The Sinking Sun

Journey begins thousands of kilometers South

Suddenly a glance to the right, not too fast to prevent the visor snapping, and there it was. The magnificent white massif of Mount Hakusan. It is one of the three Reizan of Japan. Being called a sacred mountain in a country of hundreds of peaks must surely signify a special soul. Mount Fuji is understandable since it is the highest and arguably the most aesthetic. It would later be passed on another motorcycle ride to pick up the truck. Mount Tateyama in nearby Toyama prefecture, from where the bike now sped through Ishikawa prefecture, was the third of the three sacred mountains. It had been recently climbed by an ardent group of young hemp growers who used a Mayan chant at the top to call on the sun. Now these three spiritual colossi have been silently dropped from the terminology sacred mountains by many politically correct and all so contemporary Japanese. These three ancient giants are now referred to in the Japanese wikipedia as ‘ the three great leisure spots for mounting climbing’. If that sounds like a contradiction in terms then welcome to Japan-land of the fuzzy, and home of the spiritually confused circa 2011. What, are you ashamed to admit you worship mountains as spirits now? And every shrine in the country is built on the sure belief that originated in sangakushinko, the worship of mountains as sacred beings no less? For the alien this was another troubling sign…

to be continued..

April 13:2011 Onagawa

Inside the big box it is becoming obvious this night will be long. For those inside the tents up the path maybe longer. For those in the gymnasium opposite this truck the cold will not be an issue. It will be privacy as there are about 800 evacuees partitioned off by cardboard boxes, all flattened and stacked upright. For those who, like Mr. Noda, just barely outran the tsunami the first two nights were savagely cold. After hearing the siren he had rushed home in his 550 c.c. litttle truck. It is called a keitora, an abbreviation for kei (light) torakku (truck) . Japan is full of these sardine cans on wheels. Powered by a mere motorcycle sized engine they have those mini-yellow license plates and are arguably the most economic vehicles in the country. You would not want to hit, or be hit by anything in them though. Been there, done that. Was lucky… so was Mr. Noda.

“I got to my house in about five minutes from my bicycle repair shop. I knew I had less than five to ten minutes before the water came in because the Chile earthquake had set off the same sirens. But the water was only 60 centimetres high then. I bundled my wife and daughter along with my mother into the back of the truck. So they were facing the sea as we drove towards the mountains..”

He then raced up the narrow mountain road as the deceptively low waves came spewing in behind his truck. No giant crests, no Hollywood heights of waves. Just an inexorable forward movement of billions of gallons of sea. The Pacific Ocean meets funnel-like harbour of country town. Far faster than anyone could reason with the water was all around. Creepily moving past the most massive structures, then moving through deadly quiet streets and finally moving into the houses of his friends, neighbours and relatives. Then the houses themselves started to move as they were cleanly stripped off their foundations. His three most important women were banging on the back of his beat up truck’s window by now. He just barely made it to a safe height. Then what?

“I put them all in that tiny cab for the first night. It was snowing. I stayed outside. Very cold! The road was all mangled but I finally found a way back down into the town. But we still had to spend the second night outdoors. “

Back inside the huge empty box that was the back of the four ton transport truck it all looked fairly cosy. A wooden pallet was the only furniture. A picture of the Lord hung from the aluminium wall. Bananas and nuts, some anpan (sweet bread) and water. Books-especially Thomas Merton. The candle lent an air of his monastic spirit to the chill of an early night. But getting seriously cold now. Wearing all the clothes, including jacket. Carefully creep into the sleeping bag set on cardboard flats picked up today.

The winds pick up, violently shaking the aluminium walls of this Isuzu. Or was that another aftershock? Or both? No way to open the massive back doors in this. The wind will smash them into the truck’s sides and probably rip the hinges. Long night. Safer to piss in an old plastic bottle kneeling fully clothed in the sleeping bag. The trickle of urine on plastic. The lashing of winds on skinny metal. The first word ever learned in Japanese springs to mind: shogyomujo. Every single deed arises in impermanence..

