Jetlagged in Los Angeles, again.
Disoriented, I lay in bed last night and in a dream-like haze, the events of the Summer Festival the evening before unfolded vividly in my mind.
And laying in my bed 10,000 miles away, it was images of the people, the food, but most of all the music that came vividly back to me.
The Music-- known as "Matsuri-Hayashi" or "O-Hayashi," お囃子 is Japan's traditional festival music (original to the islands).
As I hinted about here, there are certain traditions that remain dependent on practices which are passed down from generation to generation. They are not written down, nor particularly organized, but rather are traditions of performance which rely on the bodily memorization of basic forms which then come together in creative and unique ways over the generations. Think of a Javanese shadow puppet performance-- there is no real script as each performance-- even of the same play-- is slightly (or greatly) unique. Think of the music of northern India or Balinese gamelan-- improvization is an essential characteristic of the art.
We had practiced every evening for a month. The elders stood in front of the children (and me) and without even a word of explanation, they just played. We watched and tried to emulate. It took the children a week. It remains to be seen if I will ever catch on. The music slows down, sometimes picking up, the two hand drum sections-- like African drums-- are beat in conversation with each other. There is a large taiko drum, set within the "dashi" 山車 festival cart, which is pulled along behind the portable "o-mikoshi" お神輿 shrine. The taiko drummers take turns with backup drummers (the 2nd graders who are still not allowed to play) shadow playing in the air behind. In addition to the hand drums and the large taiko drum, there is a bell and a section of flutes.
Donald Richie compared hayashi music to the jazz bands that walk behind a New Orleans funeral. To me, though, the transmuting and trance-inducing music has most in common with Balinese gamelan. Like gamelan, it seems to set time apart.
On the day of the Festival, the musicians trail behind the wooden festival "dashi" cart, which carries the drum and other instruments. This heavy, wooden cart is pulled by several adults and an army of children who pull the cart using two long hemp ropes. And like a New Orleons funeral procession, the music is played walking along behind the o-mikoshi portable shrine (see the picture above).
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Someone once mentioned that to a Westerner, the o-mikoshi shrines perhaps are most reminiscent of the Biblical Ark of the Covenant. Well, at the very least they are carried the same way (some cite this as evidence of the Lost Tribes of Israel Connection). While the shrine is carried much the same way, in fact, the Japanese o-mikoshi is, according to wikipedia, "a portable Shinto shrine.... that it serves as the vehicle of a divine spirit in Japan at the time of a parade of deities." Therefore, in truth it probably has little in connection to the Biblical ark.
The portable "o-mikoshi" shrine"-- Each of the wards of the city have their own o-mikoshi shrine. Some are very old, some are very elaborate, while others are newer or more simple. The shrine of Brocade Ward is only about 100 years old. It was purchased, the elders tell us, when the young people of the ward were fed up at being the only ward without a shrine and gathered money to have one built.
While our ward is famous for its hayashi music, its o-mikoshi is also very pretty, I think. You can see it here with its 4 miniature torii (Shinto Shrine gates-- one in each direction). The front of the shrine has a hanging bronze mirror and there is a large bird perched on top (with sprigs of newly harvested rice in its beak). Kaori says it's a swallow, but it looks more like a phoenix to me...but I'm not exactly an expert. (I uploaded a closeup picture here)
After a simple ceremony held in front of the neighborhood shrine, the o-mikoshi is then carried up and down every single street in the ward. The shrine itself is light enough that two men can carry it struggling from the shrine to the o-mikoshi, but once it is affixed to the four long wooden beams (along with the two cross-beams), it really becomes almost as heavy as a kei car. Especially for T. and K-san, who were a good head taller than the rest, the bulk of the weight falls on their shoulders and by the end of the day both men-- both who are extremely athletic-- looked pretty exhausted. K-san was pale and T was almost hanging on the pole in fatigue.
"A cross to bear" was the immediate image that came to mind, but later when I mentioned that the burden would be significantly reduced if they would just re-craft the poles in fiberglass, K-san asked,
"Who wants to reduce the burden?"
There you have it, I guess.
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The Festival had started at 7:15am. It took about 7 hours to carry the heavy o-mikoshi shrine up and down all the streets with the 20 or so stops at designated spots where refreshments were served. In fact, the designated spots were the 20 or so "han" that make up Brocade Ward . (On the infamous "hans" of Japan, see my post here). I was on refreshment duty so had to break away to get back to put my apron on and get the snacks and drinks ready.
