes up every time I do any kind of shugyo, no matter what type.) We all go off to the baths then. They are small and accommodate only two at a time. My neighbor speaks exceptional English, and is currently doing post-grad work for SOAS. He'd been doing research in Lhasa, until the current round of troubles got him deported. He's basically just killing time in Osaka, waiting for Tibet to cool down enough to return. The conversation is good, but we both seem preoccupied with the next day. I'm in bed before 9.

It's a terrible sleep. One man's snores soon had me dub him, "The Fourth Tenor." He single-handedly keep the rest of us awake, allowing us to quickly become one in our shared loathing of him. Naturally, this guy, the only one to get a sound sleep, turns out to be the slowest on the mountain.

We awake at dawn to board a bus, then drive an hour to a point far up a mountain road. It's a steep ascent to the ridge and it takes the group a good while to get there. At the top, we meet the main trail, which I recognize as the one that Nate and Tatsuhiko and I walked back in '96. We had some pretty scary weather that day. It's not too bad this morning, the clouds diffusing the soft, warm light, in which we sit and eat our breakfast rice balls. I look at some of the others and wonder about what brought them to the mountain. One old guy in particular intrigues me, he having told me that he's recently retired and trying to figure out what to do with the rest of his days. A few men seem his junior, both in years and in attitude, sneaking of for a smoke under the pretext of having a piss. There are a few younger, more seasoned hikers, and a few that look like they work as civil servants. And of course there are a couple of wild cards in the group, but there always seems to be. Anything that poses extreme physical or emotional challenges tends to draw people who don't quite fit in polite society. Quite often, these people can be the most interesting. But on this day, the previous week's killings in Akihabara are a fresh reminder that there are other precipices to topple over if one isn't careful with his balance.

In front of us was a tall gate: the entrance to Omine-san itself. Beyond these gates there may be no dragons (none that I noticed anyway), but there were certainly no damsels. This is the last mountain in Japan that women are forbidden to climb. Apparently, some aren't so happy with this, judging from the defacing of the large sign upon which said rule is writ. We pass through, and make our way toward the top. Throughout the day, we'll take part in certain rituals that are plenty scary and some, outright dangerous. (I still laugh at the fact that no one was made to sign a waiver beforehand.) Like Basho before me, I am forbidden to disclose details of this mountain to other people. And again like Basho, "I will therefore lay down my pen and write no more." Not due to poetic pretense or fear of litigation. I simply don't need any wrathful deities coming down on my ass.

On the turntable: Jackie McClean, "Rites of Passage"

On the reel table: "The Naked Island" (Shindo, 1960)

Going Down the Country (Pt.1: Kumano)

I'm down in Kii Katsuura, a town having far too many vowels. I'm on a boat going across a bay ringed by islands resembling karst. Beyond these, is the village of Taiji, being for one, the pinyin romanization for the Chinese concept of Grand Ultimate, referred to by us yogis in the sound of "Om." In this country, however, Taiji is know as the place where whales are brought to die. I look away, toward the north. Dark clouds loom ominously above the high peaks that I'll attempt to go over the next day.

I'd been in town for less than a half hour. After dropping my bags, I wandered a little, trying to get the bearings of the place. To call this town sleepy is an exaggeration. It's only 4 pm, but nothing was moving. It had been a relatively fine day for this season, but the weather is growing bolder, making it seem later than it is. Through my headphones, John Prine tells me that "the night comes early on rainy days." So, I got on this boat.