The sea almost got up here to this citadel of safety-the designated evacuation point should anything like that ever happen. The highest water-marked point had been recorded at eighteen meters above sea level apparently. There were still dead fish on the twisted concrete stairs not ten minutes walk from this truck. Their eyes were wide open, as if frozen-amazed at being near the hospital entrance now. A pair of jeans hangs from the tree above them. They were dirty but still wearable a month on from disaster.

Not much chance of sleep in this racket. Candle has to be put out. Who could have imagined the name on that plaque would converge with an individual life like this? Who could have imagined watching the NHK news that night in Onagawa? That the earthquake alert, flashing in the upper right hand of the screen would bring sudden death from pitiless miles of relentless ocean. An entire ocean’s edge, now rising at a hallucinatory speed… flowing all wrongly  into the quiet security of soon to be devastated living-rooms. Rooms where lives were lived, both well and badly. There was no trite karmic explanation for this faceless intruder.

As cracked and buckled trawlers now still somehow sailed at high speed through the town centre Mr. Doi stood atop the town hall building. Freezing, he watched his fellow citizens being dragged into their final experience of terror below. His grandfather was never found. Where in the wide Pacific’s depths might he now be peacefully floating?

Just before dawn the wind had died down. Then it was unmistakably an earthquake that rattled through the truck and the entire town once again. Like any wounded part of any body there will be spasms of pain days and even weeks after the initial blow. The Earth had been ripped open after all. There was no way this was suddenly going to stop.

So the quakes carried on daily and life went on. Calling them aftershocks did nothing to lessen the magnitude five and six gut wrenches. People impossibly managed to smile because it moved bodies into action better than anything else. Kids still had to go to school. Missing reports had still to be filled out. Bodies still had to be found. And the alien, the only one now staying in this entire community of survivors, had to find a way through those smiles and somehow connect with real broken hearts. Bur right now it was looking like his very presence was simply rattling already over rattled lives.

“Help?”

There it was: A building and plaque at Royal Canadian Legion, Branch No. 51, 402 Victoria Street, Nelson B.C. It was named in honour of Lieutenant Robert Hampton Gray V.C., D.S.C., Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve. The last Canadian to be killed in action during the Second World War, Lieutenant Gray from Nelson, B.C. died when his corsair aircraft was shot down as he fearlessly led a carrier air strike against the ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy at Onagawa Bay on August 9th, 1945

Walking up Victoria Street a week before the disaster the above plaque had caught our attention since there was an obvious reference to Japan in it. Being from Osaka, Sanae had stopped to check it out and then, like any other couple walking up any other street, the day unfolded without any particular reference to one apparently inconsequential event. A plaque, in this case. There was not the slightest intimation that here on Victoria Street was the unconscious beginning of a serious journey. Or, if you are what they call a ‘realist’, which is a mealymouthy term denoting a chronic lack of imagination, this was all pure coincidence. Now the alien had walked by this building dozens of times. Some of them with the Osakan wife. The alien had no use for highly unscientific terms like ‘coincidence’. Everything is connected in a ONE verse. This is where we all live…aliens, Japanese and Canadians alike.

This long deceased pilot of that kamikaze-like attack was to be the symbolic glue that gave a wild idea a place to stick to. The wild idea was to go right back to the country just returned from with the vague idea of ‘helping’. The alien was not new to such spontaneous outbursts of erratic behaviour at all. In fact he was well known for them. Perhaps it was a Celtic thing-like rushing into battle against the Romans with nothing but tatooes on the naked body, a wildly wobbling willy and a lot of hot air in the form of a scream. The wild idea would require money right away. It had been slim pickings on that last February lecture tour. Winter was long. Largesse may be good for the ego but wives and family generally turn the other way knowing how much it is likely to cost to ‘help’.

“I’m not sure dad. I mean I think it is a great idea but mum probably won’t like it. Everybody is leaving now anyway. All the foreigners are being shipped out by their companies and embassies because of radiation fears. They call them flyjin, like gaijin who are flying away from the country. You better ask mama first..” She instantly said, ” Of course you must go!”

