Mountain Morning

He climbed cathedral mountains, he saw silver clouds below
He saw everything as far as you can see
And they say that he got crazy once and he tried to touch the sun
And he lost a friend but kept his memory

Now he walks in quiet solitude the forest and the streams
Seeking grace in every step he takes
His sight has turned inside himself to try and understand
The serenity of a clear blue mountain lake
-John Denver (Rocky Mountain High)

Wanting to make good on my promise to become an early riser –even though I was up penning that sumo report until nearly 2am – my alarm buzzed me into motion at eight this morning to the blue blue sky and the chirping of the birds. Well, there were no birds chirping but when trying to paint a portrait of a Disney morning you need to have birds chirping. Oh and animals that talk. So the birds were chirping and the stray cats were singing about their terrible lot in life being a stray cat. Now, eight in the morning may not seem early for some of you out there but for me this is the crack of dawn. Outside my window, beyond Nostradamus and the nonexistent chirping birds, was the melodic chiming I have heard off and on since moving in. It sounds like the ice cream man but is actually a garbage truck. Man, this would be cruel and unusual torture back home if, as a kid, the garbage truck had the same sound as the ice cream man. Talk about the disappoint when the drumstick you so hungrily crave to cool you on a hot summer day turns out to be a smelly bag of unwanted trash. Yes, the garbage truck has this series of chimes here that sing out its presence and, like nearly everything else in Japan, it also talks. The high pitched female voice thanks you for your garbage or so I believe. Listening to the garbage truck talk to me, I debated heading into Tenri again early to investigate a waterfall there but I will save that for another day. Today I wanted some exercise and what better way to achieve a prime morning work out then to climb a mountain.


You might recall my early attempt to find out just what was up that path of stone lanterns on Mount Miminashi that was disrupted by rain. Today, with nothing but that clear blue above, there wasn’t a better time to find out. I walk to Miminashi, only five minutes away, passed many farms that rest at the mountain's base.


There is that small park there and now some green was starting to show and the three trees lining the roadway I once thought were dead or on their final branches had now had sprouted pretty blossoms. The water by the park still looked muddy and not a place you want to swim but in the early morning silence it was all so peaceful here that I stopped and visualized the climb before moving forward. I gazed up at the thick forest that ascends to the summit of the mountain. Now, once again, Miminashi is not really a mountain if you are thinking of those fabled in John Denver tunes. Compared to the mountains out by Megan and Teo’s farm, this thing is an anthill at best.

Joggers were out today with me and one old man in a track suit was doing unbelievable flexible stretches on the park lawn. His wife must be a very happy woman. He bolted up the mountain and was gone within the trees. I took the slower rout and my climb was a careful upward ascent avoiding loose tree roots and keeping my eyes open for whatever animals might lurk within these woods. I didn’t know what was out there. Pumas with wings could very well pounce out of the underbrush and cart me away to hungry puma with wing kittens. What strange Japanese creatures lurk in strange Japanese woods? The sun on the path made a patchwork quilt of light over the dirt, fallen leaves and tree roots and the stone lanterns cast shadows upon the earth as I made my way upward passing the spot I had made it to the last time. What was up here? My area map said a shrine but this could mean anything from a large site to something the size of a newspaper box. Be it grand or miniscule, the exercise was worth the whatever it was.


The shrine would turn out to be a mixture of the two. Not as large as some but not the mailboxes that were others. The dirt path of roots and leaves becomes a set of stone steps as you near the shrine. At the top of the steps is another wooden gate with the tassels hanging off of them. Megs once asked me why all the shrines here look the same. If you have been following my photos of various Shinto sites then, yes, they are all pretty much carbon copies of one another. I’ve not answered you Megs because I am unsure of the reasons behind the cloning of the architecture to these places. All of them have the same gates, the same lion like statues, the water fountain, bell or gong and tassels. It is starting to feel as though you’ve seen one and you’ve seen them all when it comes to the smaller sites. I would fathom the guess that these sites are just like Catholic churches back home. The construction from one Catholic church to another seldom deviates. You have your steeple, cross, large wooden doors and wooden pews leading to the altar. Holy water, bibles and stained glass windows. Oh yes, and that hippie hung out to dry. Shrines here are places of worship. People come, as the joggers did today, to pay their respects to the gods. This is done by clapping twice to attract the holy ones attention and in case that didn’t do it (maybe this particular god is a heavy sleeper) you pull on the tassel to ring the bell or gong. There are usually places on the shrine site to toss in a few coins to help (the five cent piece is said to be best as the ten cent seems to insinuate that your prayers will take longer to be answered) with the upkeep of the shrine. Sometimes you will see that people have left cans of coffee, candy and other food items at the smaller shrines scattered about some of these sites for the Gods to eat, drink and be merry. I imagine these are just consumed by the homeless or collected by the shrine keepers for lunch. Really, the Gods are not coming down for a sip of your Boss coffee in a can, folks. This is the Japanese equivalent to leaving milk and cookies out for Santa. But, hey, each worship in their own way and I can’t blight it. I mean, Santa was my god every December and if milk and cookies appeased his good toy giving nature then here is an entire box of Oreos and I expect Metroplex to be under the tree in the morning.





