There is a persistent voice in my head … I’ve been hearing it for quite a while.  So I am paying attention.  The voice is saying : Go help people to learn and see the intelligence of the written Chinese Characters, or Kanji, as it is said in Japanese.

But I am frightened.  

The task feels way beyond my ability. 
I am not by any means fluent in reading Japanese.  But there is a strong desire in me to become that.  

I am afraid of not being up to the task, of being less than what the job requires.  And the voice in my head persists.  There is an encouraging quality to the voice.  It says : 'Go on, you can give away what you have.  You have so much to give already.  You will grow with the job.  You don't need to be perfect.  There is no such thing anyway.  All you need to be is honest, forthright and generous.'

So I am preparing to jump ... into this vast unknown ocean of the written Chinese Characters, or Kanji, to give away what I know, to share my joys and pleasures of discovery and meaning, while I was diving in this vast ocean of ideograms, logograms, pictograms.  I am still afraid, but the voice in my head encourages me.  It is telling me that I will grow the abilities I need to deliver the job.  By sharing the wealth of recognising the meanings in the Chinese Characters, I will enrich others while my own needs will be met.

So I am jumping, trusting the wee little voice in my heart and head.  

​I'll hold the first online session for the project 'Coming to Love the Intelligence of the Chinese Kanji (CLICK)' in two days.

​*Why CLICK?  
This word appeared when I was looking for the right expression for the course.  Read below.

by Loy Ching-Yuen
Translated by Trevor Carolan
and Bella Chen
Shambhala Publication

On Enlightenment
Koan # 16

Enlightenment is hard to find
the path isn't easy
When we get it, no one sees or hears us.
But when it comes, another soul has unveiled the truth:
Excellence, faith, single-mindedness - 
Click!

I arrived at my mother's home, just in the outskirts of Tokyo on the 11th of July, on a family mission to look after mum.  She had multiple set backs in her health after her fall and breaking her arm bones last summer.  So the time had come for me to stir the boat of parental care by attending to her day to day living.
It's been a tough arrival.  We have some family issues. I guess like most families, we have not been seeing eye-to-eye on numerous things.  So the lack of our family cohesion has lead to my landing at mum's place in a mess of an affair.  I was aware of the possibility and my heart was prepared.  But landing in a family mess is as eek as it can be.  
Coming to Japan, I had to leave my earning potentials as yoga and massage therapist behind.  I packed my bag full of my glass bits and pieces, leaving everything else back home.  I intended to invest my time and earning potentials in creating my ensouled glass art work.  
It took me a few days to carve out a space in mum's already over-crowded home to make a mini-workshop for my mini windows.  I had already prepared some 3x3" and some 4x4" glass bases.  Now that I have arrived, what stories are here for me to give form to?
​

I had a call with Susanne Reuschl already scheduled for the 12th of July.  We decided to keep our three-times annual call alive after our epic Mosaic Angel making at Cluny Hill College, since July 2023.  Even though we don't know where our mosaic angel making may land, we decided to keep meeting, and keep going.  With a day or two delay, for me to recover from the jet lag, we turned up.  Though I was exhausted, I just felt I could not let the angels down!  Squeezed by time limits, we focused on our purpose.  
- 'How can we recognize when contact is made with the angelic world?'
Susanne attuned us to the question.
-'A feeling of lightness comes to me when I feel the presence of the angels.'
-'I have a sense of feathers, like having wings, like flight ...'

Oh, the question reveals the answers.  I am reminded again, how asking the question is what opens the path, the way to know.  Feeling so light and grateful after our conversation, we closed our session.  A sense was born in me, a knowing of how I could perhaps arrive at my mother's place, and support myself while living in Japan and looking after her.  I'll make ensouled glass angels.  I'll keep asking what is present in this moment? I'll wait to receive a presence, a cosmic song, an ensouled glass, in the moment.

