Takijiri Shrine - the Edge of the Netherworld

I live near a World Heritage site that is an ancient pilgrimage route winding through the Land of Kumano, in Japan.

There are only two WH sites in the world that are pilgrimage routes (the other is in Santiago, Spain).

This one is special for its continued spiritual significance for Japanese, and now for many westerners too, even today.

It is a land separated from what many know as "Japan" -- such as Tokyo, manga, bushido, geisha and sumo -- but was and is a place that thousands sought and worshipped to relieve themselves of earthly troubles and sin of physical life.

One of its major starting points is Takijiri Oji (or Shrine), pictured above, where folks can cross the "edge" of the spiritual world just like former emperors for Kyoto a thousand years ago, or commoners and others from all walks of life later.

In fact the name of this land, "Kumano," meant "edge," and this shrine was their last stop before a hard journey wound up and into the land of the deities.

Behind the shrine, a path ascends sharply up into the mountains and toward the sacred "San Zan," or three sacred grand shrines: Hongu Taisha, Hayatama Jinja and Nachi Taisha.

I haven't really hiked this trail since before I got married. My wife (fiancee at the time) and I walked it four days from Hongu to this place, Takijiri, just after a typhoon had come through during the spring holiday. Folks usually go the other way, with Hongu the goal, but the typhoon had changed our plans.

We camped in a valley after I misjudged the distance one evening, and were harassed by animals (or spirits) that night, ran out of food another, but still made it back to Takijiri. I knew I would marry my wife that day after sharing the route. She stuck with me after my navigational mistakes. And I remember this great, big smile she had when we got down off the mountain, like something had awakened in her.

So, a couple weeks ago, we took a couple of our kids to Takijiri, again. Because I want to hike this trail with them some day, too. It's a beautiful spot in a world that is slowly being overrun by electric wire and concrete, crude oil spills and the onslaught of apartment housing and oversized vehicles.

It still seems to be a purifying place, deep, spooky and reverential.

I hope you all come and see it, too.

Let me know if you need a guide.

http://www.tb-kumano.jp/en/index.html

The Local Place

The local temple in our area is a perfect place to walk with the kids and get out of the house before dinner.
It's called "Tou-kou-ji" 東光寺 and contains the kanji characters for "east," "light" or "shine" or "brightness" and
"temple."
It has a fairly steep entranceway for cars that must be at a 45-degree angle. We often go up the spirally back road, also a bit steep but safer for me to drag a wagon or push a tricycle up.
This temple on the night of the New Year will ring its bell 108 times for each of the 108 temptations of man. Locals can also come at midnight and ring it and pray for a healthy and prosperous New Year, which my son and I did last year.
A graveyard also sits atop the hill, but more natural and functional and acceptable than a plotted funeral land back in the States.
Cherry blossoms up the steep grade are awesome as they rain soft, pink petals on your head as you work your way around.

Where is Zimbabwe?

Dancer-musicians from Zimbabwe came to my son's elementary school last month.
It was the start of a 40-day, cross-cultural tour for them in Japan.
We were lucky that our local international non-profit supported their visit.
Parents were also invited to watch the school performance in the old gym of the school, so my wife and I went and took our youngest daughter.
Two men, both performers and coordinator-teachers for their group, and four boys, aged 7 to 15, danced and sang traditional songs and played traditional instruments particular of their country.
The walls of the gym were covered with pictures and explanations about the country, the lives of the youth who had come so far to Japan.
While their multi-rhythmic performance was delightful and exciting, I was more impressed that one of their main languages is English. It is due to the unfortunate imperialistic history of Great Britain in its attempt to enslave and rob the continent. Cecil John Rhodes made a fortune in diamond-mining and even renamed a great swath of land in southern Africa, "Rhodesia." Only within recent history have the Zimbabweans reclaimed their full independence and re-named their country.
But any recipient of the "Rhodes Scholarship" today would probably not be so eager to impress the very source of their grant came long ago from blood diamonds and slavery.
Certainly, the current leader in Zimbabwe, Mugabe, is no better a despot.
However, as an English teacher in Japan, I thought it was extraordinarily poignant that a people from an even more different and juxtaposed culture to Japan than the United States spoke English. That the language is still a major tool for understanding and traveling about the world.
That the homogenous culture of the Japanese, who have spent more than anyone in Asia to learn English, but who lag consistently behind other more aggressive Asia countries in mastering or scoring high on TESOL or TOEIC tests, could try a little harder in stepping out of the "Japanese mind" box and embrace a foreign language that just might broaden their global acceptance and advance their communication of ideas.
It's frustrating because my children speak English and Japanese. My relatives in America speak to them openly and encourage them to embrace challenges. When we visit the States, they are exposed to people, friends, from a multitude of races and cultural backgrounds.
In Japan, my son is often asked to "say something in English" like it is a card trick, some bit of magic that they themselves cannot do. English is taught in schools by teachers who often have no background in speaking it, who do not wish to teach it, and have never traveled abroad. Their classrooms are like painful seiges of grammar patterns and awkward sounding greetings where memorized phrases are life buoys, and screwball jokes such as "I am a pen" perpetuate.
I like many things about the Japanese, but this cultural flaw is frustrating.
So, I was happy to hear the Zimbabweans speak, glad my son could understand, me and wife, also. I wonder if it was too much to hope that my son realizes he has something special inside him that is not magic but essential to learning and understanding the greater world, something to embrace, not to hide from and make jokes about.
The way many students stood up to dance with the young Zimbabwe men in traditional dress, maybe they sort of get it too.

Wampaku Day Care Gets Their Goats

My two-year-old came home the other day from day care and told us she played with "Yuki," which we took to mean she had a new friend in another class.
Turns out Yuki is one of two goats (or "yagi") Wampaku Hoikusho (Day Care/Nursery School) has purchased with the intention of making cheese and using goat's milk at some point next year.
They have two females, Yuki (with horns) and Chi-chan.
Millie is fascinated by them and at a "parents day" observation day last Saturday, we got to see the kids cavorting with the two leashed "mehh-mehhs" (goats go "meeh-mehh" here in Japan.)
Millie chased (and mushed, by accident, we think) bugs and ate many, many apricots (called "biwa"). Sometimes, she would put an unpeeled one in her mouth, and chew the fruit out of it until nothing was left but the skin and the pit.
The children in Millie's class also pricked plums with large toothpicks to be made into juice. Parents helped. After removing the "navel", the point where it was attached to the tree, we were directed just to stick it many times, and then put it into a glass jar. The teacher added a couple kilograms of sugar, and when it was full with plums, she twisted the cap shut to be left out to make the juice.
(I might add here that if brandy or white liquor or other alcohol was added, we could make a fine fermented drink!)