Why you should visit the Kumano

Choice. World Heritage. Poetry in a fluid, landscape. Sacred power spot. Old Japan. Countryside.

None of these beckons one to Kumano like a need to be in a place where others have gathered, for thousands of years, for more reasons than bargain sales, bucket lists and multi-day concert festivals.

Hikers enjoy the spring walking from Takijiri Oji.

To follow where your feet take you, to stumble on roots and old plant growth in the fog and rain, the drifting mists unveiling another world, a story, a pantheon in nature, your senses will constantly be filled with reminders of the joys in this life.

The Kumano offers a picturesque palate of color, forest fortune-telling, to reveal whatever deep stone you have inside begging to be discovered, to unearth an ancient soul, to repair the strings of a broken instrument playing a song of your life.

You never feel alone on the trail, even when you see no one else there. In Kumano, the dead and the living co-exist, stumbling while you find your own way. Pressing past, perhaps, in a former age, a Heian maiden offers you tea, a ragged ghost watches in the shadows of centuries-old cedars, a modern-day mountain ascetic monk makes her pilgrimage to Kumano Sanzan.

The trick is to find the story, to interact with the local community, to partake in the mandala of rebirth, to share in a laugh, to tremble in awe or fear of the Kumano deities manifested in portentous elements.

The Kumano is an active pilgrimage, not a destination or a souvenir shop.

What will it awaken in you?

Mike Rhodes

April 19, 2015