After visiting Kinpusen-ji Temple, Sachiho Kudomi and I continued through the quiet streets of Yoshino on our walk.

We looked into an apothecary store, where what appeared to be a hippopotamus’s head looked back at us.

We visited the Organic Cafe, bought some healthful slow food treats, and made friends with the owner.

I bought a beautiful handmade card with cherry blossoms on a gold background for my mom at the paper store.

I, of course, photographed the Yoshino man hole cover, and was surprised that, here in the premier cherry blossom viewing town of Japan, the man hole covers didn’t have any cherry blossoms in their design, as they did in so many other towns. Instead, Yoshino’s graphic is strictly geometric, not unlike some of the crop circle designs.

Next to the road I saw a small shrine that reminded me of a southeast Asian spirit house, with a gorgeous gathering of moss on its roof.

And just off the road, someone had set benches for picnics under the tall trees.

We saw several shops specializing in handmade kudzu candy, made from the starchy and medicinal roots of an aggressive wild vine that environmentalists strive to keep from engulfing the forests.

Seeing the kudzu roots in the window display, I realized that the interesting floor lamp in the lobby of the ryokan was made from kudzu roots and handmade paper.

In Yoshino, you can even buy decorative molds for making kudzu candy yourself.

Another display showed candy-makers using these molds.

Sachiho and I visited a temple where she had led a meditation retreat the previous year. The woman who cared for the temple (Sachiho referred to her as “the mother of the temple”) welcomed us warmly.

She even allowed me to photograph the murals with the couples in yabyum inside one of the smaller rooms of the temple.

I wonder why there’s a guy who’s on fire. Surely these murals illustrate a story. Or several!

When we got close to the ryokan again, we turned down a small side street, actually more like a little mountain trail with a cool driftwood sign, to visit Yatchan, Sachiho’s ceramicist friend who had gotten us the amazing room at his parents’ ryokan.

On the trail to his house, we saw a praying statue from Bali, no doubt a souvenir from one of Yatchan’s travels.

Yatchan, his wife Fumi-chan, and their lively little daughter Nagomi, were all pleased to see us. Fumi-chan had just harvested fresh bamboo shoots, one of which she is holding. Nagomi danced about and laughed, hid and burst out of hiding, grabbed a large bamboo shoot, and giggled. The language barrier did not prevent me from playing peekaboo with her.

When we returned to the ryokan, we met Yatchan’s mother, and thanked her for the fabulous room and service.

She proudly showed us a glass case of Yatchan’s ceramics.

When traveling with Sachiho Kojima, one does not merely take walks. Given her proclivity for worship in a variety of settings, she cannot help but take you on a Sacred Sites Tour. So, we set out from the Sakoya Ryokan through the quiet streets of Yoshino village. Sachiho told me, “I have always loved old ways more than new ones. When I was a teenager, I studied tea ceremony.” Like Noh theatre, the ritual of tea elevates consciousness of even the smallest gesture.

The circular impressions in the street made the pine needles compose themselves into perfect circles.

Soon we espied the main gate of Kinpusen-ji Temple at the end of the street.

Across the quiet street from the temple gate stood an open air store selling handmade mochi which we found irresistible. I bought a piece of dark green mugwort mochi, and Sachiho bought a white one with a sweet red bean paste filling. Mugwort is the English name for the herb used for moxibustion.

Under the eaves of the main gate, two fierce and muscular Shukongoshin (guardian statues) kept all bad juju at bay…

…flashing their buff abs and formidable teeth.

Clearly this has worked well for centuries. Once inside the gate, all is serene, shaded by beautiful old trees.

The main temple hall, with its breathtaking architecture and embellishments, is said to be the second largest wooden temple in Japan, after Todai-ji in Nara.

Inside the courtyard of the temple, a sign in four languages elucidates. My camera and I are reflected in it.

We approach the main hall entrance.

