After my long walk I woke from a deep sleep and got myself onto the bus back to Hongu. At 8am I was waiting for the priest to finish his morning prayer circle at the Hongu Taisha. A tall skinny young man, he is, with shining eyes, radiant in the ascetic life he has embraced. We speak in mime and I show him my certificate. It is pouring with rain. He walks me over to the shrine. “Shoes” he says. I take them off and walk in socks with him over the “no entry” sign. He beckons me to the taiko. It’s a sacred drum at the side of the temple, good for waking up the kami. Nobody is here but he and I. No tourists yet in this part of the shrine, for the rain and the fact that it has just opened. Just the local kami. And this is the past shrine. A complicated place for me, the past. For us all.
He beats a complex rhythm. It is a touch longer than I expected, and I can see why it is a rhythm connected to journeys. DUM DUM DUM dum dum-dum-Dum-Dum-DUm-DUm-dUM-dUM-DUM … DUM .. DUM .. DDUUMM … …
Yeah, you try and write a rhythm. He hands me the stick. “Now”
I bang it. He seems pleasantly surprised that I’m not an eejit. This drum is only bangable if you can prove you’ve done both world heritage walks. It connects me directly to the last huge spiritual pilgrimage I made, in 2018. It’s why I’ve been getting all those stamps. As I hand the large wooden stick to him, I find I’m welling up. We bow to each other and I go ring and clap to the Bodhisattva in the main shrine, praying as I let the tears come out and not really knowing or minding where they came from. Life is a complex journey. We have to remember to participate though. It’s all very tempting to stay in bed sometimes because it can be hard work, but we only affect things by affecting things. Mohammed was quite right about the mountain.
I walked to Takahara from Chikatsuyu in the absolutely pouring rain. No leeches this time but it was relentless and by the time I got to Kiri-no-sato Takahara I was desperate to get in their onsen. I threw my clothes off, put my kimono thing on, and bounded to the shower room. You quite rightly have to clean every inch of yourself before you get into the onsen. Shower for washing, then sit in hot water. I scrubbed and scrubbed and then more or less leaped into the onsen that was, at best, tepid. Very different from what I expected. And yet somehow refreshing. I put my head under, then popped back out, dried off and called Lou. Three hours later it was hot. In my enthusiasm I had got there too early.
Kiri-no-sato has been a focal point for my stay. It’s the first booking I made and then I organised the whole awkward Kumano-Kodo around it. It only has nine rooms and a camping area. All the rooms look out over the mountains and Takahara is gorgeous and quiet. The shared space is busy by Japanese standards but made me feel completely at home. The staff were great and fed me beautifully. I woke up to a view of the valley and the sound of the birds. Perfection. It takes a lot for me to forgive a tepid onsen, but hell it was my fault for being so keen and getting there before they expected anyone.
I checked out this morning and, knowing it is my last day walking, I bounded back up a mountain to see the daimon-oji shrine and the view when it wasn’t pouring. Now I’m halfway back down again, on the way to Takajiri-oji and then back up another mountain to my last night’s sleep. I don’t have to do any of this, and it is hard work. But this is what it’s about. None of us HAVE to work hard. But if we don’t walk up the mountain we don’t get the endorphins from walking up the mountain, nor do we have the experience of walking up the mountain. Be that positive, or negative, it’s life.
AlBarclay 