I'm headed to Urashima Onsen, a name that lends itself to the sleepy atmosphere. In the legend, a fisherman named Urashima Taro goes to a kingdom at the bottom of the seas for what appears to be a few days, but turns out to have been 300 years. Hot Springs do have a way of making time seem slower. The hotel lobby itself seems dated, glittery and brashy like in a 60's Bond film. Beyond is a series of rocky passageways and steaming hot pools reeking of sulphur. It's all made more surreal by everyone wandering around in long robes. I find a pool in a cave which overlooks the sea. It's getting on dinnertime so I have the place to myself, except for a few crabs and those weird armored bugs climbing the wall over my shoulder. The sea crashes a few meters below me. There's a fence now, but I doubt it's been there long. Some drunken folks acting like children have led to means which treat us all likewise. Bath over, I wander the long corridors of maroon carpet. There are quite a few Chinese here, many greeting me with smiles which I at first think is shared camaraderie at being an "honorable guest," until I look down to notice I'm wearing my Bruce Lee t shirt. My face suddenly goes redder than those of the drunks going off to their next bath.

The boat brings me back to town. It's full dark now, and I'm looking over the view from the garden of a small temple. Though there's not much here, I'm bemoaning my late start today. Being a creature of habit, I frittered away the morning reading blogs, when I could've instead spent the afternoon walking the low hills ringing the bay. Growing hungry, I walk out the temple gate, passing a sign which tells how a 14 meter tsunami sent water up to this height. Down at the level of the sea itself, I look for a place for dinner. Prine's voice on my iPod really fits the scene, both with his lonely man on the road vibe, and the whole stranger in town thing, my form drawing looks with every passing step. I look at the menus outside the few shops open on a weeknight, bristling every time I misread ikura (salmon roe) as iruka (dolphin). One spot looks especially friendly, and I duck inside. The place is warm and friendly, the owner's wife flirtatious to a point just short of bawdy. She gives me a couple complimentary mackerel that she'd caught herself. And the maguro sashimi is so fresh it's like butter.

The TV in the room below mine wakes me at 6. With time to kill before the first bus, fuelled on sugary bread and canned coffee, I make my way over to the fish market. The fishermen are already back with the days catch, literally hundreds of tuna now lying on the warehouse floor in various stages of decapitation. The men with hoses wash the red back into the sea. Not long after, I leave the bay behind and head up into the hills.

This is my fifth trip to the Kumano area. After I learned that the region was going to get UNESCO's special status, I began to walk the parts that weren't protected, figuring that the World Heritage area would remain unchanged, but the surroundings would get ruined by the new hotels, restaurants, and roads made friendly to tourist buses. Cannon fodder for the Construction industry. It didn't take long to see my predictions had come true. In the three years since I'd last come here, they'd built a new highway and a whole section of forest had been converted to a parking lot. Most bizarre was a new handicapped toilet, complete with a ramp built midway up a set of ancient stone steps. (Here was Japanese political kata in action, obeying the letter of the law yet all but neutering the spirit.) I walk these steps to the temple at the top. There are are surprising number of tourists at this early hour, Koreans lingering in front of the unopened souvenir stands, Chinese taking photos with Buddhas. I find the old trail at the back of the complex and begin my walk up the Ogumotorigoe, (romanized menacingly as "Big Cloud-Catcher Pass").

The Kumano Kodo here is a stone trail with the earth pushing through. The rocks are slick with lichen, due to all the moisture trapped below the high sugi. I reckon I'm the first to have walked it in a few days, due to the spiderwebs I keep breaking with my chest. It's a beautiful day, the trail dappled with sunshine. I frequently see snakes warming themselves in these spots, looking for the same feeling I got from last night's baths. It's a nice trail, with markers every half kilometer. These markers are small and made of stone, nicely unobtrusive against the bushes and trees. (Many trail markers have the subtlety of vending machines.) Heading for the first pass, I scare up some quail. At the top, I reward myself with some rice balls and the view . Dropping down the other side, I'm startled by the yelp of a young fox. This descent is spooky, a place notorious as the haunt of the spirits of deceased pilgrims, whose souls are looking for new bodies to inhabit. The valley at the bottom is beautiful yet forlorn. In front of one large tree is a makeshift shrine, with a small sword lying across the stones and moss. It seems to have been there for centuries. Rushing streams overflow onto the trail at many places and the finding footing is a challenge. Atop the next ridge I find a road which follows the trail, both leading down to a small shrine and hut. I climb out onto a large stone in the river, soaking my feet as I eat lunch. The final ascent is quick, and there are many man made signs at the pass, pride in achieving the tough climb from the other side. I'm simply descending, but before long I find this the hardest part of the day; literally a long, slippery 2 hour, 4 km drop to the next valley. Climbing this must be like the Stairmaster from Hell. Ruins of old teashops and stone walls tell me I'm coming close to Oguchi. Near the 500 meter mark, I begin to relax and a minute later I fall on my ass. Not quite there, buddy.