At the entrance, one places coins inside the donation box, takes a few sticks of green incense, lights them all with the large votive candle, and stands them together to burn in the sandfilled stone urn at the entrance to the temple.

Another pair of fierce ancient statues guard the inner sanctuary.

A Miro-like artwork on the right hand inner wall of the temple.

The temple’s store sells photographic guide books of the artwork, and articles for worship, including handcarved prayer beads.

Outside the main temple, a lion statue, bibbed by worshippers to show respect.

Even though it’s a Buddhist temple, a Shinto Inari (fox diety) shrine also stands on the temple grounds.

In the morning, after Sachiho and I folded up our sleeping mats at the home of Sachiho’s dear friend Ryoko Okuda, the owner of Planet Flower (“Fashion from Nature”), a natural fiber clothing store in Osaka (who I’d met first at the Rainbow Festival, and who came to our show at Chakra and then drove us to her home to spend the night), a Buddhist monk came over to lead us in prayer in front of Ryoko’s home altar.

Ryoko’s home, a one-story house in a quiet neighborhood on the outskirts of Osaka, has, in traditional Japanese style, windows that are also doors, and tatami covered floors that change from bedroom to living room to dining room to temple as needs dictate.

Her small bedroom is full of the beautiful clothes she sells in her store.

Even the bathroom wall is blessed by angels.

Ryoko feeds us a lovely breakfast of fruit and raisin bread toast and tea, and walks us to the train. We bid her a fond goodbye. She will meet us the next day in Nara and drive us to Fumon-ji Temple.

Across from us, three generations of Japanese women snooze to the rhythm of the train, and, above them, an advertising model grins.

Sachiho and I made friends with four little girls on a school field trip.

We got off the train at Yoshino, a mountain village famous for its hot spring resorts and temples, and took a taxi to this lovely place, where we would relax for the night.

Sachiho’s friend Yatchan, a ceramic sculptor, is the son of the owners of Sakoya, the most luxurious ryokan (traditional style Japanese hotel) in Yoshino, and, for a special family-and-friends price, he has gotten us the premier suite, and the price includes gourmet dinner and breakfast, served by our own personal hostess in kimono!

We had a suite of rooms, one large room where we would sleep and eat…

…plus this lovely sitting room…

…with this gorgeous view of the mountains, with bamboo and pine forests…

…and our own outdoor hot springs bath…

…and our own indoor hotsprings bath. Plus a two-sink bathroom with a huge mirror, loads of bath towels…

…a kimono with jacket each for our stay…

…and tea served upon our arrival…

…made from sakura (cherry blossoms) with a sauce made from kudzu (arrowroot starch), two products for which Yoshino is reknowned. Yoshino is lush with cherry blossoms each spring, and packages a famous, slightly salty tea, made of the dried blossoms.

Handmade sign above the entrance to Chakra, an import, craft and clothing store with cafe and performance space in back, in Osaka, Japan, where Sachiho and I performed the final show of our tour together, on May 10, 2007.

On the shinkansen (bullet train) from Yamaguchi to Osaka, I spotted this ad, reminding me that (at least in 2007) the largest number of solar panel manufacturers, as well as the largest manufacturer of solar panels, Sanyo, are in Japan.

As soon as we reached Osaka’s main train station, Sachiho and I took a cab to Chakra, where we would perform that night. I got out there, and Sachiho hurried off to lead a meditation workshop elsewhere in Osaka. The store is an oasis of calm and beauty on a small back street in a densely urban part of the city.

Atchan, one of the owners of the store, came out to greet me.

Her husband and co-owner, Tatchan, joined us. I’m not sure what their formal names are; “chan” is a suffix implying endearment usually following the first syllable of a person’s given name. “San” is a suffix implying respect, and usually follows the person’s entire first or last name. (Only, in Japan, you say the family name first.) Anyway, I can see why everyone calls them Atchan and Tatchan. They are adorable.

The poster for the event features the cover of Living on the Earth! Tatchan told me that all sixty seats were sold out several days ago.

