. . . until the heat breaks and you emerge on the other side.
This was the fragment I wrote this morning before I began this post. By breakfast one is in the amorous embraces of the heat, adorned in a sheen of perspiration, aglow. And yet, I find that however wide my window is opened, my feet still need to walk, my crown to orient itself with the celestial dome. Earlier this year I wrote:
I hardly know my thoughts or prayers before the earth massages my soles and the sky strokes my hair . . .That holds true even in this brutal weather. Mornings are best. The mind resists surrendering but how happy it is once we consent. I've just returned from an impromptu morning meditation sitting riverside, shoes off, feet dangling over the side, watching fish and pond-skaters and a white egret glide by, with a cloudless blue sky, the lazy river and greenery looking its gladdest, my company. Not much in the way of breeziness today, alas, but what a pleasure is even the faintest of stirrings . . . my body becomes a sail that catches it!
We have recently enjoyed summer carnival here in town. (I use 'carnival' purposefully because there's nothing quite like a Japanese summer to prioritise the flesh.)
First, there is the Fire-flower show (a.k.a. in English, "fireworks" - but lacking in poetry, no?). There is nothing quite like them for inducing in me a wonder-filled childlike delight. I love looking up at them unfolding at speed into any number of shapes and sizes and colours. I love the boom-boom sound of the big ones being fired off, and in the audience spontaneous gasps and exclamations and applause with each new beautiful projectile. The happiness of a group enjoying itself is a powerful reminder of how good and kind and beautiful human beings are. Becoming like little children really is to feel oneself closer to heaven.
The Uraja dances were next. Hordes of people take to the streets in teams in a manner similar to, though much smaller than Brazil's pre-lenten extravaganza of Mardi Gras. Our event is noisy, sweaty and mad. Why would anyone exert themselves in this manner at this time of year? Dancers appear in colourful and often outlandish gear, all of their faces painted to signal their habitation of the legendary 'oni' (demon) whom our town's hero, the Son of a Peach (yes, really), Momotaro, conquered. When I think on the 'oni', I think he must be a heat monster and I should very much like it if he were made tamer! The word 'uraja' is in the local dialect, ura meaning demon, ja meaning there. It has, I am determined, at least a shade of meaning 'Get Lost!' (I am rather fond of my own biblical gloss which fits just fine, as 'ura' in standard Japanese also means behind, and the picture definitely hints, doesn't it, at "Get behind me"?)
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| What does the oni say? |
Walking in, the atmosphere has quite a formal feel to it. The presence of children I found reassuring, despite the fact that, as a grown-up, I, too sat up in seiza (straight backed with feet tucked under your body), showing respect and trying to be good. It is part of the Master's hospitality to invite you to relax. (I'm never quite sure whether I should take this literally, or not. Sometimes, making meaning from what is said or understood can go awry! A delicate business, especially with ceremonial manners!) Nevertheless, I was ever so glad to be invited, unfolded my feet from under me and assumed the cross-legged position which is much more comfortable even though it makes for rather raggedy looking bowing . . . something done quite a bit and much easier from seiza position where the hips are higher than the knees and the spine is straight. The relaxation of the guests is key the Master tells us because we're all just here to have a bit of fun together following the old ways.
I could feel myself unfurling in the quiet and then the game began with a story. Always a story to engage the imagination and animate the senses . . . A lovely synaesthesia is brought out further by the mysterious Japanese verb 'kiku' which means to hear, listen and ask. To listen to a fragrance? Yes! Why not? Fitting then, too, was the story which told of a man who was walking in the mountains one day when he heard the call of the bush warbler (hototoguisu, in Japanese). So sweet was this call that he waited to hear it again. (I myself have done this many times, so I was fully immersed!) The name of the incense the guests were invited to 'hear': bush warbler, hototoguisu.
Ceramic pots containing a hot coal covered in ash are passed around from person to person. The first round's fragrance is the bird's initial call. Five successive pots come around, with only one fragrance matching the first. The game is to find the match, or, following the storyline, to hear the bird's call again. After six pots have passed you use your dainty little calligraphy set and on a carefully folded piece of paper on which you have already written your name with the brush, you write down the number of the pot that corresponds to the original 'call'. One of my friends and I guessed correctly - a small, simple and surprisingly satisfying accomplishment! And then the scribe makes you an old style hand-made certificate to add to your memorabilia.
The summer celebrations all involve honouring fire in some way: in the sky, in the body and in the mind. It is a reminder perhaps that we living things, one and all, are creations of the original fire-ball. The incense ceremony brought me home to the centre, a quiet and steady place in the mind -- the kind it does a heart good to remember in the carnal chaos that is high summer here.
