Fries - In the Province of the Gods

If ever I needed the presence of the gods, now is the time.

I arrive at Izumo Taisha, the second-most-sacred shrine in Japan, in early October. According to legend, the sun goddess Amaterasu built the original shrine. In every other part of Japan, the tenth month of the year is known as kannazuki, the month without gods, because every October all eight million Shinto deities visit Izumo Taisha for kanari matsuri. The gods are now in residence.

I stand under the graceful wooden torii marking the entrance to the shrines forested grounds, then, with my cane, maneuver down the Seki-no-Baba, an avenue of gnarled pines, leading to the shrines central compound.

I look up: hanging over the entrance to the Oracle Hall is the giant shimenawa, a traditional twist of straw rope. The sculpture of straw is immense: five thick twists clinging, with the assistance of six roped rings, to a large wooden rod the same color as the straw, which itself is attached by four thinner roped rings to a dark-brown wooden beam. Descending from the three largest twists are three cone-shaped bells.

I reach for one of the twists and ring the bell.

Ringing the shrine bell announces a visitors presence to the resident deity. The gods now know I am here.

Ever since my doctor told me what I did not want to hear, all I can think is: I dont want to die.

I pull the rope and ring the bell againthis time louder, the echo reaching toward the honden, the inner shrine, directly behind the Oracle Hall.

I follow the sound of bronze reverberating through the air until it dissipates in front of a steep covered wooden staircase leading into the honden. The present structure, with its projecting gray wooden rafters shooting out of the roof, is in its twenty-fifth incarnation. Only half as high as its pre-Buddhist original, at twenty-four meters it is still the countrys tallest shrine. Entrance into the honden is allowed only during special ceremonies. Lafcadio Hearn, one of the first expatriate writers to live in Japan, lived only thirty-three kilometers away in Matsue. He was the first foreigner granted the privilege to enter the honden.

I peer through the Eight-Legged East Gate, decorated with unpainted wooden carvings and bouquets of gohei, lightning-shaped white paper hung at Shinto shrines to ward off evil spirits, and look into the Holy of Holies Hall, where only the head priest can go.

I reach in my pocket for a particular coin. Two months ago, I found a penny in the hospital room where the man in the bed next to me died. Coins have taken on a larger meaning.

I close my eyes and pray for what I know might be possible: to see the best way through this, to find a way to live with the ever-present knowledge of death as my constant companion.

I bow and clap and throw the coin into the offering box.

I hear the coin rattle to the bottom of the box.

My prayers are urgent. The coin at the bottom of the wooden box could be my soul.

I think how I first came to Japan to study the lives of disabled people in Japan. Ian was supposed to accompany me. But by the time I arrived in Japan, circumstances had changed.

During my first stay in Japan, my research proved fitful, difficult. Instead, single for the first time in eighteen years, I discovered not only things about this foreign culture but also new ways to see my different body and myself.

Now, on my second visit, circumstances have changed yet again; I came very close to not returning at all.

But Im getting ahead of myself. Before I first arrived in Japan, I had no idea I would be going halfway around the world, alone.