The interior of the store: musical instruments, exotic and local artisan clothing, low lights, handmade crafts, incense, East Indian music and CDs of local bands – everything for a spiritual/hip clietele…

…with all the cool accessories to match…

…even macrame!

I went out for a walk around the neighborhood. Japan’s cities burgeon with bicycles (better get out of the way if you hear a ringing sound behind you!)

I saw bike riders of all ages. Since people don’t steal in Japan, you can ride your bike (or lighweight motorcycle) to the nearest bus stop or train station, leave it there, go where you are going by public transportation, come back and bike home. Green all the way!

To my delight and astonishment, Minehiko Tanaka, an excellent sitar player, joined us for our performance that evening.

He accompanied Sachiho while she chanted sacred songs with her lyre.

I had always dreamed that someday I would be able to play my song Vai Raga with a sitar player, and that night was my night. I did a set by myself (with a volunteer translator from the audience), followed by three songs with Sachiho and Minehiko, including Vai Raga (from Music From Living on the Earth, my first CD).

I think they liked us.

In fact, I think they liked us a lot. I sold out all of the books I’d ordered, again, and almost all of the CDs.

I told everyone in the audience they’d be on my home page, and here they are. This is why I come to Japan. It’s a love fest!

We hustled into the train station, me with newly streamlined luggage, and purchased tickets for the Shinkansen, the famous Japanese bullet train, that gets you where you are going FAST. It doesn’t stop at all that many places, so it can reach a velocity of nearly 200 miles per hour. We had to take a bus from Karatsu to Fukuoka to get to its nearest stop.

Touring by train is a science. You have to be able to carry everything you need for the gig and to keep yourself together, up a set of stairs if necessary, since not all train stations in Japan have elevators or escalators.

I need two guitars for my gigs, because I play one in an open tuning and one in concert tuning. I carry my laptop for selling my products, setting up gigs and publicizing them, reading the news, doing vocal exercises, listening to music, broadcasting the karaoke version of my last CD onstage, political activism, research, correspondence, shopping, photo editing, writing this blog, and working on other writing projects. I also need performance costumes and other clothes, toiletries, and my bag of natural supplements and immune-enhancing herbs, because travel is the immune system Olympics. Everywhere you go, someone is sneezing. For an almost 58-year-old, 105-pound woman, carrying all this by train is a marathon. But I am a muse-driven specimen of my age group, and I will do whatever it takes to get my art where it needs to go.

The Shinkansen looks like a large, dangerous snake. Inside, it’s much more comfortable than the local trains. We ate rice crackers and peanuts from the station kiosk and chatted the time away amiably.

We took a local train from the nearest Shinkansen station to Yamaguchi, a town so blessed with hot springs (on-sen) that there are public foot baths in the parks. Right next the train station stood an on-sen with a giant white fox in front, exuding the advertising cachet resulting from the Japanese national passion for cute animals. The Grateful Dead dancing bear does lots of business here.

Eizo, the owner of Organ’s Melody, a small night club (in Japan it’s called a “live house”) picked us up at the station, and he and his wife Yuki made us comfortable with a room above the club with futons and a bathroom. Nowhere to wash up, though. No problem; Yamaguchi is hot springs heaven. We even strolled over to a nearby park and had a VERY hot foot bath before the show.

The poster for the evening (May 9, 2007) featured the cover of Living on the Earth and a photo that Yuko Tsukamoto took of me performing last year at her club Yukotopia in Tokyo. There’s my name again in Katakana, starting with the letter P. Next to the photo of Sachiho playing her lyre is her name written in Kanji, Chinese characters.

In typical urban hipster style, the entrance to the club was practically unnoticeable. You had to know it was there.

Inside the club, the walls were black, the bar was stocked, and a bunch of little tables and chairs welcomed the patrons.

Up a narrow, kinda scary staircase, the dressing room displayed Eizo’s wild poster collection. This was my fave.

It was a pleasure to soundcheck with Eizo. His system was fantastic.

