Can’t sleep for some reason. I was busy with beadwork and overthinking as usual. I remembered how it felt when I made someone waist beads and just remembered that feeling and its comforting happiness.
Then the client who ordered the waist beads sent me a picture of herself wearing them. One thing I can say about my customers is that they are really beautiful. On the same lady’s WhatsApp she had a picture of the Dalai lama. Then I realised that it was really a long time ago when I found myself in front of the Dalai Lama on his visit in SA…dancing for him. What a thing…What a time to have been alive.
Then by some weird coincidence I found pictures of my pilgrimage in Japan. The 88 Temple one. I found myself really wanting to go wash my heart by completing more of the path. It was such a beautiful time in my life. I took a whole pilgrimage for myself. How many people can say that?
The journey around the temples on foot and a camping bag with a sleeping tent is a humbling experience. Each day represented a different meditation. I can remember how i felt at specific temples or I can remember how I felt when I remember specific places.
On this particular day I discovered a hole in my tent cause it just rained all day. I walked it. I slept in the dark, in my tent next to someones fence…I slept the next day in kind of abandoned house meant for pilgrims as they pass. Weird thing is…I think people started noticing me and I was told to sleep there for a night by a lady who saw me at a couple of temples. I didn’t realise what it was till I was in there reading all the prayers for the place and owner left by other pilgrims. Then very strangely the police came to check up on the place cause its mostly abandoned and they saw a light there.
Funny thing about the police in Japan in the rural is…there is almost nothing happening there and they are just curious more than anything(I almost feel like they are hoping one day in all their career they will get a case). But I mean the whole island is known for the pilgrimage.
I did 10 temples which was my goal then because it was during my time off work. But I really want to finish the rest of it…the 78 temples left. It is such a beautiful walking meditation. Only now as I sit and type do I realise that something in me changed on that trip…I became aware of silence and choosing silence. I mean…I still talk people’s ears off when I’m excited…but I recognise the conditioning we have gone through as Africans or black people. I also realised I can’t connect to the noise anymore whilst living in Soweto this past month. I see noise as an entity…and here I mean playing music loud enough so the next person a kilometre way can hear it still at a loud volume. It is scary that our silence has been taken away from us…with that our space of meditation and home you find in yourself when you quite down.
If you ever get the time and you find yourself in Japan, as a spiritual person…take the pilgrimage