Finally at the bottom, I grab a canned coffee and chat awhile with the manager of the camping hut here. Three years ago I camped in the grass out front after having come over the Kogumotorigoe (Small Cloud-Catcher). That day, a night-long conversation with my left hip scuttled any thoughts of going over the hills I have now just came over. Making that first ascent on that hip with a full pack would've been seriously grievous.

I walk upsteam, out of sight of any houses. Stripping down, I join the cold river, washing the day off my body. Later, it takes me 2 buses and a train to get back to where I started. The sea looks inviting, so I swim awhile. Then I walk in the shadows of abandoned, crumbling hotels until I find a good place for dinner. It's a Chinese joint, and they're quite creative with the local catch. I have maguro spring rolls, maguro gyoza, maguro with chili sauce. I've loaded myself with enough mercury to fill a thermometer. The oolong ice cream helps ease my pain...

On the turntable: John Coltrane, Meditations"

On the nighttable: Jan Morris, "Pleasures of a Tangled Life"

On the reel table: "Two Days in Paris," (Delpy, 2007)

Going Up the Country

Late May saw Miki's birthday, and my present to her was a weekend away. She chose the Tango Peninsula, a beautiful area of gorgeous ocean, high mountains, and a feeling that is very very old. We spent a few days driving around, walking the beaches, checking out tombs and shrines named for myths, and eating way too much seafood.

Taiza is a small village squeezed between large rock formations that are carved into bizarre shapes by waves whipped huge by frequent storms. Men fish in the shadows of shrines built into rock overhanging the sea. The gods within are the deified ancestors lost further out on these same waters. The shrines are weathered both by the salt air and their extreme age. The sheer number of these sacred places attests to the local folk trying to make sense of extreme natural phenomena brought by harsh weather. Primitive science as formulated by religious ritual. And the men--presumably men--who held these ceremonies are buried in the hilly tombs further inland.

Further south still the high mountains begin. Among them is Oe yama. Besides its fine views of Amanohasidate, it is well know as a source for various Oni myths. Trails lead through high scrub to bizarre rock formations that were once these demons' fortresses, but are probably now the lair of bears, who move through this dense cover, out of sight just off trail.

The human realm lies closer to the sea. Ine is a small, one lane village stretching between the hills and the waters of the enclosed bay. An island at the bay's narrow mouth protects the village from the storms, and as such it is considered sacred, the grounds off limits to all but a few fishermen. The catch here must be plentiful, for the houses here are all large and sprawling. Swallows flit above the front doors, bringing food to their newly hatched young. Across the road from the houses are small structures like garages, with large openings facing the sea, to take in the fishing boats when typhoons come. On the second floor are small, simple rooms, where the younger generations sleeps when they return home from the new lives in the cities.

Like a koi that takes on the size proportional to the body of water containing it, the bigger communities lie where the mountains stop. In Miyazu, there is an old church, built of wood and tile, a perfect hybrid of Japanese and European architectural styles. Inside there is tatami rather than pews. Miki says that she wants to use the toilet before we go, and begins to step inside a confessional. The twain still haven't met.