The opening act, a local musician known as Sensei because his day job is teaching school. He sang original songs; his friend played drum, and you had to love his traditional old style Japanese clothes.

Sachiho and I both enjoyed ourselves playing at Organ’s Melody. It’s always fun to play and sing through good sound system with an excellent technician at the controls. Afterwards, one of the patrons, who was celebrating his girlfriend’s birthday, took us (me, Sachiho, Eizo and Yuki, plus his friends) out to an expensive and fabulous Mediterranean style dinner at the restaurant next door. It was all I could do to stay in my body, between the gourmet cuisine, the happy, flowing conversation that I couldn’t understand, and the overwhelming presence of a large screen TV playing a dreamlike performance by Cirque du Soleil. After that wild meal, Sachiho and I walked in the rain to a large, nearby on-sen, and soaked for an hour. We slept well that night in the room above the club.

The next morning, Sachiho, Yoko, and Hiromi (the all-woman trance trio, Amana) and I awakened at the Yoshimori’s elegant house overlooking the bay in Karatsu, where we’d been brought by host himself after the party. He and his wife had spent the night at yet another of their homes, and the Amana ladies and I had this gorgeous, brand new house to ourselves. Yoko and Hiromi took an early plane back to Okinawa, and Sachiho and I had breakfast at a table with a splendid view.

Right across the bay stood an old castle on a forested hill. Karatsu lies at the westernmost point of Japan, and is the port through which Korean and Chinese people have visited and traded with Japan for centuries.

Yoshimori and his wife came over to see us after breakfast, and his wife took us out for a walk around Karatsu.

We were joined by her friend, a hat designer, and the two of them decided to treat me and Sachiho to a boat ride to Takashima island, home of the lottery shrine.

We passed the house where we had slept, which Yoshimori personally built, as we motored toward the island. It’s the second one from the left, light gray with a gray roof.

And we could see the mountains where their cabin is, at Saga, the site of last night’s concert.

Takashima island has a mystical presence.

We approach the harbor. Most of the residents are fishing families.

We walk up the quay toward a colorful shop.

At the harbor, we bowed at a fishing shrine with a statue of Ebisu, the fishing diety…

…and studied a map of Takashima outside the general store.

A lottery ticket store, quite close to the shrine. I didn’t buy any tickets, but I did pick up a brochure…

…that explained clearly how to win the lottery.

Here’s as close as you can get to the lottery shrine with a camera. We went in and thanked the Great Spirit for the amazing good fortune we already enjoy in our lives.

After we left the lottery shrine, Sachiho lead us to another shrine higher up on the mountain. She’d been here before.

At this shrine we also said thank you to the Divine Spirit.

Then we headed back to the harbor, well pleased with our journey.

Of course, I had to photo the Takashima man hole cover for my collection.

Then we sped back to Karatsu to tour the clothing store, ship my suitcase to Osaka, and catch a bus to the bullet train (shinkansen) to Yamaguchi. We just barely made it.

Our next venue, at Saga, also in the prefecture of Nagasaki, and also hidden in mountains, turned out to be a barbeque (I mean, hibachi) party at the country cabin of Yoshimori, an architect and builder, and his wife, who owns and runs Raku, a natural fiber fashion boutique in the nearby city of Karatsu. Yoshimori had bought the land very reasonably after all of the trees had been destroyed by a major hurricane. He planted all of the trees that you see in these photos, and he began raising bees for honey and to help pollinate the trees.

The elegant interior of the cabin Yoshimori designed and built on the land.

Our stage and concert hall, in the meadow below the cabin.

We got to work right away doing our sound check.

I sound-checked the karaoke of the original recording of What Living’s All About (minus my voice) which I output into an amplifier from my laptop. I’m singing Floozy Tune.

Yoshimori’s candle lanterns. Now there’s a clever way to recycle plastic bottles!

The audience, mostly friends and neighbors in the area, really enjoyed the show.