Sanae’s blood once flowed in the often spilled red corpuscles of a certain well known samurai family. Though now a lame caricature in most media, a painted face on warrior-mind, the samurai really, actually did take the idea of duty pretty seriously. In a new film about the famous 47 Ronin incident, the samurai is given more than a stern face and a lightning fast blade. The Last Ronin deals not with swashbuckling decapitations but with this idea of duty. What does it imply to a samurai? In a word-everything, 24/7 right up to the last vertical slash through those already dribbling viscera from the horizontal slice.

The hero spends his life humbly taking care of the needs of an astonishingly beautiful teenager. Needs does not imply any sexual content whatsoever in the life of a man who is by rank far below her samurai status. Yes, being a woman you are still samurai when part of such a clan or family. Many women are known to have helped each other in cutting their throats when all was lost. She lives with an ex-Edo (Tokyo) courtesan who he has picked out to raise her, to teach the etiquette required of her noble birth. He is not her father. He works as a merchant, traveling the neighbouring Korea and China to pick up artifacts he can sell to wealthy merchants and samurai. He makes every effort to serve her in every way and has been with her since her unfortunate birth. What we discover in this first ever all Japanese film to come out of Hollywood, is that he is fulfilling a vow. His duty you see.

Imagine you were one of those illustrious samurai on that night. You were all geared up to exact revenge on that foul Lord who caused the ritual suicide of your master. You know full well that you will die. Either you will be sliced by the guards at his compound, or you will slice yourself at the end. The 47 Ronin is Japan’s most enduring memory of what one must do when honour is at stake.  Then your leader quietly asks you not to die. For the typical Westerner this would be cause for great celebration. Honour and duty might be wonderful ideas but getting let off certain death is surely a cause for great relief and certain joy. Not in 18th century Japan. Imagine the dread you feel being ordered not only to stay alive but to abandon your status as a samurai. To become a nobody with a new name. To miss out on all the gory glory of that carefully planned revenge attack! Not only that; imagine you are asked to promise to spend the next 15-17 years raising a yet unborn child and to see her honourably married. Then, and only then would your duty to your Lord be fulfilled..

It is his child you see. The Lord has had a tryst with a courtesan who is now desperately ill and will doubtless perish at or after the birth. The child must be raised in secret. This is the doomed Lord’s last request to his faithful retainer. And he does it. Then and only then do we see the sword in action. But it is of course turned on himself when his duty is done and she is married.

Back in Nelson the ancient stirrings still guide the life of the Osakan wife. Knowing better than most how much the alien really owed to Japan (in every way conceivable) she gave her blessing and so it was now simply a matter of raising the money. Compared to raising your master’s child, this was surely not a big deal on the scale of duty to be done..

Though many scientists scoffed at the idea the Russians claimed to have found a link between solar wind speed and earthquakes. Since the ‘wind’ from the sun is often generated by bursts of activity from sunspots, flares , it had not seemed such a crazy idea to the alien. So when it was clear that a large sunspot had erupted into an X class flare on March 9th there was no doubt it would have repercussions. It can take a day or two for Coronal Mass Emissions to travel the distance between sun and Earth. Do the math.

“That was the fastest coronal mass ejection in almost six years,” said Angelos Vourlidas of the Naval Research Lab in Washington DC. “

The Japanese blog posted at 03:10 on the morning of March 11 Japan Standard Time  made no bones about  the strong belief ;  there would be  earth-shaking events experienced within the month of posting. It exhorted readers from all over Japan to get themselves mentally ready. There was  an added sentence, saying this had nothing to do with astrology or prophecy but was based on research. This referred to more than 7 years tracking Nasa data on sunspot activity, its possible connection to weather and, even closer to home, to earthquakes. That blog posting was done previous to sleep on the previous day Canada time. Then the angel came..

It was an extremely still morning in Nelson. Snow still blanketed all the surrounding mountains. The furnace was working overtime and occasionally would blast into action with that unforgettable sound. Then warm air would be poured into each room through the shafts and openings. Somehow it had felt necessary to get up unreasonably early this day. Darkness suggested going back to bed but an eerie stillness suggested something else. It was almost as if an angel had quietly teleported into the kitchen, with an announcement. After all angel means messenger, so why not? It was a feeling of deep peace combined with total mystery. An urge soon followed to check the internet. Before six in the morning this was a first, but intuition has always been an important consideration.