Where religion goes, commerce follows, and the moneyed class now fill the old sabbath days with leisure. Kotobiki Beach is packed with surfers. Around the cove is a small beach, where weekend warriors up from Osaka carve the waters with their jet skis. One of these drivers sits astride one of the bigger machines, his belly resting heavily on the seat. A small child of four or five sits behind him. The man, either through drink or inexperience or simple stupidity seems unable to handle this machine. He tries to pass through the surf break diagonally, and one large wave tips him and the boy and the machine sideways and over. The boy, without a grotesque belly of his own, is able to keep afloat with his life vest, through just barely. He's struggling, eyes huge with fear. But his elder, his protector, swims to the overturned jet ski rather than to him. The boy's mom shrieks at the man from the beach. I nearly join her.

This lack of perspective, the loss of priorities is apparent all across the countryside here. Unlike the koi, money grew to a point of overflowing during the Bubble years. When the money receded, it had washed away the things held dear for generations. Left behind is the detritus: abandoned Swiss Villages, decaying karaoke and pachinko joints, rusting ski lifts, massive empty parking lots. Like in the Arthurian legends, the sickness of the King brings ruin to the land.

Slowly, life is beginning to return. There's a large number of people who have grow hollow in the cities, and are looking to return to a life of meaning. This is not only the retirees seeking out their simpler roots, but young couples look for sustainability. The King is dead. Long live the King.

On the turntable: Sonny Clark, "Cool Struttin'"

On the nighttable: Herbert Ashbury, "The Gangs of New York"

Fed up

Food acting as catalyst for a search for better balance.  Party season is revving up, meaning far too many heavy rich meals.  My usual delight in such delicacies has been replaced by the feeling that my usual rhythm has sped up to the point that I can no longer dance.  New patterns in eating mean new patterns in energy,  resulting in lost sleep and daytime lethargy.  This all culminated in a night dining with the Swiss Consul.  It was an unbelievable meal: a series of courses building up to the butter-like texture of Kobe beef, washed down by a escalation of wines, each one more expensive and exquisite than the last, and poured into a far larger glass each time.  To refuse anything led to some playful gastronomical bullying.  This meal was accompanied by talk of Eastern culture and Western art.  The topic would frequently turn to music, then our host would jump up and play said musician on his stereo.   Roger, who was responsible to our being here, was quite astute in his observation that the Counsel was like a 19th Century patron of the arts.  His contribution to art and culture was massive and done with a deft signing of his checkbook.  The night was rich in many ways, but as it went on, I got a sense that I was going under. The waves just wouldn't stop coming.

It took not a little effort to extract ourselves, and when we finally did, we'd missed our train.   This turned out to be lucky, since a half hour later, some poor disenfrancised soul would use its progress to end his life.  As it was, we sat idle in the train behind it, langoring in Shin Osaka for 2 hours.  I looked out the window and fumed, furious at the sight of an ineffectual platform barrier that prevented nothing.  Rather than apply this costly bandaid, it seems far better to use those allocated funds to seek out the social reasons why this seems to happen week after week.    The sight of four (four!) heavily armed cops patrolling a quiet 1 am Kyoto Station further set me off, though not as much as those three JR workers tying up the taxi queue by attending to a handful of folks who'd missed their bus, delaying the far larger majority of us who just wanted to end an already long night.  I raged in the taxi about an inept society as the skies tore open above us.  My own torrent outdone, I quietly biked with an equally sodden Miki, talking about how a rich social life can be uplifting, but such uplift has a way of pulling one away from roots.  While I'm happy to have reclaimed some free time after quitting my course, I've not yet driven deeply the peg to which my current phase of life will be anchored.  Even the lightest of winds has a way of blowing me this way and that.   

On the turntable:  Mingus Big Band, "Gunslinging Bird"

On the reel table:  "8 1/2 Women" (Greenaway, 1999)

Two things learned in June...

Never bring a 1500 yen bottle of wine to a diplomat's dinner invite.

One yen coins stick to your fingers during rainy season.

