Today I spent the afternoon and evening at Kurkku’s compound, meeting amazing people, and doing a performance and booksigning in their bookstore. When Koki Aso and I arrived, the bookstore had stacked Japanese Living on the Earth books, all three of my CDs and organic cotton Living on the Earth t-shirts on a table out front, and the staff members were decked out in Living on the Earth t-shirts, too.

I was interviewed by Wakana Mori and Keiko Kamijo, sprightly staff members of Ecocolo, a magazine for eco-babes under forty. They said, “Our readers live in cities. What can they do if they can’t be permaculture farmers in the country?” I pointed out what I learned from permaculture teacher Toby Hemenway: City dwellers create a much smaller ecological footprint than country dwellers. They use less petroleum to commute and to have goods delivered to them. They live in smaller spaces and therefore use less energy to heat and cool. They are also more likely to live close to people of like mind.

But, what, they wanted to know, did I specifically recommend to their readers. I said, “There are three things. First, take care of yourself with organic natural foods, exercise, natural products, sustainable living, creative pursuits, and whatever helps you find serenity. You will need all the strength you can muster to deal with what is ahead in your life. Secondly, you vote with your money every time you spend, so patronize earth- and labor-friendly businesses and avoid the others. Thirdly, get involved in saving the environment and the social fabric around you. Do whatever you can. I think that political action is simply resistance to the super wealthy who are trying to take control of the resources that rightfully belong to all people. The advantage of the people is that we are numerous. If you can organize people, do it. If what you can do is more direct service to the people or the environment, do that. One person can make a huge difference in this world.” I told them about Jaime Lerner’s visionary green city planning in Curitiba.

Clothing designer Aya Noguchi loves Living on the Earth and wants to create an organic cotton fabric printed with illustrations from the book, and make clothes inspired by the patterns in the book. Of course I say yes. I’m looking forward to wearing her creations when I perform!

I did wear Simple Shoes when I performed tonight. They make very comfortable and sustainable shoes with soles of recycled materials and uppers made of hemp. I now happily own a pair of their hiking boots, their clogs and their thongs, which I’d been admiring at Whole Foods for quite some time before coming to Japan.

Soshisha Ltd. began publishing Living on the Earth in 1972.  The Soshisha staff brought me two copies, hot off the press, of the brand new 17th printing of the book.  Yoko Suzuki, of their sales department, told me after my show, they have sold over 37,000 copies to date, a respectable number for Japan, and will continue to publish it for as long as they remain in business.  Who tells an author that?  Nobody.

I am super pleased to see again Mr. Masao Kase, the former chairman of the company, now retired, thirty-two years after the book tour Soshisha arranged for me that was my first trip to Japan. Mr. Kase died not long after that meeting – I was very moved that he took the time to see me again after my long absence from Japan. 

The Kurkku staff and I together planned a menu for my show and booksigning event: brown rice mochi with sweet or savory toppings, plus ginger tea. Their gourmet kitchen has outdone itself, creating bite-sized handmade mochi with pumpkin paste and a black sesame/miso paste for toppings, and a multi-spice, sweet ginger tea. That’s Chef Hisae Daikokuya placing pastes on the mochi, and cafe service staff member Jun Nagamori behind her.

Jun elegantly plated the mochi and ginger tea on small wooden trays.

I sang nine original songs and told stories from my life, particularly those related to the creation of Living on the Earth. Tomomi translated for the audience. After the show we had a question and answer period. One woman asked me, “When do you experience oneness with the Universe?” I said, “Right now I’m feeling at one with the Universe, because I am loving all of you and you are loving me. God is love, and when we love, God is flowing through us.”

The Kurkku staff estimated 90 people in the audience. Standing room only! Some of the people look rather dubious about my having photographed them, but after the show, many brought me books and CDs to sign, told me how important my book had been in their lives, and some brought me art objects and CDs they had made. I would have happily spent the rest of the evening in conversation with any one of them. I was having a peak experience.

After the show, I briefly met record producer Takeshi Kobayashi, the visionary and benefactor of Kurkku and Artist Power Bank, a handsome and soft-spoken man. I am grateful that he and his staff made this day possible for me. It was a dream come true.

Kamakura’s municipal symbol on its man hole covers. Hayama is a suburb of Kamakura, a famous beach resort town an hour by train from Tokyo.