Emails from shaky friends in Japan immediately instigated a click to the BBC website. and there it was. The angel of death had descended upon Japan with an uncommon fury. It was obvious that the hunch on Omote Sando, the sunspot blast and the peculiar urge to climb out of a toasty bed were connected to ‘the event’. At least that is how the alien saw it..

So 37 years of experience with Japan was somehow put under a microscopic lens of scrutiny. What was this relationship all about if not deep love? Not in the tawdry 21st century rendition of the term of course, but closer to something like a close family member. Maybe even a wife..

It took a few days to work up the courage to tell the family, including and especially the wife from Osaka who had remained in that bed until later that morning. To tell that there could be no question about returning to Japan. It was all about ongaeshi you see..about paying back your dues. You simply cannot ignore the thousands upon thousands of small deeds and large, and more or less meaningful ones that the people of a country imbue the life of an alien with.

And so it was decided..

February 27, 2011: Tokyo

If Tokyo were Paris then Omote Sando avenue would be the Champs Elysees. Its broad, brand named length leads to the stunning shrine erected by the Emperor Meiji at its far end. He had 100,000 trees planted in its hallowed grounds under Imperial decree. Meiji Jingu, its official name as a Shinto shrine, has thus become one of the few places in Tokyo where the harried resident or visitor can escape for some peace and space. It was during his reign of course that Japan embraced all things Western with a giddy readiness. That embrace now seems like more of a suffocation, more like rape than consensual sex. Tokyo has been hijacked by Luis Vuiton, Bulgari, Ralph Lauren and Chanel. It was done so elegantly that the Japanese themselves seem totally unaware that only the shrine at one end remains unclaimed.

Up until the early  nineties it would have been unthinkable for any self-respecting businessman not to be decked out in these foreign archetypes. Before the ‘bubble’ burst in an overheated economy (based on unrelenting greed) you were simply nobody without the totem markings, branded by unseen creators of myth and majesty. Now, it was more a case of being seen looking at the archetypes since the coffers were pretty much empty. Naturally there was still enough of an old money crowd to buy into the shiny magic. But hey, when everybody is in the street, rather than in the shops, the writing has to be on the wall.

They say that old geomancers planned the locations of Shrines and temples with pilot precision. The flow of the surrounding geomagnetic energies would combine with the energy of ceremony and ritual to produce an abundance of all things good. That would include money of course. Despite an economy that leads the first world in debt an illustrious illusion has had to be maintained here. The mountains are less virile now. The rivers are polluted. The air is just barely certifiable as breathable. So it is now up to the people to engage in one of the largest pretend games on the planet; that Japan is thriving and the current situation an unfortunate, inconvenient slip up. It is a bit like catching a company president with a lover half his age at the weekend and then seeing them in the office together on Monday.

“Ah, Mr. Fujimoto, it was so nice to see you both at the club on Saturday!”

“Oh, very sorry Mr. Craig, you must be mistaken.”

It is really as simple as that. For Japanese to tell the most bald-faced lies is no different from heading for prayers, and on the way to the shrine, very possibly just aching to buy that glossy Vuitton bag for three hundred thousand yen. What is important is how it seems to be, not how it actually IS. Sleight of hand living has therefore become so entirely unquestioned that few, except perhaps the critical alien, would ever question it. For the reader’s benefit it is wise to note that alien is the official English word for foreigner.

On this day there is a veritable swarm of people heading towards the shrine in an orderly chaotic way. Like a one way mobile street it slithers as a hungry snake down the brand-gilded street towards you. Chatty and fancy free the crowd has chosen this Sunday to simply pretend. Pretend that one day the horrible truth will just wilt. Pretend that one day the prices of those watches will come down enough or that somehow their wages will miraculously be jacked up. In the meantime the illusion must at all costs be maintained. If not, then individual sanity would by necessity require some painful examination. It would be like a rectal probe of the soul. No, far better to look in those windows and feel the solidarity of the mob. To call it the blind leading the blind would be too kind. It is indisputably all that Japan had proudly become-a nation of mindless shoppers. At least the seasoned alien perceives it thus..