Amana, plus ghosts from my camera. I promise, next tour, I’ll bring a tripod.

After the show, we all warmed ourselves around a campfire with more food, drink and good stories.

The coordinators for the next event, a concert in the studio of reknowned granite sculptor Hiroto Sakamoto, drove us from Issahaya to Saza, both in the prefecture of Nagasaki. I was dazzled by the beauty of the coastline.

Sakamoto-san’s studio is a huge, airy barnlike building, and beside it stands yet another of the Matsui’s handmade tipis.

Inside, timbers had been set up as benches for the show.

Amana’s sound check, backlit by a beautiful afternoon.

Naomi, the coordinator, and some friends making wristlets of hemp string and one bead each, for attendees to wear after paying admission to the show.

The book booth, featuring many works on Native Americans, outside of the studio turned theatre. Soon craft and food booths would join them, including one where I sold my books and CDs.

The sculptor Hiroto Sakamoto, laughing while I photograph him. Later we would see albums of photos of his large public works, including a whale fountain in a city square, a grieving mother and child for a war memorial, and some abstract pieces.

The Sakamoto home, where Hiroto lives with his wife and two children. The Amana band and I were guests there that night.

Hiroto’s wife made the carp windsocks outside their home, one for each family member.

Near their home and studio stood a Shinto jinja (shrine).

The members of the jinja commissioned Hiroto to make this traditional style monument outside of the temple.

Hiroto showed me the dragon he’d carved into the back side of it.

In the evening, candle lanterns made from glass bricks lined the path to the studio.

About seventy people came to the show, enjoying the booths outside as well as the performances.

Miho, a beautiful young vocalist, played first with her band. She offered powerful spiritual chants to the earth and the heavens.

I was on next, with songs from my three CDs. When I first got on stage, everyone giggled, and, for a moment, I couldn’t figure out why. Then I saw the Sakamoto’s small dog standing beside me, looking somewhat bemused. I said, “Where’s your drum?”

A friendly lady named Teresa, who had lived in California, volunteered to translate to the audience for me, as long as she didn’t have to stand on stage.

Last up, the Amana band, with Sachiho radiant in white.

The next morning Hiromi, Sachiho, Yoko (the Amana band) and I had breakfast in the cafe on the temple grounds at Issahaya. The sky was clear, and we decided to take a walk after we packed. The temple is famous for its rock carvings, and the forest and river are lovely. I love to walk each day, and my two favorite destinations are shrines of nature and shrines of culture, so I am in heaven.

Chef and kitchen of the cafe. Really good food at the temple cafe!

Sachiho had a flier about the landing of the Hokule’a in Nagasaki. Already she had sung at a ceremony honoring the Hokule’a in Okinawa just before flying to Kumamoto for the Rainbow Festival.

We begin our walk up a steep trail beside the temple, bowing before shrines as we went.

We pass what is probably a small cemetery, with rows of standing stones, but they are shaped more like Shiva lingams from India.

There’s a monument of a warrior or guardian spirit.

There’s a sort of obelisk.

And a stone monument with a candle lantern on top.

We see the first of a series of rock carvings, the Two Hundred Disciples of the Buddha, said to have been carved as a memorial after the Tomikawa River flooded, killing people who had been farming along its banks.

During our walk, we see many more of the Disciples:

We consult a map posted in the forest of the trails in the area, showing the location of the temple and the rocks carved with images of the Disciples.

We walk to a small, old temple deep in the forest said to contain hidden art treasures.

We walk across the suspension bridge and look down on the gorge with the river rushing below.

We are astonished to see a tiny land crab crawling in the forest floor.

The dam near the temple, and its waterfall.

Before we leave, we thank Miso Tachibana, the monk who cares for the temple, for inviting us to play at the festival, for arranging for our supper and breakfast at the cafe, and for lodging us in the comfortable bungalow where we spent the night. We even got to bathe at a nearby hot springs after our supper. Altogether it was gorgeous!