Kumano Kodo

And, when I got to Ise, that Sacred city where Ise Jingu is, the most sacred of Shinto shrines in Japan, I was recieved by a lovely couple, friends of friends, who took me into their cosy Kawaii (cute) little home

and fed me amazing food. One night we made 'Poffertjes' in their jappanese style poffertjes pan, which they actually use to make octopus balls or something like that, but looks close enough. They took me around, and we practiced Tai Chi together and than, after two days in their home, she Drove me, more that two hours away, so kind!

Like it was nothing. But that it's also part of this country. Which I feel, in a way has taken on some parts of American culture, in being pretty car based, and that sometimes makes me a littlebit sad.

What they also are is extremely generous. In almost all rides I hitch, I will be given snacks and tea, even to the point where they stopped, bought me a drink at a vendomat, and continued, when they weren't even buying anything themselves. And after leaving a car and heading to a bathroom, the man finding me in there minutes later to hand me some heartshaped rice cookies. It's so amazing!

So yes, she dropped me two hours away, in the city of Owase, next to that enormous camphor tree, maybe a thousand years old, maybe 800. So these shrines of Shintoism, especially that one in Ise, Genku. It reminded me so much of some wild Scandinavian architecture. With massive crossbeams all dark wood carved in delicious forms. Big logs of poles protruding over the roofs, that were meticulisly thatched in curves by some true artist. wow! And than later I discovered that it's not even thatch but little strips of bark, like millions of them, packed together! These jappanese people are so crazy! So much effort! And you know? These shrines, they move them. If they have a chance, every twenty years! They move them like fifty meters away because they feel that new things are better or something like that, to renew the energy. And this religion is really interesting. It's very closely connected to nature, And I like that. There are a lot of things in it that I can agree with, like the belief that spirit is anywhere in Nature. And the fact that Buddhism and Shintoism didn't fight eachother. They just Merged, neiter of them condemned the other. They just accepted eachother as traditions and co-exicted and blended in many cases.

So yeah. Massive roof beams with golden emblems of the tri-form yin yang at it's tips. And, there is no depiction of a deity neither. Either there is a white curtain behind which there is emptyness, or there is a miror, reflecting one back onto oneself.

I mean, how genius is that?!

It's about you, it's about your life, it's about what you do. You are God, and yet you are but a reflexion. It's about How you live that makes life Devine. It's great, I think.

Than from that impressive tree being at the shrine in Owase, I than started walking, through the many small villages and hamlets often surounded by a girdle of abandoned rice paddies now overgrown by forests tall and vital, covering all in a deep emerald light and muffleling most outside intrusions of sound. Orange tree richly laden with treir colourful fuits now, but no one left around able bodied enough to reap their fruits. These japanese oranges are actually quite like our grapefruits, and their grapefruits are kind of orange like. I would say they have exchanged about 25% of their qualities, to blend into a delicious new expirience, to me.

These fisherman's towns, where the silt is on the shore and the unused nets lay piled up high now, being overgrown by flowering vines, Old crones and bent backed men scuttle around in the remains of this once prospering country side.

There used to be whale hunting here, and some crumbling lookouts still exist that give a wide vieuw of the rocky coast and is's diverse beaches. The trail would keep winding along hilltops and than again duck down to a secluded cove, the silent gray stones of the path ever faithfully leading the way. So magical at times, I would come upon another small mossy shrine or holy image, and no matter how old, money or flowers would be left there, the signs of some fellow pelgrim passing here before me.

And in the weirdest places, one encounters drink vending mashines. Often more than one huddled together. Selling a variety of cold coffee and bottled teas in village where there isn't even a shop, but there's a vending machine. Thank God for the civilization.

As Gandi apearently put it; 'Western civilization, it would be a good idea!'

Another really interesting phenomenon which I've been observing in Japan is the plastified meal displays. In the windows of many restaurants you will see examples of all the plates they serve, real life size, but completely made is some kind of edible looking plastic, it's actually quite nice.

