“Happymaker” was started to bring people together with special interests in the art and bringing this art in all kind of representations, into the local community to be enjoyed and experienced by young and old: “making everybody Happy”! I had an exhibition during this festival in 2009.  Look in my archives for the Month of July, 2009.

I wish all the organizers and artists a wonderful exhibition and time together and I hope to join again next time. I miss it, but I am there in spirit.

I start losing my hair now. I know of course, this was going to happen and actually, I don’t really care so much. I have easy hair: short, a little wavy, just wash it and comb it and it looks fine. But still, it is a shock when you just can pull at your hair and it comes out with a hand full. I don’t have the courage yet to shave it all off and to avoid a mess with all hair around. Perhaps, after tonight if really my whole pillow will be full. Well, I am ready for it with my scarfs and hats and a wig!! Or just nothing if I can get use to it!

Mount Koya (Koyasan) is a 900 meter high plateau surrounded by eight peaks. The eight peaks are thought to represent the eight petals of a lotus in bloom, which is suggestive of the core of a mandala with its eight deities arrayed on the eight petals of a lotus, and with the central Buddha at the center of the lotus.

Mount Koya is the sacred center of Shingon Buddhism. In the year 804, Kobo Daishi (Kukai) crossed the sea to China in search of Buddhist teachings. In the capital of Tang Dynasty China he received the full transmission of a lineage of Buddhism relatively unknown in the Japan of his day called Shingo Buddhism. He returned to Japan in 806 and began teaching. In 816 he was granted permission of the Imperial Court to build a monastic complex at Mt. Koya.

The “Happymaker” Festival started with the idea from Ayako Utsumi and Shinobu Hada to bring people together with special interests in the art and bringing this art, which can have all kind of forms, into the local community to be enjoyed and experienced by young and old: “making everybody Happy”! This was the second year. It frees the mind and stimulates compassion and shows the beauty in all.

I got a wonderful place assigned for my exhibition at the Ekoin: such a beautiful place and lots of light and my work outside in the yard with the birds singing: being in harmony!

The entrance front gate of Ekoin.

The entrance of the temple.

The Koi pond near the entrance.
Walkway to my exhibition passing a big hall with beautiful sliding doors “Fusuma” with cranes “Shiratori” painted on them.

Two pieces in a little outdoor corner in between rooms.

The show with Horsehair ware and Kamakura Red ware.

Outside in the contrasting greenery: red and green being each other’s complementary color.

And in a little stream.

And a YOU TUBE video of my exhibition:EXHIBITION at EKOIN, KOYASAN.

Breakfast in the men’s sleeping hall at 7.30am.

Morning meetings at 9am and evening staff meetings were also held in the men’s sleeping hall.

The women’s sleeping hall in which we slept sometimes with about twenty and surprisingly only two times I heard somebody snoring!

The opening party. The founder Ayako-san in the picture is the 3rd from the right and founder Shinobu-san is all the way to the left. Ayako-san, the collage artist, is introducing herself.

The opening party.

There were quite some events in the evening from which I only can post a few.

Takeshi-san and Veronique give their performance before the star gazing event.

Shomyo concert: a kind of Buddhist ritual chanting music in the Nanin and after that the rice-cake-throwing event.

The Crystal Bowl concert in which people relax their body and soul with the sounds of crystal bowls reverberating through the temple.

Everything was very well organized thanks to Ayako-san, Shinobu-san, Ayako-san’s family, the artists and all the volunteers and performers.

On the way to the village we stopped, because we were astounded and mesmerized by the beauty of the mountains engulfed by the mist after the heavy rains.

Takeshi-san plays the flute.

Thirteen families live in Amano village.

A small shrine.

An old lady.                               Her shoes and her husband’s.

Installation by Shinobu-san.

Ceramic Raku installation by Chieko-san.

Ayawa music experience with hanging sound speakers.

Sound faucet installation by Eriko Iimura-san.