Angel of Balance

A concept spoken by Ra, a social memory complex, through my beloved spiritual teacher Carla Rueckert McCarty resonated in me deeply.  The concept is that of balance.  The poetry of Ra was this that the creator could pluck the harmonies in a balanced individual.  It could be because of this bias in me, or it could be that I was open to the energies of balance, that the first ensouled glass angel that came through me in my Tokyo sojourn is the Angel of Balance.  The glass angel making process is a mystery to me.  I couldn't explain it logically.  All I am aware of, is the need to stay open to the energy of the art work that emerges.  The pieces re-arrange themselves.  I sense an energy and follow my heart.  When the glass angel finally appears, my heart rejoices.  This is all I can say.  And with this, I welcome the ensouled-glass Angel of Balance to the world.

Zimmerman and Coyle explain some more about the nature of Council :

 The principle of interdependence is further supported by the quality of leadership that emerges in Council. The long prevalent dominator model of hierarchical authority tends to be replaced by a strong commitment to partnership, analogous to that practiced in certain traditional earth-cherishing cultures. 

 As in the ancient circles of elders (and perhaps in the mystery schools as well), each Council member comes to know they bring a piece of the truth to the circle - essential in itself, but only a part of the whole. The passion of our personal vision is shared without attachment and then our position is released to the larger truth of the circle. When Council is working, we all experience this truth without any threat to personal identity and without the “tyranny of the collective.” Everyone recognizes what’s really happening and sees the path to “right action,” often more or less at the same time, and usually accompanied by the special joy inherent in the co-visioning process.

Simply put, the essence of Council lies in direct participation with our cohorts in the realization of (the circle’s) wholeness. The interdependence among members of the Council then becomes a deeply felt reality that frees us from the bondage of self-absorption and opens the door to spirited co-creation.

The ensouled glass pieces I have made for Forest Councils are seeds of intention.  What if we reached a stage to step up in our care and presence to form Indigenous Councils to include both human and non-human (nature beings) participation to collaborate and co-create a healing movement for our forests, rivers, mountains, oceans?  How could our Councils look like, and feel like?  The ensouled glass pieces tell a visual story of how our Forest Councils could look like when we include all the relevant partners, of all colours, forms and shape to sit in a circle with a common purpose : to heal our environment, our relationships, our history, and our own hearts.

When Shigako and I arrived at her family home in her childhood village, Kase in Aomori, one of the first things we did was visiting our ancestral grave-site.  There is something about this practice, as if to say, we are here to honour you.  We don't know very much about the worlds beyond death.  We can only know the reality of this world with our senses.  So with all our senses , we are here to connect with your lives, you who have gone beyond.

Shigako took me on a walk about, guiding me to the village grave site, where the bones of our ancestors rest, as do those of other village folks, other kins.  Solemnly she found the grave.  Written on it was Kidachi Mangoro, her grandfather, the sake maker, a martial artist, a lake restorer.  I never met him, but I had spent time with mother's grandmother, Mangoro's life-partner, Kaa as my mother and her sisters addressed her charmingly. 

My mother and her sisters are full of stories of their ancestors.  Just the other day when we put a dish of pickles on the table, they said 'oooh, Kaa's pickles were so superb.  They were even thinking to make a business of her pickles, even to take them so far away as Tokyo to sell them, they were that good.' In my mind, when I heard this story I conjure up the thought of her excellent partnership with the bacterial world to make excellent fermented food.  My grandfather must have had a similar partnership with the bacterial kingdom to have been a sake maker in his time.  We still have the huge wooden barrels in which he made his potent brews in the family workshop.

​Mangoro had a keen connection with nature.  Apparently he had a hand in restoring several large water bodies in the areas they lived.  My mother tells me how he used to go out frequently to work on the lakes.  She took me to a large body of water, a lake in their village one day.  This is one of the projects he worked on.  He had the foresight to see that restoring the lake would increase the biodiversity and the life-force of the land as a whole.  The family received a letter of recognition from none other than the Emperor of Japan, for Mangoro's earth healing activities.  