And so now I'm almost packed again. ready to set forth once more, on this path, and explore this facinating country of Nihon. Nihon, not Japan. Nihon is what they call it.

And than there were the rocks. The wolf rocks that I passed one day on a small peninsula jutting out into the wild blue. The most epic sadstone formations I have ever seen! Carved at continuously by the ocean from below, rising up from it's dephts this stone monolith mountain giant. With so many jagged edges, water filled caverns and places where the foaming waves are heaving, smashing together, furiously throwing themselves in a white liquid frenzy onto the smalls of the land, where it gatheres in panic seeking a desperate way up, towards the gray blue ruptured heavens, from where I beheld it all, oh sheer aw! Every wave more water than my back could move in maybe two whole days, so mighty! And they had carved many flights of narrow stairs and water canals all along the cliff so that one may circumvent it, chased ever by the nearby daughters of Poseidon.

What a powerfull place that was, what a natural spectacle!

The weirdest shapes that old stone has taken on. The likes of I have never seen and do not dare attempt describe before you. But it's a miracle, that much I will release.

Sooo. Im sitting on a mountain top, in Japan.

And it's sunrise. It's Sunrise here in Japan, and maybe somwhere else the sun is about to set.

Here, in Japan, on the edge of the world, I can hear the river rushing down in the valley below.

In my country, in Holland, that might be a highway. But here, It's just the river.

There is very little up here to hear. I can hear a few birds, some insects zooming, but otherwise it's quite. Actually, down in the valley I could just hear a far off motercycle, maybe, a thousand meters below.

That's actually not true. Let us be impeccable with our word. Let us speak truth. I always want to speak truth, not exaggerate anything. So, I'm sitting on a moutain top. There's very little up here to hear, a few birds, insects zooming, and a motorcycle far off, maybe...700 meters below.

Ahh yes, This Ise-Ji, Kumano Kodo pilgramage trail that i'm Hiking is becoming more magical every day.

Not necessarily that the trail becomes more epic, but it gains gravity or weight the further and the longer I walk.

And of course, there is extacy and joy. And there are moments of frustration. But it's important to keep realizing that it's all part of the path.

And when I do, Remember, there is deep peace.

I've been walking for a week now. I remember when I started, on the ise-Ji trail, along the coast of the Kii peninsula. Starting in Owase, ascending and descending, ancient looking paths of mossy stone boulders. Coming through quite bays and wide inlets of clear rivers. Everything covered in the forest. Sometimes walking through deserted graveyards tucked away on abandoned terraces once build to grow a hard begotten rice crop. Shards of ceramics everywhere. Hinting to a past of lots of tea drinking, and Sake drinking for that matter. Any time one passes an abandoned tea house, of which there are many, most what one sees are lots of large empty Sake bottles laying around, of old faint blue glass now getting lost in the leaves between the trees. All these trees, of Japanese ceder, that have been planted after the second world war to provide wood for houses that were meant to be built, for those left without. So steep these mountains, So steep! More often than not, it seems that the slopes are at more than a 45 degree angle.

Yet the trail is relatively gentle. It's pretty relentless in parts, especially now that I've started penetrating into the peninsula, leaving the coast behind.

Long acsents of 800, a thousand meters and than decending again. But it feels like this trail wants to respect your body. This is after all and ancient route. Having been used for at least a thousand years, possibly longer, by traders, merchants, pilgrims and country folk alike I suppose. I've been camping, here an there.

I remember one night, it rained. And I camped under the shelter, sharing the space with two funny jappanese guys from Kyoto. One on a flashy dirt bike, the other on a sweet sixties style Piaggio scooter, making a motorbiking trip across the peninsula. Not across actually, just for two days. And a Dutch woman, going the other way, than I was. We were sharing food, sharing stories, being safe from the rain was a Godsent.

