Zuihoden

Human Wheels, Going Round Round Round, Help The Light Find My Face ~ J. Mellencamp

I visited a Japanese Mausoleum yesterday, usually not my first choice when traveling. It was an unexpectedly powerful experience. On the walk up to the mausoleum, built to honor the Lord Date Masamune, I stopped to wander through two cemetaries. The first cemetary brought home to me just how integral the appreciation and expression of beauty is to both life and death here in Japan. The monuments to the loved ones now departed were not only well cared for (a small broom lay beside the altar to sweep away any accumulations of leaf litter), but each one was so exquisitely designed and rendered. The second cemetary commemorated children who had died during the Edo period. I walked up through the cyprus grove, where the memorial was placed, not expecting to be so moved. At first the light reaching the forest floor onto the rock totems had me moved to laughs and tears of joy. Unbidden, a song came into my head and I began to sing, can't recall now what song it was, all I remember was that it was a love song, but I think it must have been my prayer to the children - released from me without my concientous being knowing it. Then the realization came to me - the pain that the mothers and fathers must have felt when their beautiful children left them alone in this world. I began to cry and am crying now writing you this. The children here are exceptionally beautiful - as you can see from the attached.