Going to a grave-site may feel like an end of the line, like you go so far and no more, because the dead don't talk.  But I feel they do.  I felt a great kinship, like coming home.  I felt an unbroken bond with Mangoro and Kaa.  So he was an earth healer too, and so was she in her own ways, in her weird and wonderful partnership with the bacterial kingdom.  Sometimes I feel the ancestors are not too far, and death is not the end of the road.  It may just be the beginning of a wonder-filled adventure.  How strange that I am finding myself treading the path that my ancestors have trail blazed, but in other parts of the world.  How mysterious death is.  How wonderful to be alive, to reconnect with the ancestors, to know that they return, in ways I couldn't know, but can only feel their presence in my life.

According to Japanese Law you can only have one nationality.  At the age of 20 you have to choose if you want to remain a Japanese citizen, or renounce this privilege for another country.  I did choose the Japanese citizenship when I was living in Australia in my early 20’s ~ that is another story.
    I did my training in the School of Storytelling at Emerson College in Sussex in the year 2000.  I had the immense joy of learning from Sue Hollingsworth and Ashley Ramsden, with my cohort of the year.  We recited the poetry of Rumi and Hafiz, and I felt my soul calling me back home.  By then I knew that the Iranian authorities would not let me travel to Iran unless I obtained an Iranian passport, for the obvious reasons of control and domination over the citizens, whom they want to claim are ‘theirs.’  At last my longing overcame the walls of national policies.  I got my Iranian passport and journeyed back home, entering Iran on foot at Maku border crossing, on the Christmas Eve of the year 2000, after 17 years of being apart.
    I travelled over Eastern Turkey and Northwest of Iran, seeing Mount Ararat standing proud in the distance.  Christmas Eve was spent in Maku, the border town, being shocked by the sexual harassment of the hotel staff.  The next day I headed to Rasht, my hometown, just south of the Caspian Sea.  I went straight to see my grandmother.  What a joy it was to be with her again!
    What I encountered on that journey shaped my life and oriented my purpose to this day.  But that is another story.  What I want to tell you today, really, is a dream I recently had.  A significant dream about myself, and in reflection the state of our world, a situation where millions of people are placed in, due to governmental national policies.
    In my 50th year, I had the special joy of being asked to marry my beloved partner, Alan.  In preparation to register our marriage, I had to call the Japanese Consulate in Edinburgh.  The clerk on the other side of the phone line could tell that obviously I was not a native speaker of Japanese.  Then she decided to confront me and asked if Japanese was the only nationality I have.  I froze for a moment.  I did not have the space on the phone to explain my situation.  I knew I had to give her an answer that would satisfy her, so I said ‘yes.’  And she helped me with the paper work I needed for my marriage.
    That night I had this dream : my aunts from Japan and my mother are standing next to me.    I am looking at this disturbing picture where from the top of skull to the bottom of my vertebrae there is a wide open wound.  My brain is split into two, as is the rest of my body, right down my spine.  I look into the mirror and see another scar on top of my head.
    I woke up with a sense of wow! this is significant.  That day I wrote to my immigration attorney.  I have an immigration attorney because I’ve been banned from the US for life.  To change that status I have been working with this dear friend who is also my attorney, but this is another story.  ‘I want to tell you my dream,’ I told him.  ‘Are you available to hear me?’  ‘Yes,’ he said.  He also told me that he is in South America, helping thousands of refugees in the Venezuelan Exodus to Columbia and Ecuador, ‘a complete mess’ he said.
    So I told him my dream.  I also shared my interpretation of it.
- ‘I think my dream is showing me my legal status.  And this state is not just mine but is also showing how millions of people are split up because of national policies.’
- ‘I think you hit the nail on the head’ he said.     
So my quest to live a wholesome and happy life appears to be intimately connected to realising a state of wholeness between nations.  All the nations of the world, to legally recognising their bigger human family, integrating us, rather than segregating us from each other.  With this wish I am preparing for a greater union in a few weeks with my beloved husband-to-be in a wild and beautiful landscape where we will confirm our truth, our love for one another.  We will exchange our vows of belonging, we belong to each other, and we belong to the earth, to one world, one planet.