Than next day, after crossing another mountain or two, I came to a hotspring. And I mean HOT Spring. Really Hot! So hot that, with a provided pump one could pump some of the cold river water into the basin. A simple place, but adequate. Large river boulders cemented into a squerish pool. Next to that deliciously cold river, and so clear. That is all that I need of a hotspring. That and just to be left to my own devices.

So I soaked and soaked until I could say that I'd really had enough of hotsprings for a little bit, which is rare for me. And than I slept right there, just next to the steeming water, in the open.Than, next day, passing through the town of Kumano Hongu, where a huge Shinto gate, but I mean HUGE! Watched over the site of where the temples used to stand. Now moved to a nearby hill, as the original had been swept away by a flood some hundred years ago. But that gate was just HUGE! And black, with a golden emblem, of a three legged crow upon its summit. Three legged crow. Hummm, So funny....

Than again walking all day, coming to yet another hotspring. This one, more developed so to say, for human comforts. It did not attract me that much. So I just slept nearby, under another shelter, with a pitviper possibly lurking somwhere in the bushes. I did not see the pitviper than, but I did the next day, right along to the trail.

It was green, mottled green and long and shy looking. It did not in any way look evil, like it had been depicted in the picture on that shelter last night, or even angry. Just afraid. And so docile, yet, very poisones, and very beautiful. What a magical creature. What a magical Creature, with no legs, so agile, so perfect at what it does, yet no legs. Just a mouth and a body, and a tail to be fair.

Sighhh.....

What a beautiful trail. The night before last I camped by a river. A big river. but not finding the best of spots I camped literately on the edge of some eroding cliff-like thing, with one corner of my tent literately sticking over the edge of the cliff. Like actually! That was pretty crazy, and it was sloped, but it was fine. And it was dark at night. And I washed. I like to camp where there is water so that I can have a bath after a days walk.

And they build these amazing suspention bridges here that are like a spiders creation, hardly visible. Made of myriad cables, but so whimsical. And when your are walking across them, it's almost like your walking on water. They're all wavey. I'm not sure that they feel very safe. But they're definitely very special. Spawned I would say. Spawned.

So now, I'm on a mountain top. It's called Obako Dake. I Think Dake means summit. The mountain around me are mostly brown. But some evergreen green, some patches of dark green, where ceders where planted. It's nice to be in this open forest  for a bit. I think it's a lot of Oak on this mountain than I'm on. Oak and some other trees that I don't know, but than have not yet thrown out their leaves. I think their about to.

But, the other day, when I came across a pass. the most beautiful sight I saw.

As the mountain in front of me where clad in this stunning Jappanese artwork. In this  display of light amber yellow gray, and silverish green so frail, so fluffy and so articulate. Like a Jappaese Kymono. There were whites and pink and reddish shades. There are these trees here that are kind of like Mango trees that have green leaves that shade to this really rich peachy pink when they just emerge. And all this together gives this forest such an amazing hue. So stunning! Bob Ross would have loved it!

And even though this winter seems to be the drier part of the year for Japan, or for this region, there is water in so many places. Such good water. And so this last night i've been sharing a mountain hut here on the pass at 1240 odd meters with four jappanese folks, and it wasn't cold. It was warm actually. Especially outside. And the vieuws were stunning. Ha! Ofourse.....

And so now, I'm sitting on a mountain top, in Japan.

On the edge of the world.

And I feel that, it is time for me,

to go Home.

But whatever place this self proclaimed nomad might call such a place is still halfway across the planet.

A nomad only keeps those possessions that are of the greatest value, and does away with the rest. To a Taker, gathering more and often larger possessions becomes a aim of it's own and may lead to greater status. A nomad takes what he needs from nature, and leaves all else.

So now this vagabond decended from that high, quite place and was guided by the steps of god to the lower valley. All day She held him by his hand like the open child he was, of her, of his own expirience.

Along a crescent of this miraculous universe than he walked, the war of the stars filling him with inspiration to live a life of God (I just meant to write 'good', but that 3 lettered word apeared and yes, that is how it is)

In the late afternoon than that boy of so many lives, decended on foot for a last time into that hill encircled temple city of Khoyasan.