On the turntable: Diana Krall, "All for You"

On the nighttable: Jay Rubin, et al.,   "A Wild Haruki Chase"

Yama bushed

Ascending the stairs,

Still carrying Omine-san,

In my weary legs.

On the turntable: Wayne Shorter, "Native Dancer"

On the nighttable: David Liss, "The Coffee Trader"

On the reel table: "The Balled of Narayama" (Imamura, 1983)

Thru the Ages...

I step out onto the street and head in the direction of Miki, who's waiting with her chai at Starbucks. Iggy's on the ipod, and the music triggers a lengthening in my groins muscles, the usual preparation to strut. However this day on Karasuma, I'm blocked by a wall of uniformed adolescents, dilly-dallying, だらだら-ing in my way. Doin' the schoolkid shuffle. Miki believes this is due to weak abs. You can see it on the trains in the slouch and the curved backs, as if their bodies were designed by Dali. (Dilly-Dali?)

Miki and I had thought about taking a train down to Kyoto Station, but it doesn't look too far. In today's post-rain light, it looks to be hovering over the end of the boulevard like the Mothership . Once there, we find the building's subterranean arcades packed with the next demographic, marriage-able girls bucking the system with their other unmarried friends, looking for a lunchtime table under which to let down their heavy shopping bags.

South of the station, we jump a generation, finding the old-timers watching the world pass-by, through the dual fogs of memory and a liquid-humid afternoon. They're in the parks around the ruins of Rajomon and Saiji, their rigid figures sitting near rigid stele which mark time in their own ways. A large cluster of the elderly can be found at a gateball tourney just north of the tracks where Bullet Trains fly past with no time for ruminations.

A generation down, the middle-agers are at the other end of Umekoji Park, gathered for a Bike Rally. They drink beer from plastic cups while walking around the hundreds of bikes proudly lined up for inspection by these enthusiasts. These aren't Harleys, or even bemirrored Vespas (which would allow my own participation). No, these men are Honda SuperCub enthusiasts, eyeballing the svelte bodies of these mini machines and taking notes on little pads. Each Cub has a numbered tag like a bizarre sort of beauty contest. I wonder how many of these guys are postmen in the real world.

We move north, following a map from the Heian period, seeking out more stele that demark where the ancient regal chosen few slept and had their cups, with little apparent concern beyond the current phase of moon and turn of phrase best used to capture it. On any given day, we probably pass a dozen of these markers, but today we stop and fill up on history. At the northern apex of our route, we find the Heian Period Museum. Its presence seems to be a conciliatory gesture to angered locals, since the office building which houses it is built on palace ruins. Inside is an impressively massive model of the city, around whose perimeter we walk, looking for familiar spots. And, as I'm sure everyone else does, we look for where our house now stands. I'm especially impressed by the display of earthen strata from a nearby dig. Working our way down from our modern detritus, we pass through historical periods marked by soil of different shades, coming finally to a point before man's footprints began to leave impressions, and such measures of time didn't exist anyway. On the wall nearby are a few scroll paintings, showing time not marked but time wiled away. While I've often seen paintings of the cushy Floating World, today I find my first representation of the lives of the people outside Heian's walls, whose taxes made it all possible. Back on the streets, we continue our meander amongst their descendants...

On the turntable: Count Basie, "Atomic Swing"

On the nighttable: David Geraghty, "A Snake in the Shrine"

On the reel table: "Uwasa no Onna" (Mizoguchi, 1954)

