I had a great exhibition. A lot of friends and people came all interested in my Kamakura-Red ceramic art. I had some good talks. Also, the Mashiko charity display got quite some attention and had some good results in donations for the Sankokan.(Read about it in the previous posting).

The weekend before I left we attended a wedding of a daughter of a very good Japanese friend in Kyoto. Minako-san and Niki-san looked gorgeous and the whole event was for me a wonderful first time Japanese wedding experience.

After the wedding we went into the garden of the Heian Shrine, which was open during the evening because of the 300 “Sakura” Cherry blossom lit up trees accompanied by cello music. It was really relaxing to walk around. Then a classical guitar concert started in the tea house situated in the middle of the pond. Just all very perfect. Enjoy the little movie:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOHN5TTCr4c

This path is called “The Philosopher’s walk” and is like 2 miles long aligned with Sakura trees. Just phenomenal!






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I still want to show you a beautiful design of the Flower of Life what I saw in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. This mosaic floor comes from one of Herod’s palaces the Herodium, south of Jerusalem. It is square with the geometric shape of the Flower of Life in its center decorated with palmettes and pomegranates decorated in the corners. This was made 2000 years ago! Just astonishing.

These geometrical forms are said to act as a template from which all life springs. See also my blog from Friday August 5, 2011:
http://swanceramics.com/2011/08/05/flower-of-life-decorations/

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Yuki Shibazaki-san, the owner of the Ginsuzu Gallery, is a writer. She published a book about the influence of the Japanese culture on the way of life of 43 foreigners living in Japan and I am one of them.
The title is: “Watashi Nihon no koko ga suki”: I like Japan!










She chose also to write about my experience.



Underneath my image to the right it says: “Nihon ga oshiete kurete bigaku”: “Japanese beauty teaches me”. And my name in Katakana to the left: Suwanika Rihitenberugu.

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We had breakfast in this restaurant, a typical old style house.



We had a nice time together for one day and then I returned to Holland to return the next day to Japan.

My sister-in-law Inge, my son Roland and niece Esmee.













We played a board game from about a hundred years ago, which our grandfather played from my husband’s family side. It is played once a year on New Year’s Eve. It is about farmers being afraid of having to pay too much taxes. We play with old Dutch pennies not being used anymore because of the Euro.

Then at 12 midnight after wishing everybody a Happy New Year and drinking champagne, everybody rushes outside to light fireworks with a big bang starting the New Year! It is not organized. Anybody can light fireworks. It is everywhere around you!  Watch this YOU TUBE VIDEO!!

In the beginning of November

Only in the beginning of November and New Year’s time are you able to access the grounds and view the Temple’s treasures. But even then after paying 500 yen, there is a rope hanging around the structure and going inside it is not permitted. So, this is my picture and as close as I could get. So, I saw this altar only from far away.

This picture shows the Shariden in the snow and clearly the special architecture.
The existing structure was first constructed in the early 15th century as the main hall of Taiheiji nunnery. After the abduction of the head nun, the Temple took over the structure in the latter half of the 16th century. The steep slope of the two double-decks roof with shingles indicates a Sung-style Chinese architecture. This Shariden is the oldest Chinese-style building in Japan and that is the reason for being enrolled on the list of National Treasures. The principal object of worship is a statue of Birushana Butsu. Birushana is the transliteration of a Sanscrit word vairocana, meaning the sun and the light of grace. Vairocana Buddha is sometimes called the supreme Buddha, representing the wisdom of “emptiness”. He is considered a personification of the everything, unmanifested, free of characteristics and distinctions.

Shari denotes sacred ashes of Shaka (Sakyamuni). Shariden, therefore, means a hall that is dedicated to the ashes of Sakyamuni. However, there is no such ashes any more.

The Engaku-ji is one of the most important Zen Buddhist temple complexes in Japan and is ranked second among Kamakura’s Five Mountains. This is a system, a network of monastic offices, developed in China to bureaucratize and to control the Zen temples. In Japan it prospered thanks to the countries military rulers in Kamakura first and Kyoto later.
The temple was founded in 1282 (during the Kamakura Period) by a Chinese Zen monk at the request of the then ruler of Japan, the regent Hojo Tokimune after he had repelled a Mongolian invasion in the period 1274 to 1281. Tokimune had a long-standing commitment to Zen and the temple was intended to honour those of both sides who died in the war, as well as serving as a center from which the influence of Zen could be spread. According to the records of the time, when building work started a copy of the Sutra of Perfect Enlightment (in Japanese, engaku-kyo) was dug out of the hillside in a stone chest during the initial building works, giving its name to the temple.
(Also, see my blogs from May 14 and 16, 2006 or click on the tag “Temple”).

It is situated on the Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine grounds in a beautiful setting surrounded by lots of trees and of course, the autumn colors were astounding, especially the yellow from the Gingko tree.


The featured exposition is about The 800th Memorial Anniversary of Honen Shonin (1133-1212), who studied Buddhism and found the true way of universal salvation through the practice of nembutsu revealed in the Buddhist scripture text by Shan-tao. Honen established the nembutsu as an absolutely independent practice. In the spring of 1175, he founded Jodo Shu, or the Pure Land Denomination, in Japan. The center of his teaching was at Yoshimizu, where Chion-in, the Head Temple of Jodo Shu, now stands.
Masako, wife of warrior Minamoto no Yoritomo, the first shogun who founded the Kamakura government shogunate, was a follower of Honen. And so the center of the Jodo Shu sect is established at the Komyoji, the temple in my neighborhood. Look also at the following blogs: Oct. 18, 2009; April14, 2009; July 31, 2008, and Sept.23, 2007.

This is Yoshitada Shonin a treasure from Kamakura City and sculpted from wood in the 12th century here in Kamakura, in the time when all the sculpting and carving of wood started because all of the temple building and developed into the Kamakura Bori.

They also had some wonderful maps hanging from the Komyoji.
I was allowed to take some picture from a book, because it was sold out.

This map is made in 1720. To the south is the beach with some some greenlands and to the north it is build against a rocky hill.
A lot of temples in Kamakura protect themselves in that way with their back against a hill.

This second map was drawn in 1850 and again you can clearly see the hills surrounding the temple and a small river flowing in to the sea. This map was about 2 by 2 meters big!






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and stalls of wicker household ware.








Then there are the memorial services in the temple (to the left a picture of praying monks and to the right a special altar with offerings) and performances: a dance performance by children (YOU TUBE movie) and a orchestral performance by monks (YOU TUBE movie).


You can visit the entrance gate “Sanmon” and climb to (YOU TUBE movie) the second level where you have a wonderful view over the temple grounds and part of the city and the sea. Inside on the second floor wooden statues are preserved behind glass. You still can see the colors of the paint.
The faces and composure of the body of the praying monks
(YOU TUBE movie) are full of expression.







And the gods standing next to them are protecting them.