With millions of other Iranians, I am observing the events surrounding our uprising to shift the form of our government from the Islamic Republic to a democratic form of self-governance.  We want a chance to live dignified lives ... this is the bottom line for the Jina, or Mahsa Amini uprising.

Since September last year, we have been experiencing intensified inhumanity unleashed vehemently on our land.  A people, a nation who has not much to lose, because we have sunken deeply in the dredges of poverty, corruption, isolation, has risen up out of outrage, shouting for nothing less than 'woman, life, and freedom.'  Witnessing nothing less than our most beloved citizens being brutally beaten, blinded by bullets, hung.  The Persian soul is terribly wounded and is somehow stuck in deep valleys of pain these days. 

What felt like nourishing grains of hope, growing on the field of people's awakening to their power and purpose last autumn, is turning into distasteful historical vomit.  I turn to news channels on Telegram, a popular app in Iran, to receive news and updates on what's going on.  I also receive a dozen or more pieces of daily news from friends who send popular clips 'from hand to hand,' so to speak.  These days most of the contents I am receiving are of the Chinese character above : undigested words, spewed out, under the common roof of our country ~ so harmful.

I wish I could bring this sense of 'ownership' of our own words home to my country folks.  What I speak of, or about, describes me foremost.  What I hear in most of the media these days, coming out of the Iranian communities whether in Iran, or in exile are bile-loaded bitter words of projections, accusing 'the other' for our sorrowful state of a deep fall from grace.  Where I live in the Findhorn community, we have a very helpful practice of making 'I' statements.  I for speaking for myself, for owning up my truth and integrity, for claiming my power back.

If we want to take our country back, from the depth of miseries and disgrace we have been thrown into, we need to claim our own truth and power back.  This is really possible when we learn to speak for ourselves.  Words of accusation, half-chewed and digested words spewed out, only causes harm, both to the other-self and to oneself.  This is what the ancient wise Chinese philosophers saw and immortalised in their pictorial writing.  

​So what is the opposite of harmful?  'Helpful' could be one response.  How could we help ourselves and those around ?  In Findhorn Community we have a common ground agreement on triple 'I's : 1- speaking for myself, of the state of my heart/mind. 2-make eye contact with the other to take the other person into my being. 3- opening up our third 'eye' to see the truth of the matter, the humanity of the other person, who has as much right to be, as me.

The switch from Harmful to Helpful for us Iranians, could be embodied in one word : Mahsa.  She is the name of our young Kurdish lass, who gave her life for our awakening.  She was killed on September 16th 2022 while visiting Tehran for not wearing her head-scarf 'properly.'  The word 'helpful' in Japanese is 'sodachi,' written like : 育ち。Its elements are : arm & elbow + moon.  Literally it means to bring up the moon.  What does Mahsa means in Farsi?  It means a face as enchanting as the moon.  The two words are converging in my mind.  To our feuding foul-mouthed friends in Iran, who are killing one another out of rage and short-sightedness, I want to breathe the word, 'Mahsa.'  Friends, how about we pause and breathe her name in, for a moment ... let us be courageous enough to have a complexion as fair and enchanting as the moon herself.  How can we become 'Mahsa,'  a fair-faced, enchanting embodiment of subtle moonlight?  How about resourcing ourselves with the triple 'I's?  How about seeing the divine in everyone?

My mother reveres Mount Iwaki.  Situated to the south-west of her village, Kase, she had always had a clear view to volcanic cone-shaped presence of the mountain when she lived in Aomori in her early years.  But she is not the only one revering the magnetic presence of the Mountain.  Most people who feel the mountain, have a sense of awe, respect and connection to Iwakisan (岩木山).
When I rented a car for a couple of days to explore Aomori with my mother, her immediate response to my question, 'where shall we go?' was 'Iwakisan.'

