Planning for August trip back to ARI

We are beginning to plan for August trip back to ARI

cherry blossom mantle

 

My mind is so much on Japan these days. We spent last summer in the north, a little west of the tsunami area. While volunteering at the Asian Rural Institute, we traveled a bit.

One June weekend we explored the beautiful bay area of Matsushima, where the poet Basho stayed for a time. This month, blogs report that the many pine-capped islands throughout the bay broke the brunt of the wave, or else the loss of lives and damage would have been much worse. Still, the town is suffering.

As northern Japan comes into its cherry blossom season, I remember the snowfalls of last April’s cherry blossoms. Perhaps this year, some of the devastation will wear a mantle of beauty. If so, to me it will symbolize the dignity of the Japanese people.

cherry blossoms snow

over shrines and splintered dreams

fragile pale beauty

Remembering Matsushima

After the tsunami that hit the northeast coast of Japan, I could not help thinking of Matsushima Bay and the 2 days spent in one of the three most beautiful places in Japan.
                     view from Godaido








Matsushima harbor

Entsu-In Temple garden



More pictures are posted here.

Bob's photos : http://www.flickr.com/photos/robray_nh/
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=58228&id=100000116155876&l=f7893955b9

“I came to ARI as a bamboo but went back to Bangladesh as a flute.” Mr. Jerome Sardar Dwijen, 1973 ARI graduate and Deputy Director of the NGO, Society for Social Service, on his visit to ARI in July 2010.

                                            

We’re back home, making new routines, but trying to retain some parts of the life we were so fortunate to experience at ARI. Joyce still makes brown rice - yes, even for breakfast, miso soup and stir fries whatever is in the fridge. She located Hijiki seaweed (very expensive, here!) to make Satomi san’s salad and bonito flakes for dashi. And yes, we use our new hashi to eat with. We’re also making more of an effort to patronize local farm stands.

We’ll post a few more accounts of ARI life since the summer heat, humidity and resulting general exhaustion kept us from reporting as much as we wanted to while there. Here’s a summer day in the life of ARI.

6:00 AM  Good morning. The sun has been up since 4:00, it’s already warm and cicada wings are singing away.

6:30  Join the outdoor circle for 5 minute morning exercises via Japanese radio and the morning prayer. Meet briefly with your group to learn Foodlife duties. For half hour chores, Joyce goes to the feed mixing room for two months – sweeping the floor and breaking down Styrofoam boxes that held fish heads and tails and okara from tofu, which were used to make fermented animal feed. Bob goes to the men’s dorm to scrub the bathroom.

7:00  Foodlife time. In July, Bob and Joyce job share duties in Pig and Cow and Poultry sections. Joyce cleans manure from the cage-like farrowing pens of three sows and their piglets. Hose down the pens top and bottom. Mix feed for sows and make sure older piglets have enough milk powder. Bob turns the fermented floors with a pitchfork in the poultry house. Other volunteers and participants are working with us. We are so hot and sweaty by 8:00 that we choose showers and are late for breakfast.

8:15 Breakfast – rice, vegetables, soup, eggs, yogurt. Yea, chai! Group B dishwashing.

9:10 Morning Gathering.  Our daily weekday meeting with a mix of scripture, song and sharing. Everyone is assigned a day to lead Morning Gathering, so we gradually learn more of each other’s backgrounds. This is truly how we become a community and find the strength to do the work!

10:00 Morning work – Bob becomes computer systems consultant. Joyce settles into whatever writing, editing or photo research she has been assigned. Over 90 degrees, no AC, but a direct fan! Participants go to class. Farm volunteers (bless them) weed rice paddies, harvest potatoes, and do backbreaking farm work throughout the day.

12:30 PM – Lunch – rice, soup, pork curry, tempura carrot tops, salad. We’re in luck, a birthday means JeanHae’s delicious banana cake! Back to dishwashing, Bob!

1:30 – Afternoon work. We go back to the office, except when the heat and humidity get to Joyce and she takes a shower and maybe takes a rest until 2:00. Participants have two hours of class, and farm workers are in the field.

5:00  Foodlife – Work in the pig pen is difficult for Joyce twice a day, so Bob switches with her in the afternoon. What a sweetie! Bob cleans the pig pens, and Joyce gathers eggs and cleans them. We may be the first couple who job-shared at ARI.

6:30  Supper – rice, soup, fried tofu, vegetables, salad. Oh, yes. Yesterday was butchering day. Chicken feet! Last dishwashing for a week, Bob.

7:30 Monday- Prayer Meeting, Wednesday- Joyce’s English class, Thursday- Bob’s computer class. On Sundays at 8:30, we Skype with family. They are just waking up.

9:30  Main buildings close for the night. We fall into bed. The cicadas are still singing.

Kyoto - August 5th

Joyce & I went to Gion Corner where she had seen the Bonraku puppets in 1991. We enjoyed an evening of tradional Japanese music and dance.

 

 

On our second day in Kyoto we headed out on a bus tour. The Nijo Castle was the residence of the Tokugawa era Shogan who was the administrative head of Japan. It had massive stone walls to fortify it and the Shogun was always concerned with survival. The nightingale floors of the hall ways chirped as you walked.

The Emperor lived across town in the Imperial palace with no stone walls and slept very well at night. It was a beautiful Palace, but we could not go inside.

The Temple of the Golden pravillion (Kinkaku-ji ) was once the summer home of  Yoshimitsu, the 3rd Shogun of Ashikaga. When he died, his son fo llowed his father wishes to convert it into a temple.

Kyoto - August 4th

The first day in Kyoto, we headed south to the Fushimi-Inari shrine, the shrine of a Thousand Torii gates. They are so close together that they form a tunnel up the hill side from shrine to temple to shrine.

The Higashi-Honganji Temple was the next stop , only a few blocks from Kyoto Styation. To say it was large just does not do it justice. The main hall of the Higashi-Honganji Temple is one ofthe largest in Japan.

The Kiyomizu-Derai Temple is spectacular. Set high on the hills in the eastern part of Kyoto, it has a massive central hall with a veranda that hangs off the hillside and it was constructed without a single nail.

Underneath one of the temple buildings is a pitch dark space where you can follow a chain of woodern monk's beads strung on a cord around narrow passage ways and corners. It is close to going to the spiritual womb. And quite scary. 

Miyajima

We arrived in Hiroshima and got an early start for Miyajima island by rail and JR ferry in the morning. The Itsukushima Otorii gate is only surrounded by the inland sea for a few hours at high tide.On August 3rd we were lucky  to be there long enough for the tide to come in and surround the Otorii gate at  the Itsukushima shrine.

  

Bob made a quick jaunt up the hill to the Daishoin-Temple and found it a really special place filled with carved stone images and beautiful temple buildings.


The monk and his flock of stone followers was one of the

quiet places I found there before a monk druming on a temple drum lead me on a search for the drummer.