Alas, Brocade Ward is made up mainly of elderly residents. So our's was the only stop with no beer and more children-centered snacks, like sausages, icecream and rice crackers. The other stops all served pickled vegetables and beer-- both of which Adonis loves. He was miffed that no one gave him any beer so he made up for the insult by pigging out on pickled cucumbers. He must have eaten a hundred or more and I was worried that he might have eaten so many pickles that he's get sick and we'd miss our flight...(A worry which was silly since Adonis has amazing powers of digestion!)
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The entire event lasted about 8 hours. And that was part of it-- the long hours of carrying and walking, carrying and walking; or in my case, helping the children pull the heavy cart up and down the streets. Hanging on to the rope, trapsing along to the absolutely transportive music-- for someone like me, who spends her days in what can only be described as a numbing frenzy of busy-ness, deadlines and anxiety so intense, I often wonder how long I will be able to survive it-- the experience was actually restful and truly something impossible for me to experience in daily life.
There was no where to go and nothing to do-- talk about being presence of the moment! Walking along, my trance was only broken when Sachiko leaned forward to whisper, "It is rare that one has a chance to see a man's "o-shiri" (butt) other than her husband's, isnt it?"
Looking up, I noticed that, sure enough, some men wearing traditional fundoshi (loincloths) had joined the procession just in front of us.
**
That night, our han had a party. In rains so heavy that even in monsoon Japan are rare, we drank and ate together as thunder and lightening ripped through the skies. It reminded me of the rain in Delhi. And that reminded me of something I had ready years ago in Berkeley. It was in a book explaining some of the religious customs of Hindu India and those Hindu/Buddhist civilizations influenced by India, and I very vaguely remember reading that the Indian religious practice of periodically taking their objects of worship out for a walkabout-- to parade their statues in the streets-- was actually rather rare in the world. I am not sure if this is true or not, but the Japanese also believe their festivals are unique for the way a kami 神 (one of Shinto myriad gods and spirits) is believed to descend 降りる from above to temporily dwell inside the altar of the portable shrine. There, seated comfortably from within the altar, kami takes a short trip around town.
Recalling this, I realized how I had all but forgotten how much this had once interested me: this idea of God taking a spin around town-- carried by people paraded through the streets in a holy statue or religious altar. It is, I am guessing, perhaps similar to our own imaginal journeys.
Like Mr. Roth's Discoveries as life's Great Beauty (a Post I liked very much, by the way), these Discoveries, Imagineal Journeys etc.) share a certain something in common I think.
Shunya recently remarked to me that "travel does wonders for the soul." I couldn't agree more. And yet, there is an important prerequisite to that, I think. That is, we have to have a beating heart and rich imagination to allow our experiences abroad to affect us. If nothing is filtered through the heart and imagination; well, it is just much of the same old narrative of "what I did this weekend."
In that way, I suppose, for me, it is less a matter of actually going somewhere as it is a matter of imagination-- or of heart, if you will. Indeed, I still have not been to Istanbul. And, yet it is part of the landscape of my mind in every bit a real way as India or Indonesia, Japan, Italy or Jordan.
Along these lines, there is a painting that I love more than perhaps any other in the world. Dream Journey Over Xiao Xiang 瀟湘臥遊図巻 is a Song dynasty masterpiece now a National Treasure of Japan. As I wrote elsewhere about the painting, "Song landscapes are not only viewed but are paintings that one can "walk around in." This is the Dream Journey implied by the painting's title. It is the potentially rich empty space in the painting-- the hallmark of Southern Song landscapes-- that in effect carries the viewer far beyond the painted images into a pure and natural realm beyond the "dust of the everyday world."
Obviously, it isn't easy to brush off the dust when one is living down on the flatlands-- where the air is foul and stifling-- so one needs props.
"Gayu" is the Japanese pronunciation of the characters 臥遊 "dream journey." For both the Chinese and Japanese literati scholar, being able to access this world of cultivated mind and spirit even from within the confines of life in the world was paramount. Now, of course, I am not equating the literati's dream journey with the festival-- and yet, there was that similar aspect of "time apart," or of a "journey," or even of "discovery"- a kind of imaginal journey across town.
Yes, the heart must go visiting...
There is more to say, and yet, I guess I've written long enough....
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