Of course, no doubt, Mt. Iwaki is the first place we will go to as humble pilgrims.

A dear friend appeared on our journey as our guardian angel while we stayed in my mother's ancestral home, in Kase.  Shoko san is an elegant guide, with deep pockets of knowledge transmuted to wisdom.  Her late husband was a keen mountain climber and skier.  Had he seen our preparation to climb Mount Iwaki, he would have told us right away that we'd better wear proper mountain climbing shoes.  As it turned out we only had one pair of mountain-climbing boots between us.

We set out early from home, with a sense of reverence because we were going to the Sacred Mountain. This was my first day of driving in Japan.  I drive all the time in Scotland where I live.  Fortunately in Japan, the driver side is on the right, the same as Scotland.  This makes it slightly easier to sit on the driver's seat.  But the behavior of Japanese drivers are different than those of the Scotts.  I studied what I could about how to drive in Japan, and trusting the roads, we were on our way to the Mountain.

What a journey this was!  Like any worthwhile experience, the essence of the journey is in preparation.  Our preparation to approach the Sacred Mountain came through delightful stories my mother told me of how she used to go on pilgrimage to Mt. Iwaki with her grandmother and their folks as a ten-year-old.​  'Back then' she told me 'going to Mt. Iwaki was a deed, we prepared for it months in advance.  We walked and walked to check our footwear.  We prepared food. We wore white clothes to become pilgrims.  Then only then, after so much preparation of the body and the heart, we started walking.'  This was 70 years ago in Aomori.  People used horses for long distance travel.

Her words and stories brought us to the present moment. Connecting with our ancestors, recalling how she used to climb Mt. Iwaki in the company of her grandmother and her folks, wearing while pilgrims robes felt so significant. Our drive to Mt. Iwaki now was 'taking the next step' on her path.  It felt significant, sacred, summoned.  Like the Mountains were calling us, now we must go.

We reached the gate and were given some brochures about how to be in the mountain.  I don't read Japanese easily, so I have a bad habit of skimming over papers, my ignorance of the written words quivers a little inside me, and I move on.  So I did not register that there was a deadline to leave the car park at the top station by 5.00 pm.  We started the steep zig-zag ascent, snaking up the mountain in our rented car.

We reached the car park, at last.  The clouds were below us at the top car park.  We only had one station to climb, to reach the summit ... well one station of the summit, because the mountain goes on and on.  So climb, we did.  One step at a time, one foot in front of the other.  My mother has just become 80 a few weeks before.  For an 80 year old, she is agile, in good spirit and physical shape.  But the climb was both a test and a testimony of her love for the mountain.  And climb she did.

There was a feeling in our hearts that this is her last climb.  It turned out to be true, for the following year she fell down while we were in Daisetsuzan National Park and broke both bones in her forearm.  Since then the decline in her health accelerated.  But that is another story.

​Sometimes, when the mountains call, you just got to go.  This was that moment.  She climbed Iwakisan, after 70 years.  She paid her homage.  She was home.


​

​My mother took me to her elementary school in our first days at her village, Kase, in Aomori Prefecture in Northern Japan.  I have heard about this school from her all my life, and this was the first moment I could see the school for myself.  Alas, the elementary school in my mother's village, once a thriving place of learning, playing, growing, is now an abandoned building.  Why?  This could be due to younger families in the village, having migrated to bigger cities.  The elementary school age population has reduced so much that keeping the school open was not sustainable.  The young children in Kase now have to commute to the next town, Kanagi to study.
My mother's school building radiated with so many stories to tell.  All the children who spent their precious young days in the building with their teachers, the administrators, the cooks and cleaners, each have their own piece of the story.  
The children's handprints on a wooden pillar at the entrance of the school made a remarkable impression from a past, to an unknown future.  I felt a sad lament arise from the abandoned building,  like the school ground was longing for the children's footprint again.  Children bring vitality and youthful energy to a village.  Wouldn't it be wonderful if the school building woke up to the sound of children's laughter again?
I learned that the scene of abandoned schools in small villages is not too uncommon in Japan now.  I started to day dream about a reverse migration back to villages, a kind of eco-village living of a different kind.  
While I stayed in Kase, my mother's village, I read the Mother's little booklet on Japan.  The booklet was given to me by dear friend Marti, while I was teaching a month-long course on Ecovillage Design Education in Auroville, India in 2019.  This was the right moment for me to connect with the Mother's message about Japan.  Although the booklet was written nearly a 100 years ago, its message is timeless when it spoke about the children and the soul of the country.

