The Jizo Bosatsus

Jizo Bosatsu where mothers place their care of their children, alive or passed

From Hongu, we moved on to Koguchi, a small mountain village surrounded by rice fields and framed by mountains. Along the way, as we had since the beginning of the walk, we encountered numerous small shrines and Jizo Bosatsu statues —small, stone, child-like depictions of the bodhisattva guardian of children, women, and travelers.

Many of these sculptures on the path are "dressed" with red bibs. I'd read that red is the color that wards off evil spirits and illness in Japanese tradition. A friend who grew up in Japan explained that the bibbed statues are a form of gratitude and prayer from parents, especially those who have lost children. In this tradition, offerings, including the bibs, ensure a living child's well-being or a dead child's safe passage to the afterlife.

I've watched children die in both my personal and professional life. In my birth work, I held many parents as they moved through the dark forest of infant death and grief. I recall one mother who told me two years after her baby died: "I'm healing and moving forward. I don't know where to put him if I move on, I'm so afraid I'll forget him." Each time I passed a Jizo on the path, I thought of her.

"Here," I wanted to say. "Put him here on a little statue in the forest."

I suppose that a grave is the same idea, a place to go to remember our lost ones. But the thought of that mom's baby joining all the baby spirits in this wood, countless ghosts playing in trees and glens where they are guarded and protected by elder spirits and gods, made me smile. So, I laid down the change in my pocket as offerings at as many Jizo's as I could, each time thinking of a child I knew and the parent who grieved them. It may not help them contain their sorrow nearly 5,000 miles away in Washington or California. But it can't hurt.

Not too strangely, each red bib made me also think of my mother, whose ashes I carried in a tiny urn in my pocket. Letting go of just a bit more of my grief was, after all, a hope of this walk. The same was true for another of my walking writer friends.

Eventually, we came to an area of the Kumano Kodo known as the Moja-no-Deai ("Abode of the Dead"). Located just outside of Koguchi, it's considered a spiritual resting place for the departed, a place where souls gather on their journey through the afterlife.

The Abode of the Dead

Could there be a better place for my a part of my mom and her husband to spiritually dwell? We picked a large boulder on the side of the path. And under a quiet mist, we sprinkled them out with the hope that they'd hang out together and have a good time with other spirits nearby.

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Writing from the road

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On her leaving 

by Cheryl Murfin

it is not a line

that thing crossed over

the gauzy curtain

they’ve called a veil

or that slight sun-moon 

that arcs day into night

and stands tween the body in life

and the body in death

it has no shape

this last breath

that final sigh

the sudden acknowledgement

in the shuttering eye

that marks the threshhold

then opens the door

and beckons “Come in.”

why, then, this fear?

of that door, that lip? 

of before and after?

of with or without?

of this side or that one?

why, the unease, the sadness

in arriving at that house

we’ve always been returning to?

why run from these shadows

spooking around corners

lurking in the forest 

always attached to the heels

waiting to grow taller in early evening

instead, turn to them

and face-to-face, invite

“would you like to join us in sleep?”

this thing crossed over is not a line

there is no need for shape 

no map is needed

right leads to left

left leads to right

beginning leads to end 

and returns again begin 

our only work to walk with purpose

along and through and beside

the constant liminal mountain

on this rocky road

I prefer not to be pushed

I’d rather be propelled

hopefully I won’t trip

and beyond that:

no shoving

no fainting

no hauling

do not lead me by the nose

allow me to walk 

do not drag this body

when my resistance barks

it is always temporary

i will reach that door myself

you keep your heart fearless

send me with good courage

as I flow

or float

or air balloon

in my crossing over

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Floating meditation

Little sparks

by Joe Shapiro

Listening is my favorite form of meditation. Listening to my breath—the sound as it comes in ocean-like past the bridge of my nose, tickling my sinuses as it dances through, then gently exiting like waves percolating their way out of warm sand. I can do this anywhere, even in a crowded subway train.

But when I’m away from the unceasing din of modern civilization, a rarer form presents itself. Those small, distant sounds that come furtively, like shooting stars on a cloudiness night, send thrills through my nervous system. Little sparks of joy popping unpremeditated into existence in the space around me—the rarer the more exhilarating. I run my senses out into the lightless void and little treasures return on flightless wings.

It surprises me how mundane a sound as the creak of a tree, or the rustle of a squirrel

skittering over leaves, can be both arresting and soothing to my awaiting attentiveness. It viscerally reminds me that I am at my most basic a creature of nature - not apart as my culture would have me believe. The world can try to shut it out—with ever louder machines and hermetically sealed doorways.

But it will always be there, patiently waiting for any who care to stop and listen.