This shrine is nice because of the climb to get there and the lush green forest that surrounds it. The woods were not as green as they could be but they were going in that direction and a return in the summer months might be in order. The shrine at the top of the mountain looks either very old or not very well maintained as the wood seems ready to buckle to collapse the entire structure at any moment. Loose nails jutted out waiting to gnash into skin and cobwebs grew in the corners. The wood creaked when you stepped on it and the first time I felt like I was sinking and would plummet under the shrine to probably land in a cemetery of used coffee cans and candy wrappers. Hey, Gods, don’t you have garbage cans up there or singing trucks to clean up this junk?








I know I have mentioned it before but here it goes again: where there are shrines there are cats. This week I did a little research on to why this is because it was no longer a coincidence. Everybody place had a cat or two and there had to be a reason for the popularity of felines on these sites. I discovered that shrines like this one are basically the Humane Societies of Japan…for cats, anyway. The domestic cat landed in Japan around 600 A.D. around the same time Buddhism started to gain popularity. They were used mainly for catching rodents but admired for their beauty, agility, grace and, to some, the ability to lick their own crotch. In Japan a certain type of cat is especially revered. In most places of business you will find the waving cat (or maneki-neko). These cat statues are considered very lucky and are thought to bring money into the business. Waving cat banks are popular in trinket shops. Not much to do with the shrine discussion here and I will write more of the waving cats some other time but I mention it to outline a theory on why there are so many stray cats roaming about Japan. The Japanese seem to turn cats away instead of putting them down in fear of perhaps bad omens or destroying their luck. Again, a theory, not doctrine, folks. Anyway, what I learned was that when a cat is dropped off at a shrine the monks or shrine keepers are obliged to keep it as their own, look after it and feed it. Raw deal if you are not a cat loving monk, huh? This has something to do with Shinto traditions and everything to do with monks getting screwed over by terrible pet owners. This area must have an abundance of people no longer wanting their cats because this shrine had a good dozen or so running around and meowing at the first site of possible human attention and food. One of them just kept following a couple around. They had made the mistake of petting it for a few seconds and now they had a friend for life. This is a lot like the cat sanctuary in Ottawa and reminded me of my days sitting on the bench there reading with a warm cat in my lap.




I could have turned back now that I had seen the shrine but I decided to climb as high as the path behind it would take me. You walk by more blossom trees where the birds sing on high branches (real birds this time, I swear). The cats sing too and they meowed a tune in unison as I walked by them (they weren’t talking about how terrible it was to be a stray cat this time, I swear). Sorry, kitties, no food today but I will bring you something next time.


The path ends in a clearing about five minutes away from the shrine. Here you find a small camp with low wooden benches. This area has been taken over by the cats as they were all about.


There, sitting on a log, was the Cat Man of Miminashi. This wrinkled old man in a wool knit cap sat quietly contemplating amongst the cries of the cats, stooping every so often to give one a little pat before retreating back into his reverie. He looked very Yoda like up there and I wondered if he could teach me the ancient martial arts of Japan there on the mountaintop. What he was thinking I will never know. I could not ask him and even if I could he left when he saw me approach. I was disturbing his meditation, I suppose. Sorry old cat man.


I now had the camp to myself and I sat with the cats and did a little contemplation of my own looking over the city of Kashihara, my home away from wherever becomes my home, on the top on Miminashi. The other mountains in the distance looked like dominos as they receded away from the city. It was a pretty view that would look marvelous at sunset. Some night will find me up here with a warm can of coffee (no, I will not swipe it from the gods) and a clear mind but today there was a train to catch and a class to teach.

I walked back down the stone path and back home where a sweet breakfast of toast and strawberry jam waited for me. I felt exercised and, mostly, I had a feeling of accomplishing something that morning instead of sleeping it away. And, just think, I have an entire day ahead of me.