knowledge ... A country where such are the children and so they are treated is a country still ascending the steps of progress and of mastery.'

The Mother was born Mirra Alfassa in Paris on 21 February 1878. A pupil at the Academie Julian, she became an accomplished artist, and also excelled as a pianist and writer. Interested in occultism, she visited Tlemcen, Algeria, in 1905 and l906 to study with the adept Max Theon and his wife. Her primary interest, however, was spiritual development. In Paris she founded a group of spiritual seekers and gave talks to various groups.
In 1914 the Mother voyaged to Pondicherry to meet Sri Aurobindo, whom she at once recognised as the one who for many years had inwardly guided her spiritual development. After a stay of eleven months she was obliged to return to France due to the outbreak of the First World War. A year later she went to Japan for a period of four years.
In April 1920 the Mother rejoined Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry. When the Sri Aurobindo Ashram was formed in November 1926, Sri Aurobindo entrusted its full material and spiritual charge to the Mother. Under her guidance, which continued for nearly fifty years, the Ashram grew into a large, many-faceted spiritual community. In 1952 she established Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, and in 1968 an international township, Auroville.
The Mother left her body on 17 November 1973.   (https://www.sriaurobindoashram.org/mother/)
https://www.sriaurobindoashram.org/mother/
https://motherandsriaurobindo.in/The-Mother/​

Here is a gallery of images from the booklet 'The Mother on Japan.'
​

Shigako Kidachi was born on a warm sunny day in July 1942 in Kase, Aomori.  She was the second child to Ichi and Tamigoro.  Her older brother, Tomoji was born five years before her.  When she was born, her family did not have a stable home of their own.  She remembers moving homes with her parents and grandparents.  The family finally arrived at a spacious building they could call home.  The building was already quite old when the family moved in.  A younger brother, and two sisters were born after my mother.  Altogether they made their home a lively space of three generations living and growing together.

I had been to our ancestral home in Kase once before when I was eight years old.  We were living in Northern Iran at the time.  Those were the pre-revolution days.  The Iranian economy was strong enough for my mother and me to travel to Japan and back without breaking the back of our home-economy.  
I remember dancing for my great grandma, bonding with my two aunts, and charming my grandparents, in our ancestral home, at the age of eight-yeas-old.
My life-path was such that it took me 46 years to return to my ancestral home again, just after the Covid lockdown and social restrictions.  In our ancestral home, my mother spoke in Tsugaru, her native tongue.  There is something about being at 'home' that puts you at ease.   I felt like I was getting to know her, in her natural element for the first time.  A deeper connection with my ancestral lineage was awakening in me.  Suddenly a depth of my own roots, the ancestral influence in my life was being revealed to me.  For the first time in my 54 years of life, I was feeling the connection to my Tsugaru heritage.  My heart was crying.  I cried for realising what was amiss in my life ~ for the disconnection with my ancestors in this mysterious land of Tsugaru people.  And I cried for the sudden love I felt while slowly arriving at my ancestral home.  I heard my ancestors whisper in my heart.  'Welcome' they said. 'Welcome to our home, to your home.'

