Fire on the mountain

So here I am, at Nabeiwaso Ryokan, 3.5km beyond the top of the mountain. Shozenji conquered, I feel much like I can do anything. This is fortuitous, considering I have 25km to walk tomorrow. Granted it is mostly downhill, following a river, nearly from it's headwaters, but most of it is on roads, a bit tough on the feet when wearing 50lbs. on your back.

I left Fujii-dera (#11) at about 10:30 this morning, and stopped for a brief lunch at an unnumbered temple in the middle of the mountains. It was abandoned (for the season?) but thankfully had a water keg fed by a hose presumably from a spring somewhere above. There was a hut with very spare mats for travelers who would not make it to 12 in one day's trek. I ate in the sun on the front step. It was cold once I stopped huffing up the hill!

After lunch, the trail went straight up over one mountain, then deep into a valley, and again right back up the next to the the temple. At the crest of the first peak, as I was concentrating on my footholds, I finally looked up to find a set of ancient stone steps leading up to a superhuman-sized statue of the Daishi as the original henro, backed by the most enormous tree I have ever seen (barring one that dropped my jaw while walking between #9 and #10, which had 5-inch-square stone posts holding up its massive limbs), so very many times bigger than all the other trees here. It actually was the first one I believed to be true to the ubiquitous legend, "the Daishi planted it!" (He lived in the 8th century....) It also made me realize that most of this cedar forest was at least second generation; this mountain must have been clear cut at some point in relatively recent history, like much of our northeast woods, where virgin forest is so rare... It was so hard going down into the next valley, knowing I was giving up hard-earned elevation just to have to grunt my way back up the other side. That last slope was the hardest, steepest, and most remote part, and I had to stop every hundred feet or so to gasp for breath and wait for my heart to stop pounding in my ears and eyes. When I stopped, I noticed my vision was a little swimmy, as if eyes had adjusted to the scenery in front of my feet moving, moving, and so when not moving, things actually appeared to be moving away from me... I hoped I was not hallucinating from dehydration - might have been close! I lost 2kg (has to be water) from yesterday! I am officially 10 pounds lighter than the low end of my usual weight before I left home. I don't know where it came from!

I finally got up to the temple compound about 4pm... first thing I saw was the parking lot from which all the sane people begin, then walked the last 200 meters, and up the stone steps to the temple itself. Even with the sound of chainsaws in the distance, log trucks on the roads below, and the construction (restoration?) of a new temple building next to the Hondo (Main Hall), the place still had such a sense of peace, and after ringing the bell at the Hondo altar, and standing with eyes closed for a few moments, I could feel the history and the forest seeping into my consciousness. The story that gave this place its name, the Burning Mountain, has the Daishi extinguishing the flames of an awful dragon and binding him for eternity into a cave nearby. One writer reported that scholars think it was a fancy way of explaining how Shingon Buddhism had overcome a local Shinto cult. I wonder if it wasn't an allegory for something simpler. If indeed Kukai walked here seeking his salvation, couldn't it be that he experienced something like what I was feeling? That on the way up, all was burning. My mind, my body, every muscle on fire, my thoughts churning... and now, standing here, feeling the wind brush away the flush from my face, the remoteness stilling my mind, feeling it all just fall away down the steep sides of this mountain... It felt like the ultimate quenching of some crazy burning thirst. The dissolution of all of the questions I've been asking... the smoothing of all the anxiety, knowing it was all going to be resolved in beautiful order. I stood there for a long time before going to get my nokyo-cho stamped.

On the way down to the ryokan, it was so steep it was easier to jog at points... My mood was conducive to the skipping along anyway. Now, sitting here in my room after a great steambath and really good meal, I am still riding the endorphin wave that came from reaching the top, reaching a really tough goal, conquering the mountain, in the best mood I've been in since starting to walk almost a week ago.

Time to sleep, now... sore, tired, and so far to go tomorrow... breakfast is at 6:30, and I'll start walking soon after, on my way to #13....

Images from Shozen-ji will haunt my dreams: golden eagle sweeping back and forth in the air below me... deep forest shadows, green glowing bamboo groves...

Goodnight....