Photo from old couple by Eriko Koga-san.

Woodfiber Starlight installation.

Woodfired Vessel.

Pastel Drawing by Kayo-san.

Artwork by collage artist Ayako Morisawa.

Imagery on the wall by Yosuke-san.

His website:
http://ashida.workarea.jp/

Photography by Yukiko-san.

This is the invitation brochure of all the shows during this special event week at Koyasan.
Look at the temples on the top of the hill of the drawing: elevate your spirits!

Kôyasan is a sacred place that always welcomes people with Buddha’s great love.
It is home to an active monastic center founded twelve centuries ago by the priest Kûkai (posthumously known as Kôbô Daishi) for the study and practice of Esoteric Buddhism. It is the headquarters of the Kôyasan sect of Shingon Buddhism, a faith with a wide following throughout Japan.
Situated on a small plain at the top of Mount Kôya is the sacred area known as the Danjô Garan, a complex of temples, halls, pagodas and Buddhist statuary that welcome visitors to this serene and hallowed place.
Surrounded by a thick forest of massive cedars, the area known as Okuno-in, or the Inner Sanctuary, is the setting for a vast cemetery that features the mausolea of numerous famous Japanese, including that of the samurai ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi as well as memorials to the spirits of soldiers killed in the Pacific War.
On July 7, 2004, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) named Kôyasan as part of the “Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range” to its World Heritage List. Now as in the past, Kôyasan continues to attract visitors, including believers and devotees, from around the world.

You can read more about Koyasan on the date of January 5, 2009 of my blog. We went there with the family last December. So, please look in the categories of Family or Temples.

The inside of the invitation brochure.

Mount Koya, set amid black cedars at an altitude of 1000 m., is Japan’s most venerated Shingon-Buddhist site, a major school of Japanese Buddhism and brought into Japan by the priest Kukai when he came back from China with many texts and art works in 804. He established this spiritual center  and monastic retreat in 816. There were almost a thousands temples on the mountain by the Edo period, but typhoons and fire have since reduced the number to 123.

Going up the mountain by train.

And very steep cable car.
We stayed the night in the Shojoshinin temple, one of the 53 temple lodgings.
It was such a beautiful temple. It was very cold though and then you are glad to wear slippers on the very cold wooden floors.

Delicious vegetarian prepared food in a warm room heated by a little gas stove.

Beautiful (sumie) paintings on sliding doors everywhere.

The next morning, Christmas morning, we got up at 6am to participate with a Buddhist service. They chanted all the way through their book with hitting the gong in between. This was a beautiful spiritual start on Christmas morning.

After breakfast we packed up our things and got on our way through the necropolis of over 200,000 tombs to Kukai’s mausoleum, Okuki-in. Great status is attached to burial on Koya-san.

All over you find the “Gorintos”, which are used for memorial and funerary purposes. Gorinto is the Japanese name of a type of Buddhist pagoda found in East Asia. In other countries it is called “Stupa”. The stupa was originally a structure or other sacred building containing a relic of Buddha or of a saint, then it was gradually stylized in various ways.
In all its variations, the gorint? includes five rings (although that number can often be difficult to detect by decoration), each having one of the five shapes, employing the basic geometric forms, symbolic of the Five Elements: the earth ring (cube), the water ring (sphere), the fire ring (pyramid), the air ring (crescent), and the ether ring, (or energy, or void).

The stone-paved approach to the mausoleum is flanked with statues, monuments, and tombs housing the remains of Japan’s most powerful families.

In front of Kukai’s mausoleum is the Toro-do (Lantern Hall). Day and night 11,000 lanterns burn here, including two that are said to have remained lit since the 11th century.

On the other side of the mountain is a big park filled with temples.

This is the Konpon-Daito, an impressive two-story vermillion-and-white pagoda rebuilt in 1937. The pagoda is regarded as the symbol of Koya-san.