Cows Coming Home to Roost

My martial arts training predates my yoga practice. In fact, I started the latter because I found that Japanese budo training doesn't have much in the way of warm-ups. (The strong emphasis on stretching in US dojos I figure to be more about liability than flexibility.) After I began teaching yoga 4 years ago, I found myself growing worried about injury. My budo training has thereafter suffered, being too afraid to really put myself out there. This anxiety about injury has become self-perpetuating. A couple years ago, I began to feel a twinge in my right elbow, ironically caused by yoga, albeit in the Extreme Sport Style of Ashtanga, as taught in Japan, usually by former fitness instructors who get their "license" after a mere 2 week course, with their knowledge of the body seeming to go no further than "heads, shoulders, knees, and toes." (Knees and toes.) The elbow had been fine awhile, but around Golden Week I began to feel the twinge again. So I gave myself a couple weeks off before going back up to Takeuchi. And of course, I badly injured it on the very first technique, within minutes of arriving at the dojo. Then I wisely continued to train for 2 more hours, feeling the hyper-extension getting more and more hyperer. The next day, I felt like lead weights were hanging off my arm, with a decrease in mobility of about 20%. Well done. This further feeds the fear. I love budo, and my move to the Kyo was initiated by the chance to train here. But the nagging voice in my head has grown more confident. Can I train in a way that avoids injury and still allows me to teach? Or are the two mutually exclusive? As my odometer rolls toward my 41st birthday, my doubt grows.

I did teach this week, but badly. Murphy with his damned Law brought many beginners around this week, so I was forced to demo some pretty flaccid poses. I need to keep healthy. I have begun to teach more around town, and am bringing a couple big guns to Kansai for workshops. Plus Shugendo training season is coming soon. I give myself 6 weeks off from Takeuchi, though I'll try to at least watch practice, keep my feet wet...

Bizarrely, in the days following the injury, mukade began to show up in the house again. (For any yoga students reading this: Remember, this blog is my writing practice, and that last sentence was pure fiction. So please, enjoy that savasana.) One was trying to blend with the sofa, Ninja-style. I didn't want to kill him, so I rigged a mukade catcher (co-designed by W.E. Coyote and the Acme Corporation) consisting of Tupperware, a newspaper, and a tea tray, then I introduced him to our neighbor's yard. The next day, another Ninja had shown great dedication by getting itself boiled alive in our bath. Within moments of this event, fate made me read that centipedes are messengers of Bishamon, the Japanese name for the god of warfare. Wondering if this was some portent regarding my elbow and training conundrum, a few days later we hiked out to the Bishamon Temple in Yamashina to see what he wanted. But the god was strangely silent. He did introduce us to a small figure in an adjacent shrine, that of a Fudo stature wrapped by a great white serpent. In many traditions, including Christian, snakes represent knowledge. (Cue Eve, Tree of Knowledge, apples, etc.) Fudo represents Immovability, Strong Intent. Fudo is the Japanese name for Acala, another Hindu figure, closely related to my Yoga name, "Tejas", meaning spiritual fire and intensity. A CLUE!. I have been quite heady lately, more into books and this Mac than much else. Has my quest for wisdom and ideas begun to constrict my body, snuffing out my desire to train and improve in both yoga and budo? Hmmm.

Walking back along the canal that runs between Biwa and the Nanzenji aqueduct, we see another snake on the high curved concrete embankment. We can't tell whether it was live or dead, but this snake doesn't seem appetizing to the kites above or to the feral cats who haunt these parts in great numbers. OK, I get it Mon. Knowledge is only so palatable to the cats who are more about instinct, or the kites who live by reflex and concentration. Feed the body. Feed the body.

But it still doesn't sink it fully. We leave the canal and climb up toward the crest of Higashiyama, to that place where 6 trails intersect like spokes on the Wheel of Dharma. I try to let memory lead me to the hilltop home where PsychoSanta now lives. It's been 6 months since we put him there. But my head fails me. I give over to the feet, which take us along deer trails and down a fun and hilarious descent to Oku-no-In. But the head's not down yet. It wants to go up to the Amaterasu's cave behind Himukai Jinja. Feet defiantly follows a narrow path between the aerials of new ferns and too a small cemetery, whose grumpy keeper we had the misfortune to meet a week before. We hop the fence and as we cross the unkept grounds, I wait for his voice to call out, "Chopper, sick balls!" The "Stand by Me" reference lingers as we walk the rails down toward Keage.