As a vegetarian eater, arriving at a place where I would feel 'I want to try everything on the menu' is very rare.  Restaurant Momo in Nagano Prefecture, was that rare gem of a place for me.  The whole place vibrated with care.  Food quality was superb.  The atmosphere was relaxed and creative ~ exactly my sort of place.  Instantly I felt a kinship.  
I filled my rucksack with home-made snacks for my journey back to Scotland.  I was facing a rough journey back with the possibility of two nights of sleeping in airports.  Good quality food, made with care, makes all the difference in the quality of your journey.  I felt well resourced and nourished by the food and vibrations of this place.  My deep gratitude to the people who have created Momo and are maintaining it from day to day.

It was Fatima-san's birthday.  Her wish for this day was to spend a part of it with friends in the Sacred Mountain and do the OM Chanting Ceremony.  And so, it came to be.
I met new beaming faces, already at the little mountain cabin as we arrived.  
-'My name's Gayatri Devi Dasi' said the beautiful woman in fuchsia pink.
-'I'm Surya Dev Das' said the tall gentleman.
-'I'm Yoginam Pub Das' beamed the kind young man.
I felt intrigued.  The Indian names I recognised, but the combination of Indian name spoken in context of Japanese language was new for me.  I felt a new adventure was waiting for me.
The wood cabin room is spacious.  The floor is covered with tatami mats.  I find tatami-mats very comforting and supportive to sit on, although having a cushion always helps.  Soon enough, we were sitting in a circle.  Gayatri-san started to explain OM Chanting in great detail; its story, how its done, its benefits, etc.  I felt very grateful for the length she went into to explain what OM chanting is, how it is done, why we do it, and how it benefits the individuals and the world.  I was convinced that I wanted to participate.  She demonstrated how the OM sound rises from the belly and traverses the whole body, rather than being just a nasal pronouncement.  The OM sound, rising from her felt so much rounder and bigger than her petit body, camouflaged in beautiful colours of dark pink and navy blue.

One thing that touched me in particular about the effects of OM Chanting was the purity it radiates to about 2 km radius around the place it has been chanted.  Secretly I thought to myself, this would be so helpful for my friends and folks in Iran and the Fertile Crescent.  We are so much in need of both physical and spiritual cleansing.  Could the OM Chanting really purify you?

Soon the room filled with our voices.  We sat in two concentric circles facing each other.  The voice came from the depth of our bellies and bones.  It reverberated through the body.  The M sound made me quiver.  At first I could not hold a stable M sound ... it just slipped away from me, and I could not chase it.  But I came back to it again, and again, and again.  With each repetition of the OM chanting the sound grew deeper in me.  Until, one moment, with wonder, I felt I could hold the whole OM sound steady and transcendent.  As I reached this level of steadiness images started to dance inside me.  I felt the forest around me, full of medicine and mystery.  I felt my ancestral roots in Japan.  A deep sense of gratitude bubbled up in me for this moment, for being in the forest with these friends, chanting OM and tapping into the well of mysteries of creation.  I became aware of the other streams of my ancestry, of my deep roots in Iran and the Fertile Crescent.  A deep wish bubbled up in me to connect, and bridge, and make known the magic of OM Chanting across my many worlds.  So many worlds exist in me, but I am only one woman.  So many worlds exist in our planet, and we are truly one world.

The OM Chanting was Fatima Suomi-san's birthday gift.  What a rich gift to give away!  I had asked Fatima-san what she wanted for her birthday.  She smiled and said 'harmony and peace in the world.'  Could this be possible, the cynic in me had its own opinion.  
After the OM Chanting Ceremony we sat in a circle again to share our experiences.  I heard each person express his and her personal journey with the sound of OM.  I felt something in me had grown, like I had become larger, rounder, more contained.   Each one had a unique encounter, and we all had something shared and in common.  A sense of roundness, like an encompassing skin surrounded our individual and common experience.  
​We went for a walk in the forest afterwards.  My senses were sharp and clear.  I smelled the tantalising Sansho tree ( a sharp pepper tree).  I could feel the heart of others around me.  I moved with gratitude and love as my eyes met the eyes of others in the forest.  I joined Fatima-san in her earnest wish for harmony and love in our world.  

https://bhaktimarga.jp/
https://bhaktimarga.co.uk