Dual pilgrims and the food that served them
- cherylmurfin
- Sep 19
- 8 min read
On the fourth day of walking, we arrived at the back door of the grand shrine Kumano Hongu Taisha, the heart of the Kumano faith and a spiritual center for more than 2,000 years. It took more than 15 miles to get there from our start in Chikatsuyu, 19 miles for the one poor soul among us who took a wrong turn.
The miles were mystical and musical—serenaded by the lush sounds of water and a chorus of toads and birds as we moved along the trail with our Merlin bird call apps flashing.
I spend the day mesmerized by all the sound around me: the scratch of my boot on the dirt; the murmur of conversation just ahead of me; the buzz of two large suzumebachi (otherwise known as the Asian giant hornet, which can fly in at 45 mm in length (almost 2 inches). In America we call them killer bees. I discovered a year ago that I am allergic to bees, so I was particularly interested in these buzzing sounds.
And, did you know rocks have a sound? Click the links above to hear the sound of the Kumano Kodo. The rock was hard to record.
Hongu Taisha is the place where pilgrims receive their official certification of having walked the pilgrimage. As we arrived at the back of the shrine, the sound of taiko drums filled the air. I have no idea what ceremony or occasion the drums marked, but I couldn't help but feel they were beating for us. There was a smell of incense as we passed one of the shrine buildings, a familiar scent. As a child, I loved the smell of incense and watching the tiny tips burn to a glow. I figured the smoke must be god dancing.
We didn't tour the shrine upon arrival, but instead moved through the grounds and headed to our hotel. Our feet hurt, we were hungry, and the thought of another set of steep stairs was met with groans all around. Instead, we broke down the achy bits later that evening with another delicious meal and a riverside outdoor onsen. Fully revived, we visited the shrine, a UNESCO World Heritage site, the following morning.
It was an extra special day for Joe and I. We have walked both UNESCO-appointed pilgrimages (Camino de Santiago and the Kumano Kodo), and at the main temple, we received our official "Dual Pilgrim" certifications. So far, there are about 10,000 Dual Pilgrims in the world, a group we feel proud to belong to. A robed official stamped our walker passports, handed us each a golden memorial shell, and invited us to bang the drum and clap twice to thank the gods.
All that made me think, we don't have enough ceremony in our lives today, too few rites of passage. Such markers make memories hold.
A few words about the hands that feed Kumano pilgrims. If the Kumano Kodo were a heart, the people in these kitchens would be the valves. Each meal is so carefully prepared, with many tiny dishes, mostly with local ingredients from recipes passed down through generations. There's a reason you don't ask for substitutions as we so often do in America (vegetarians/vegans/nonglutenistas be warned).
The Japanese feel honor-bound to care for their guests, and when asked to make a menu change, the cook must redo the whole meal for that single person (hours of work impossible to do on the spot). If you go, give yourself the gift of eating what is put in front of you unless it's medically dangerous. You can return to yourself later. I'm a vegetarian, but I ate every piece of fish and chicken proffered, and I grew in both palate and humility in the process.
Traditional Japanese cuisine found in the villages in the Kii Peninsula region is an art form, from the meal to dessert. Always something from the sea, always something from the land. Small bites, subtle tastes. As a teenager, I was always too busy as a teenager to notice the time and patience of my elderly friend Fumiko's meal preparations. The meals on this path reminded me of that gift I had but failed to notice.
Along the path, we stopped and wrote, of course. The writings below are pieces that came from the prompts "deep listening" and "wabi sabi," which I translate as beautiful ruin. They were not necessarily that day in Hongu, but they came from the road that led there.
Writing from the road
Wabi-Sabi
by Colleen Powell
Three trees stood in the forest, awakening to a fresh new day. Sun rays pierced the canopy, burning off the last of the morning fog. The remaining dew sparkled on their exposed trunks.
“What the hell is that?” Asked Spike, not so silently judging his peers. “Hey, Laurel, get a load of the lump on THAT log!”
Laurel bristled. “Shush, Spike! There’s no need to be mean. So what if Asher’s getting a bit thick in the middle? It could happen to any of us. Just mind your own business.”
Spike bent for a closer look. “That’s not just a little thick in the middle, honey. Asher’s got a full on burl! Nobody is going to want him for planks. He’s just going to stand here forever getting older and uglier.”
“I’m right here,” said Asher. “I can hear you.” Asher was used to the teasing. It had been going on since the burl first showed up. But it still stung, because Spike was right. Asher used to dream of being a part of something bigger than himself someday, maybe in a grand house overlooking the sea. But with this ugly burl, he’d be lucky to be chosen for a simple children’s tree house. Sometimes, in the quiet dark of the night, he worried that he might actually rot right there where he stood. Asher shuddered, adding to the leaf litter below.