Pelgrims town of a hundred temples. Many seekers of all walks mingle here to expirience the serenity that continues to dwell here after a thousand years sacred lives, devoted to the uncovering of the inner truth, the purity, the real.

Putting up my little spacious red and white tent named Rosalie between a congregation of old grave markers and a few buddhas, the darkness soon enveloped me, and left me with only my innocent fears, and the night sounds.

Next morning I broke camp early, and hid my feeble belongings in the bracken, than headed over to the graveyard valley of Kobo Dashi's entry into perpetual meditation.

A monk in the 8th century. His life inspired thousands to take up the robes and start this remote settlement in this mountainous region.

Over 200.000 graves of all sizes stand there under the enormous ceder trees, so high and protective. For 2 kilometers the paths stretch into the woods along a stream, and no feeling of sadness is there. Just peace to be felt, between all those ancient mossy stones, stacked 5 leveled memories of bodies long merged back into the soil they always were. Breathing walking soil, a thinking microcosm of bodies and entities.

Forces promote movement, whereas objects prefer stability.

What a beautiful place that is. So much forgetfulness, together with an attempt at rememberance, and deep respect. Only time lives on while man and woman's names fade like shadows in the morning light of the world. This place, feels like a monument, to time itself.

At the end of the path, the clear voices of a woman's coir were to be heard, praying while rhythmically sounding a collection of silver bells, it was bestilling.

Than there whas the hall of a 1000 lanterns, many more than a 1000 in fact covered the entire ceiling, and a deep smell of sacredness and incence penetraded deep within my being.

Here, between the tall green woods and the fleet feet of the running fresh river water under the bridge I leave you. While a service is being given for the unnameble. With the sound of falling money in my ears.

And a Heart, full of life.

Jumping Hoops

Buy good luck and faith in the universe,  this Drifter manage to escape the vortex at the lake once more, surfing on feeble destinies, transports, road ships, motor rafts, Spirit canoes and herds of iron steeds I soon again entered that City of Oaxaca, on the south mexican, parched high plains.

This time as a Victor however, feeling myself on the battlefield of Troy, riding a golden wain, albeit that wain might be merely of mental gold plate. Oh yes I do like this city, and now I had friends.  Friends from back in the US, two lovely people with their equally charming daughter invited me into their temporary  home away from California, on the outskirts of town in the nearby hills, their reconnaissance was a Joy indeed. For one night only, I stretched me legs and made ma bed on their floor, before a plane would carry me back to Mexico's turmoil rich north, from where I would make another attempt at admittance to that Fortress that is America. It all went smooth however, surprisingly smooth in fact, with all that hard talk about strong borders going around?
Learning Japanese at Breakneck speed,  spending days on the bus rushing through California's Green Miracle of a Central Valley, discovering Los Angeles Skid Row by night, the thousands of homeless that build shanties right in the downtown of one of the most prosperous cities in the world.
Crossing the Goldengate the rich lands of Mill Valley Beyond, where are the Redwoods grow, gray fog of the bay.  Finding such nice homes away from home, the cozy little apartment of my aunt Sophia tucked away in the damp green hillside, with all the techies all around, and the enormous highways, but in a country that is falling apart. The amazing feeling of my auntie Teak's home in that crazy desert, javelina infested, radrunner populated, coyote  futuring, cactus bonanza. Where the open land is so fascinating, so wild. So insane.
How much more bearable the winter is. So cool.
I was even able to wear several layers in the daytime, something absolutely unimaginable in summer or even fall,  where venturing out in the afternoon means getting baked and feels like a form of pure vanitial suicide.
One day I cut across the open land of the..... desert, to the nearest mountains,  at least the ones that most attracted me.  Sometimes wading through carpets of fine yellow spikes that generations up on generations of cacti had left behind.  Crossing dry river beds and forests of Saguaro until I came to the foot of the mountain. Granite peaks and boulders we're before me. Up-and-up I climbed steeper and steeper ever going.
Honestly, it eventually turned into sheer folley. But this was one of Gabriel's wild walks, and so I did not give in. Having to climb over and under enormous boulders, sliding on granite gravity defying slopes of gravel, finding the clear signs that mountain lions and coyote frequented these remote places. It finally became obvious that what I seem to find were paths only to the wild and not to the feet of humans. But at last the summit was reached, the whole wide wide world lay beneath me, in all its brown desert ness,  parched and diverse, flat and undulated.
Corrugated seafloor of the ancient world. And it was silent....

