Click here for today’s photo slideshow from Japan.
Today we say goodbye to Kyoto, to Marilyn and Adam Carasso (who return to the U.S.), and we head for Nagasaki. To prepare for this transition all of us go to the Saioshin Temple for Spiritual Exercises (S.E.’s) and to meet with Sarturai Sensei, a famous mask maker. We do our S.E.’s in a cozy little room. It is nippy this morning but the edge is taken off the coolness with the warmth of all of our bodies and the meditation by the Traveler. As John Morton speaks, he prepares us for Nagasaki and our S.E.’s. As he talks, tears start to stream down my face. I am not alone in the quiet weeping.
After S.E.’s we meet in the next room with Sarturai Sensei. He is a master mask maker and has created many masks for the No theatre in Japan. Saturai’s face is radiant as he speaks to us of his training to do masks. The hardest mask to do is that of a 16 year old girl. For to show the purity and innocence of a young girl the mask maker must come from the purity and innocence inside themselves. Steve Beimel demonstrates with one of the masks how the mask can change expressions simply by being tilted down and up. Sensei shows us how he starts a mask with a block of wood. I see that mask making for Sensei is a meditation.
Soon it is time to depart for the train station. We have time for a little shopping and sweet goodbyes to the Carasso’s. Then we head for the first of three trains we will take today to get to Nagasaki. On paper it seemed that the 6 hours of train travel would be long, but the time seemed to evaporate. We have a little excitement though. In changing trains Steve leaves his computer and our train tickets for the next train on the last train. Miracle of miracles the conductors communicate with each other, Steve hops trains quickly (hear the theme music for Mission Impossible), and rendezvous with the last train’s conductor and his computer/our tickets and hops the next train back to us. He returns; we cheer, marveling at how cooperative and enthusiastic the Japanese are at helping us out. All is well that ends well and we arrive in Nagasaki. There is time to freshen up and go to dinner at a nearby hotel. John then takes sharing. Many of us are bobbing and weaving as John talks. Some of us just surrender and put our heads down or lay down. John looks gently out on the room and sees that our bodies are ready to go to rest, and he sends us off with a blessing.
