japanese beetles
To Whom it May Concern,
Four years ago, around Autumn, I went on a trip to a city called Matsuyama on the island of Shikoku, Japan. The company I work for sent me to this city to attend a meeting with several big-boss Japanese executives for some new telecommunication technologies that the company was considering adopting. The reason I was there is mildly unimportant. All you need to know was that I was on a paid vacation in exchange for virtually no work.
Matsuyama is a beautiful city on the western coast of Shikoku. Though the city flourishes with capitalist-like business and international marketing, the outskirts is still comprised of small villages where the population maintains a more “traditional” style of living. Though modernly, the people of Japan pay little or no attention to religion, or even the religious history of their culture, the outskirts of Matsuyama contains pockets of deeply religious followings of the ancient faiths of Japan. I don’t know much about religion in general, but on my trip, I was slightly educated in Japanese beliefs.
On one of my mornings with no work to be done, I decided to travel out of the city to the coast for some sight-seeing. Around noon, I happened upon a small Shinto temple approximately fifteen miles from the coast. The temple was incredible. It was made entirely of a dark stone, and sat dormant atop a peak among a sea of green hills. Behind it, a natural spring bubbled at the trough of a waterfall. Even though the priesthood is very loose in Shinto, the men coming in and out of the temple seemed very conservative and organized about their practices.
I felt something when observing this temple that I rarely feel… Enjoyment. It put me in a state of mild euphoria to see something so ancient being put into full practice and remaining in such a quiet isolation. I thought at that moment that it would be best to let this feeling course through me as long as I could, so I sat on an adjacent hill to the one that the temple sat on and simply watched the Shinto practices.
In the middle of my third cigarette, a man approached me. He was American or European it seemed, tall, with deep brown hair and bright blue eyes. He stood next to me silent for a time, observing as I was, until he finally spoke.
“The Kagura,” he said plainly. I glanced inquiringly at him. He raised his hand to point to the eastern side of the temple to a circle of four teenage girls in pink kimonos. A man weaved in between them in some sort of priestly orange robe with brown cords and tassels. On the border of all of them were two men plucking and strumming an instrument that the Japanese call the “Pipa.” The dance that these people were performing was very elaborate and rhythmic.
“It’s an offer to the gods to bring a lost spirit back to the faith. Someone gave the belief a try. It must have failed the poor guy.”
This man, Andrew Mare, sat with me until the evening and described the Shinto religion to me in more detail, pointing out the rituals that happened and the logic and spirituality behind them. He educated me about “The Way of the Gods” in great detail. He left abruptly, after a brief goodbye, and walked into the distance until he was out of sight.
I was reminded of this encounter last night upon working our situation out in my head. What Andrew mentioned about the Kagura seems entirely relevant to my current situation. It may be my powerful pessimism coming out to berate me, but I feel as if I must consider these things before a final decision can be made.
What I’m trying to say is that I am going to give this a try. I am going to commit to believing you. My negative side tells me that you are seeking countless pathetic bids of attention by employing a cheap façade. But at this point, I am taking risks. I refuse to deny anything without first diving deep into it. What this means is that if I lose this… If I fall away, the only thing you will be able to do for me is a Kagura.
When I was in Matsuyama, I noticed how similar the city streets were to New York City, a place that I visit often because of my work. It is incredible to me that even a place that harbors a temple of an ancient, minimalist religious practice can also harbor such a materialism less than thirty miles away. The streets of Matsuyama are filled with businessmen, walking in perfect step with each other to this building, and that building, while the hills of Matsuyama are dotted with the dance of the Ancients. “The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.”
What do you think? I think there is a reason. I think that, objectively, these differences are small. I think that these insignificant differences will eventually all evolve into one causal whole. One event that will change the face of humanity, across cultures, faiths, or languages. I think that this transition, through its duration, is subtle, but definitely active. And this is why I choose to believe you. These observations that I have made is why I choose to believe you. All of this is why I choose to believe in you. My only fear is that the rest of the world, apart from those in this circle, will eventually have adequate reason to dance the Kagura for me.
I know that right now I will have trouble describing to you my analogy comparing the lesser of two worlds with those fucking Japanese beetles, so we must meet. I suggest we correspond to decide an appropriate place, where thoughts such as these are meant to be thought. A great American writer once said, “As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.” I’ll let you decide what he meant.
Signed,