I've been in Japan for 3 days now and  have seen only one homeless person,
one obese person,
and one Japanese flag.
It's amazing, the contrast with America could not be greater!.
Everything is small. Their houses, their metros, their dogs, yes even most cars look like they've been trimmed down like some kind of boxer dog to fit the tiny garages of tokyo's extremely limited parking space.
It was quite overwhelming, as you might imagine. The largest metropole in the planet, 3 of them in fact, in only 2 weeks. Mexico, LA, and now Tokyo. But here, everything highly organized, clean, and efficient. After 2 days of city hiking i found some place in a reclused forest Shinto temple shrine, quite by surprise. Surprise for me maybe, but not for the thousands of others. It mattered not. Shinto does not judge, and I feel very in line with it's idiologies. It feels peaceful.
Than i took the train, from massive bubbling tokyo station, traveled about 2 hours west, to the town if Fujunomiya.
And Rushing Water is everywhere,  delicious fresh crystal clear gushing streams from who knows blessed mountain spring. The mountain being volcano Fuji, white headed and often whimsically hiding in shrouds of Grey mist, always seems to be there keeping a watch over you whenever you turn around, looming from the dark but now greening lower hills.

Now, having traveled a fair bunch throughout the world, steering these feet through nearly 70 countries, I had never yet gone 'around' the world, that is to say, from Europe, to the American continent, to Asia, and onward, to Europe again, circling the pole so to speak. Not that it really matters, but what I had never really grasped were the implications of the date line. The line across the pacific ocean where, well, what exactly does happen there, that's the thing!
Going from California, where I was 8 hours behind on my European relatives, now, getting in this alloy yet, and flying for 12 hours across the great waves far below, now I suddenly preceded them by 7 hours. But in that journey, the sun had never gone down! We were still in the same day so to speak, only, one day further on the calendar. Had I jumped time? What happened exactly? Suddenly Peace in California, is ahead of me in light so to speak, it being 10 in the morning here in Japan, and 5 in the afternoon in the US, but I am one day ahead of her! Is she living in the past? Or am I cheating her out of the future? This is Bizarre! It cracks my head! Anyway....

We went to see the Sakura, the cherry blossoms today, with the whole Konohana family. And the mountain in the distance, it was posh! And than in the evening they made a cherry blossomed kind of egg wrapped Sakura mega sushi for me and the other guests, with pink foliage from some red juice on white rice and a trunk of seaweed, it was so cute, and than they all sang a Sakura song!
Yes, it's a self heating, Panasonic toilet seat, including bunghole sprayer and maybe even light I'm not sure. It seems like most people in this country are pretty wacky and I'm not sure if it's just because of where I'm working or maybe if that's just that it's Japan, I actually think it might be the last. Seriously, how many normal Japanese people do you know that are not in some pretty eccentric?
This Japan, land of the light blue toilet slippers, of the Sakura miracle, where while valleys turn pink, and hundreds come and picknick under the trees, in the largest city in the world, at night. This land where social cohesion seems paramount to personal suprimacy.
People are not trying to stand out but fit in. Look at the cars for example, most of them, across brands look almost identical. They do not pretend to be sports like, but instead look very comfortable, modest and civilized, and squere as a shoebox. Some are low driving candies, others like model cars, abd nearly of equal size. You notice, as a hitchhiker, I spend more time looking at cars than I would like. There not trying to out compete eachother, the're trying to live together in peace, what a relief.
I guess it's one of the island qualities, that you have to work it out together, because there's nowhere else to run. Gosh they are so polite!
Remember that this dragon island is much further removed from the main land than England, and was completely closed for 2 centuries in top of that. Everyone is really genuinely interested in where I'm from and what it's like there, what language we use and if I like Japan. Many, even the youngsters, have never left the archipelago.