Body trumps head. Head tries to raise by writing this post. A lovely rain falls outside, lulling ears and eyes toward sleep. Head folds. Body rakes in the winnings...

On the turntable: Duke Ellington, "Centennial Edition"

On the nighttable: John Updike, "Your Lover Just Called"

On the reel table: "Songcatcher" (Maggie Greenwald, 2000)

Wishes. Horses.

If this were a humane world, China would cancel the Olympics and use the money to help its people.

If...

On the turntable:  ...silence...

On Gold Rails (pt 2)

Satisfied, we headed deeper still, to Miyama and the primeval forests of Ashiu. This area has been leased by Kyoto University since 1921, their forestry students living and studying up here. Another old unused small gauge rail line follows the Yura River deeper in deeper into the wild.

It took us a while getting up here. We'd boarded a bus from Demachi, packed with first year university students standing and yammering their way toward a party at some pork-barrel mountain lodge resort. Miki chatted with a 90-something man who was going mountain herb hunting despite his children's protests. My own neighbor was an old woman who was elated in her grandchild winning a Judo medal, now certain to represent the nation at this summer's Olympics. She narrated our passage through the northern part of the city, superimposing upon the modern blight a mental map of memory drawn more than half a century before. As her stories subsided, so did our forward motion. Somewhere in the curves above Kurama, a car had gone off the road, and own bus was too wide to get by. So we all got to unfold ourselves from our neighbors and pace the roadside awhile. Miki and I sat beside the streambank and laughed about how with the delays and overcrowding, this trip felt more like an Asian voyage than a Japanese one. After an hour we started again, the bus getting lighter and lighter the further north we went. For the last hour or so I daydreamed that I heard "Greensleeves" played over and over again.

The bus went no further than Hirokawara, so we grabbed our packs and set off up the road. It was a long slog up a narrow switchback road, us sweaty and weary on the hot asphalt. We had a couple more clicks to the trailhead, but got lucky in hitching a ride with a young business-type who'd left Nagoya that morning with hopes of getting to the sea by nightfall. Happy to finally get on the trail, we walked along the ridge, the steady increase in height bringing more mountains into sight. The trail then cut down a hillside so steep that it was tough to keep a steady footing. Halfway down, one of my (Platypus) water bags decided it could take no more, and hurled itself into the gravity. I stood slack-jawed as I watch a quarter of our water supply somersault down toward a stream far below, giving off a catherine wheel of water every time it came into contact with the forest floor. More impressive was how it came to rest nearly on the trail again. (Well, they do say that water always takes the quickest way down.) We eventually made it to the stream which we then followed toward the river beyond. Winter had been brutal here. This narrow valley was littered with boulders and trees, making it now impossible to find the trail. Half of the trail markers were on fallen trees, and so many others were marked with tape that the forest looked like a zebra. We followed a narrow path which climbed again. Hairy in parts, it finally got us to the river and a grove of cedars. We needed no more incentive to camp; we'd only been going a few hours but the descent left us spent. We sat on a narrow patch of earth where the stream met the Yura, watching the sun drop behind the ridge and the forest slowly lose its shape.