Suddenly, as the warm and fuzzy serpent engulfed the alien from the opposite direction, a thought became a statement and a handy Iphone recorded it.

“I wonder how many of these people feel it coming, the incoming wave of transformation.”

Who knows where these precognitive flashes come from? To be sure the solar wind data supported the theory that such  large flares might well be related. That had seemed relevant with the Christchurch earthquake too. But it was also a feeling that the very psychic Japanese themselves already knew it at some deep level. They all surely sensed deep in their Shinto-blessed hearts that business as usual would not continue forever. Just as the unseen pulse of America had seemed to indicate a foreknowledge of 9/11, this 10,000 strong snake seems to understand the near future, only a couple of weeks away. Besides that, every resident of this great city has seen enough government sponsored television on the ‘big one’, to know it is just a matter of time.

The next day it was a plane back to Canada. It took days to recover from the electromagnetic pollution, the noise pollution, the air pollution and the horrendous water. But that in no way diminishes the great joy  it is to walk down, or up, Omote Sando and feel the privilege of being with the snake once again. For she is still a beautiful snake, one most dearly loved..

April 12, 2011

The massive Isuzu truck had just barely made it over that bridge in Ishinomaki. After leaving the Tohoku highway it was apparent that the TV images had been real. Somehow there had been a hope that it was all exaggerated, or had been pretty much cleaned up in the four weeks since it hit. The constant presence of Self Defense trucks on this highway though, meant that was all wrong.

More than 150,000 of the entire Japanese Army was now in this area. All of their vehicles had that same telltale sign at the front: Hisaichi Haken , ‘dispatched to disaster area’. Now, sitting high above most of the cars and carrying tons of supplies the truck was cumbersome and heavy. An alternative route had been chosen to lead the gaijin driver to Onagawa, led by the FM Ishinomaki Radio news chief Mr. Suzuki. It was through this radio station that the  first contact had been made with the completely cut off community less than a hour away. That message had then been communicated to Nelson in the second week after the catastrophe.

The sprightly Mr. Suzuki had not reckoned on the truck’s size and so a route fit for cars only resulted in great creaking and swaying, the truck finally negotiating all the bumps left by erupting Earth. The bridge passed behind in a large curved mirror.

“Doesn’t look THAT bad though.” This single, stubborn thought would naively repeat as fifty kilometers passed below the diesel engine. Scenes of wrecked boats, some still half -sunken in the Bay, and the occasional presence of finely mashed cars by the roadside would, however, suddenly present themselves as ugly reminders. All that hopeful nievety was to change with one ninety degree turn. This came just as the truck entered what had once been the picturesque little fishing port of Onagawa. The self-confessed tough guy sitting behind the wheel, sure that he could handle anything the world threw at him, was instantly put in his place as the steering wheel slid through his hands. It was not just by the sight of utter devastation, but more its overwhelmingly visceral  feel.

Nobody had mentioned that the Earth continues to silently scream long after it has been thrashed by seismic convulsions and gouged by billions of gallons of charging sea. Hands now vigorously gripped the steering wheel to prevent a spontaneous shaking as the lumbering old truck slowly moved through checkpoints where soldiers stood grimly on duty. All around were skeletal buildings, their once kanji - decorated facades now long scattered to the seas. Their twisted steel cadavers  jutted impossibly out of entirely flattened, once residential streets. Many were still littered with vehicles now fatally conjoined with fragments of former houses . There they lay, marine engines too, welded to living room ceilings all strewn in a macabre chaos of forced fusion. The body shaking intensified. Now the unbelieving eyes swelled effortlessly with instant, full bodied and uncontrollable tears. There was just no way to have known that the living Earth’s wounds only speak to those who are here where the damage was done.

Or that she would reek to high heaven here, with a stench that was quite simply indescribable.