I ended up at the Konohana family for a while. Having contacted them over the internet, they received me so warmly, and gave me a big room al to myself! It did take me a few days of adjusting, to the social lifestyle. This community of over a hundred members is highly successful and productive. They produce many dozens of products, the majority a variety of deliciously lush and crisp vegetables, all packed with the most tender living care, make vegan bento boxes, bread and lots of high quality chicken eggs. They grow their own rice, green tea, wheat as well as soya beans to make tofu, soy sauce and miso, run a very successful natural lunch Cafe, and raise about 28 kids as a bonus. I was able to live in their midst for a while, working in the paddies, with the carrots, bees, in miso production, mixing large cauldrons of steaming beans right off the fire and combining them with prepared koji. I ate so well, even if just twice a day, as they skip breakfast there to give the body time to digest all that deliciousness. Eating like that, I felt I could probably become very old. Slowly I got to understand the power of their life, the beauty of it, and got mega inspired.

And Yes! What I must speak of is the amazing richness I feel in having been recieved in Konohana family.

When I just entered this land. The archipelago of the dragon. Every night, after dinner, The children would line up chairs, in front of all the adults. And one by one, if they felt like it, they would be given a chance to tell all present about their day. This was a pretty serious moment. They were so beautiful. One of them would facilitate the meeting, and ask who wanted to share their stories next. And than they would just stand on their chairs and tell, with full conviction and enthousiasm, about their lifes. Than, when they had finished speaking, there would be a moment for the grown-ups to give comentary or ask questions. And than again the facilitator would ask 'lalala...lala. de mas ka?'

With such a sweet sincere voice.

This Language is really funny. It makes me laugh, in a good way. It's totally different from what I had imagined, actually of what I had imagined Jappanese to be. I don't know what I had imagined. Maybe something more Asian, something more Chinese maybe. It's really not at all. It sounds really different, and the intonations are very different too.

With all their people, the 4 plus houses they live in and hundreds of fields, they practically own that little sleepy corner of Fujinomiya, where the soil is rich and deep and black, on the toes of mighty Fuji mountain, snow capped and solemn, and so close.

And sometimes, when we were at work, one of them would say 'Sunanda'. Sunanda? I was sure I knew that word, Sunanda...But from where.....? And tahn it came, Yes, Sunanda, back there, in 2009, while exploring the Dogon country in Mali, Africa, With this Jappanese friend Deisuke, he used to say it too, Sunanda, I see. Sunanda. I understand. It was a revelation.

Yesterday, my last full day there, after lunch I got all the children in a chaotic circle around two boxes of instruments that had been lying dormant in a closet.
As you might imagine it produced a "hels kabaal", or to say, so much noise that even the sound of my own quite movements around one of my shiatsu clients that afternoon was almost too much for my tender ears to bear.
But we had so much fun! Trying to bring any organization into that unruly bunch with my little Japanese and their enthusiasm was a futility perhaps, but all but the most destructive got to bash and trash to their hearts content I believe.

It was a lot of hoops to jump through to get here, and the trip is far from over, but so far, all is well, and I do like this Asian culture so much.

Now I have passed on. Leaving that wonderful family, working so hard, in the morning's cold sunlight. Hitching, again, now in Japan, the sunrise kingdom.
Temporarily landing in a high intensity wayside service area, possibly the biggest I've ever seen with 6 separate toilet buildings, and dozens of restaurants and Japanese crazyness everywhere. I'm camping a little ways away, in a bamboo grove.