Laurel was worried about Asher. She could see that the stress from Spike’s teasing was only making things worse. “Don’t listen to him. He doesn’t know anything. There’s still loads that you can do. Maybe you’ll become a canoe and get to travel.”
“Not likely,” said Spike. “Canoes need tall, straight, trees like me. All that’s in Asher’s future is a trip to the beach as fuel for a bonfire.” He chuckled.
Asher blanched.
“Shut up, people are coming,” whispered Laurel.
The humans arrived and inspected the little grove of trees. Chainsaws roared, sawdust coated the forest floor. In the end, all three trees remained standing. When the dust settled, Spike and Laurel looked at Asher in astonishment.
“Are you okay?” They asked in unison. Asher's burl was gone!
The humans had seen Asher’s flaw for what it was and transformed it into a beautiful sculpture to sit upon the window sill of a grand house overlooking the sea.
Understanding
by Cheryl Murfin
“But why?” she asked. She stood dazed and afraid as he packed his suitcase, slowly, placing each item in its exact right spot, like the suitcase was the puzzle and the items the pieces, interconnected but also very much individual.
“It’s not one thing,” he said, gently, fully, without any accusation at all. “I’ve been saying it all along. Maybe, but I was saying it too softly or too loudly or with the wrong words.”
“Could you try again?” she asked. She sat on the edge of the bed and placed her hand on the line of folded socks tucked neatly into the side of the bag, like teeth.
“It doesn’t matter,” he tried to go around the question. Because, really, did it matter now?
“It matters to me,” she said. “Please try.”
And then she added “Again.” It was not an afterthought, but an understanding.
She knew he had explained it before, and she felt sure now—right now, for the first time—that she had never listened deeply enough. She wanted to believe she had. That she, they, had come to a place so defenseless, so un-needing of validation and reassurance, that she could hear an uncomfortable truth about herself and say “Thank you.” That she could be grateful for the invitation to grow, rather than scared to be asked to do so.
She wondered suddenly, had she ever listened with her full attention, undistracted, and fully focused on anyone? To anything? Looking at the nearly full suitcase, the need to do so now was arch and painful. It made her ears burn, her head swirl, her heart bow.
“You remember that time we were walking and I was struggling to make it up the hill? When I couldn’t breathe. It hurt to breathe,” he said.
“I was so worried about you,” she nodded. “I’d never seen that before.”
“I know,” he said. “I could feel your worry.”
“But,” he continued, “When I looked back at you behind me, what I thought I saw was frustration. I became anxious that you were upset because I wasn’t going fast enough.”
“You did?” It would have never occurred to her that he had thought this. Nothing could have been further from her mind. What she had been thinking was this: “How will they get here fast enough if his heart stops or he can’t breathe?”
What she was thinking was how she could live without him.
“It was the look on your face,” he explained. “There is a small grimace on your lips sometimes, and I’m pretty sure it’s judgment.”
“But I wasn’t judging you,” she protested.
“You don’t believe you were,” he said. “I get it. But it’s just this small look. I’ve seen it before, with people or things you really are judging. All of us judge. But it was there that day. With me.”
She’d had no idea. But looking back, she saw it was true. That look. That tiny furrow of the brow. The slight downturn at the edges of her mouth.
She always considered this her thinking face. Her concentration. She pulled it out when she needed to remain calm, or face a challenge, or overcome her anxiety, or think.
But as she considered her thinky face, she thought about her body face—what her body did when her face was thinking. Her arms crossed, a protective stance she’d learned too young. Literally, cross your arms over your body. A security bar. No entry, those arms said. And she thought about her rocking, side to side, a motion that calmed her, but now, she recognized, looked an awful like agitation, impatience. And she considered, with a buzz of sadness, how those things might be exaggerated when they were mixed with, well, agitation and impatience.
How would she interpret these stances—the motions, the faces, the rocking, the rapid breathing (did it sound like sighing, or was it a “hurry up” breath?) — if they came from the other direction, if they came from him?
He had sat down on the other side of the suitcase by then.
“You are right,” she said. And, she meant it.
“I understand.” She meant that more. Because, suddenly, she did.
Maybe someone else would have seen the furrow, the frown, the crossed arms as nothing more than the thinking that it usually was. But he was all soul, all feeling. He could no more control his feelings of potential harm and judgment than she could control her thinking and anxiety. Of course, she thought. But she said it out loud.
“Of course.”
“Of course?” He said.
“I am so sorry,” she said.
“It’s ok,” he said. He knew that she knew. That she heard. That she did understand finally.
“I’ll be back in a few days,” he told her and handed her his itinerary.
“You’ll be back?” she said.
“Of course. And then I will listen to you just as deeply, and I’ll hear you, and we will begin again.”
“Again. And again and again,” he added. It was not an afterthought, but an understanding.
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