A light breeze passes through the ancient cedars lining
the Temple path, silently fanning the spider webs back
and forth.
I pause to adjust the shoulder strap
on my camera bag and wipe the sweat from my brow. The
full heat and humidity of August sits heavy upon Engakuji
Temple, even though it is yet only 7 am. But it is cooler
here amidst the ancient trunks of giant cedar trees
planted centuries before Europeans first set foot on
the shores of my home country.
Japan is old.
Older than one can easily grasp. You
do get indicators of this age from time to time: Stone
steps worn round by the passage of countless feet, perfectly
aligned rows of massive trees along roads and paths...
Most of this evidence can now only
be found on the grounds of Temples and Shrines, but
from time to time you can find it elsewhere.
Off in the distance I can hear the
cadence of monks chanting, nearly covered by the symphony
of insects and birds. A monk passes me and I bid him
good morning....
Monks
Chanting - mp3
After putting away my handkerchief
I put my glasses back on and continue on through the
thrumming cadence of cicada as they live out their brief
flash of life above ground. Brief in my terms, yet just
as the cicadas urgent surface life is to me but a moment
in time, my own life is a similar instant to the Temple
that I am exploring.
Cicada
- mp3
Oddly enough this thought comforts
me.
It lends a permanence to this place,
a firmness that is appealing in an ever changing world.
I can safely imagine that some other
person, likely not to different from myself will be
exploring the same Temple as I am, yet centuries in
the future. Likely not much will have changed. The cicada
will still be drumming out their tune, and dragonfly
will still be patrolling the open spaces, looking for
a quick bite. And the wind will still be gently tugging
at the spider webs. The only real difference will be
that the tress will have gotten a little bigger.
And just as I now pause to think about
all those that have come to this place before me, that
person may well let their thoughts drift back to those
that came before. And in this real sense I will be remembered,
if not in name, then at least in purpose.
"Time goes, you say? Ah, no!
Alas, Time stays, we go."
- Henry Austin Dobson
--
I have to sincerely apologize to all
the winners in last months prints raffle. My sushicam
email account has been having some serious issues as
of late and to make a long story short, it up and deleted
itself and I lost everything.
So in addition to everything else,
I have lost all the notifications to me from winners
for their prints. SO if you all could resend your emails
to me I would greatly appreciate it.
My new contact email address is: mtfuji(followed
by the "@" symbol of course, then)gmail(dot)com
It's not too much of a set back though.
I was getting entirely way too much spam and will use
this as an opportunity to transition to a new email
address and get out from under that mountain of spam.
If all the winners could once again
email me with their selection(s), I will start working
on them immediately. Please make sure to send me either
a link to the photo, or a description of it including
the file name, a brief description of the photo, and
what days entry you found it on. This will ensure that
I send you the correct print(s) since the counter on
my camera resets after 10,000 images and there could
be a problem with two images having the same file name.
Comment 37
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