I hadn't slept too well. This area was infamous for both vipers and bears. I could swear I heard the sound of the stream change, as if something momentarily blocked its path. Miki made tea and I cut bread. The soft morning light played off the river in front of us. We stayed until it was time to leave. We followed the rail line proper now, keeping a pretty consistent height above the river. Where the streams ran down to join the river brought hazards in the form of bridges in various states of disintegration. I usually find great joy in the fact that nature always trumps the things made by man. But myself being man made, I found this less than heartening today, as the bridges swayed beneath every step. A couple had been lost entirely. After an mere hour's walk, we came to one that I just couldn't go over. The older(!) bridge crumbled into space, but portions had been lashed to a couple of logs that were crossed by wooden footholds, the whole thing tied to the crumbly rock cliff by wires. This newer bridge had once had six support beams, but five of them were visible on the rocks 15 meters below. The sole remaining beam was listing into the void. A sign had warned that the crossing was impossible, but we tried anyway. Miki went a few steps out and came back. I went maybe two, then panic overtook me. Even without backpacks, I couldn't do it. Leaving our packs on the trail, we went down to the river, trying to find another way across, but were afraid of getting off trail too much, especially in an area as wild as this. There was simply no way to get those packs across. Back up on the trail we sat deliberating for a long time. Just as we decided that it was humanly impossible to proceed, a man in his 50s came up. We told him the situation, and he agreed that the bridge's condition was worse than when he'd come a few years ago. We watched him crawl partway out on all fours, then come back. He said that yeah, with our packs he wouldn't do it, then he turned and literally strode across, impervious to the wobbling below his boots.

Dejected, we walked back toward Ashiu. I wish we'd never met that guy, and could be safe in our illusion that no one would have made it over. I had been concerned with bears or snakes, but what had really done me in was my own fear. Sure, our decision to give up was prudent, but this was the first time I'd given up on something because I was afraid. My taste of my pride as it slid down my throat was bitter.

From Ashiu it was easy to hitch a ride out. We took a series of rides south, occasionally getting out to walk through the countryside sunshine awhile. We had the our lunch in the shade of a small shrine on a hill beside the road. From far off, I again heard the ghost music playing "Greensleeves." Miki told me that out here, the buses played music loudly so that people could come out and flag a ride. The bus we'd ridden the day before had indeed had music. All along I'd thought it was somebody's cellphone, ringing and ringing and ringing...

Our last ride was with an ancient couple with poor hearing. Miki complemented the driver on his keen ability to negotiate the winding road, as he sped far too fast through turns. What Miki took for confidence, I saw as fear, a mad dash toward the safety of straight roads. And she continued to praise this old guy, who was totally oblivious to his hubcap flying off into the valley below during one turn, or of flattening an immense snake on the next. Safe in Kurama then, where the train took us away from snakes and bears and bridges, and toward Italian meals and films and clean sheets.

On the turntable: Count Basie, "Plays the Blues"

On the nighttable: Xi Xi, "A Girl Like Me"

On the reel table: "Fast Food Nation" (Linklater, 2006)

On Gold Rails (pt 1)

Flowers of white were beginning to climb the trellis, emitting the scent of jasmine which has since overtaken all the rooms in the house. The hills ringing the valley were alive with color. Spring had settled in, and it was time to hit the deep mountains.

But first, a test run. It was a Tuesday, recently politicized as Showa Day, but will forever be Green Day to me. Into the green of the day we went, walking an old train line along and through the hills above Takarazuka. The rails led us along a river dense with picnickers, setting their tarps and tents on the uncomfortable stones of both banks. (A bank holiday?) The middle reaches of the river here grew wild, white taffy pulled between the huge boulders still hanging on despite inevitability. We'd passed through a couple of tunnels, but along this stretch they'd grown longer, taking up to 10 minutes to reach the arch of sunlight at the far end. We'd brought a torch to keep our feet from tangling in any obstructions on the uneven floors, but I spent a good part of the time training the beam on the smooth stone walls, looking for the tiny bats that I'd heard slumber here. Quite often we'd kill the light and stand still and breathe, engulfed by the dark and the silence and the lack of any sensory cues but the cool damp air. The other people we'd pass didn't seem so comfortable with this loss of bearings, chatting nervously until their giggles were lost in the dark behind us. And we'd too move along, passing from the black to the grey and through all the spectral colors finally settling on green, with the sound of our footfalls beginning to grow in pitch until lost to the roar of the rapids below.

On the turntable: Dizzy Gillespie, "To Bird with Love"

On the nighttable: Brian Daizen Victoria, "Zen at War"

On the reel table: "Cafe Lumiere" (Hsiao-hsien Hou, 2003)