Koki Aso leads me down a back street in Hayama to the beautiful white sand beach where the Emperor’s family summer home stands. It’s an easy walk from Koki and Ayako’s house. The direct route is faster, but the back streets are more peaceful. The people who live there don’t own cars. They use the excellent public transportation and enjoy the quiet. Fancy that!

The back street fronts a river with ducks, egrets and many fish in it, and across the street from the river, I see a small natural foods store with a charming marine life mural on its sign.

Further along the back street is a spring, evidently available to anyone wanting to fill a container with spring water.

The beach, lovely as any in Hawaii, is practically deserted in the cool October breeze.

A Shinto shrine to an ocean god, complete with torii, stands on a rock in front of the Emporer’s summer home.

I admire a forty year old bridge over the river.

Near Koki’s house is a Toyota dealership with colorful flags. For reasons neither of us can fathom, they are decorated with images of monkeys soaking in hot springs. Until I saw these flags, I had no idea monkeys visited hot springs, but now I realize I have another spirit animal besides the rabbit: a monkey who loves to soak.

In Masanobu Fukuoka’s book The Road Back to Nature, he writes, “The whole body unwinds. As the muscles relax, you become comfortable and free. The heart, too, loosens up and relaxes. You become free and uninhibited. This loosening of the body is, I believe, the road to oneness with the Buddha. It is a shortcut to the Buddha, which is why I’m always going over to Dogo [hot springs] with the excuse that “Zazen is fine, too, but one can also attain perfect serenity by stretching out at a spa.”

Hand made sign at Kurkku’s organic restaurant

Today Koki and I took the train into Tokyo to meet with the staff of Kurkku and Artist Power Bank to discuss the two upcoming events: a story and music show with booksigning on Wednesday night in their bookstore, and a two-day retreat at a mountain campground near the town of Doshi.

The staff shows us the three stores and two restaurants that make up their complex. that’s Koki Aso on the left. Beautiful Tomomi will translate for me when I do my show. Lovely Junko, on the right, is vice president of Artist Power Bank and coordinator for all of the activities I will do with Kurkku.

Here’s their spacious, gorgeous bookstore, The Library. The building was created of sustainable materials and designed specifically to house Kurkku and Artist Power Bank.

In The Library, a display of bookmarks, candles and books on a beautifully worn antique table. The Library specializes in sustainability and art books for adults and children.

Here’s their earth-friendly goods store, The Green Shop and its creator. Soccor balls from recycled materials, clothing, accessories and shoes of organic cotton, recycled matierials and hemp , durable natural cookware, everything longlasting and of elegant design.

In The Green Shop, you can buy wallets and tote bags made from recycled waterproof truck tarps made of bright colored, fashionably distressed materials.

The Green Shop also carries a line of stationery and gift bags made from waterproof nautical maps, which, because of changing coastlines, are discarded and replaced with new maps every few years, creating an ideal material for stylish recycling.

Here’s their gardening store, featuring unusual potted plants suitable for city living, plus small scale organic gardening supplies and equipment.

Above the gardening store is their cafe, and above that, a roof garden with a gazebo. I asked if anyone had been married there, and the staff said no, but suggested maybe I would like to coordinate some green weddings for them.

And here is the elegant restaurant where we had our meeting, with hand-crafted glass and ceramic gifts for sale up front. The wood wall covering was recycled from a partially burnt building.

I discovered a group of highly intelligent, creative and friendly people working at Kurkku and Artist Power Bank, both organizations founded and funded by reknowned record producer Takeshi Kobayashi for the purpose of spreading environmental principles and information to help save the planet. I would get to know them all better in the week to come.

Koki Aso and his beautiful bride Ayako, who he has known since high school, live in a traditional Japanese house in Hayama, on the outshirts of Kamakura, walking distance from the beach. They just got married last Saturday. He’s a journalist and she’s a dental hygienist. Like me, they are both born in the sign of Taurus in an Ox year. We are earth people. I will be their guest for the remainder of my stay, other than a weekend at Doshi (a mountain camping retreat) and a week in Okinawa.

On my first day after returning from Ohshima, I meet again with Takashi Kikuchi, the editor of Hachi Hachi (eight eight), a permaculture magazine, and Maki Ozawa, who is interpreting for him while he interviews me. We sit in Aso-san’s airy living room.

There are signs of Koki’s art- and nature-loving being all over the house:

Bag on the kitchen wall: “Recycle to save our birds, animals, children and earth.”

Towel by the bathroom sink: “No music, no life,” hanging from a piece of driftwood.

His kitchen chair, a log section with a Kona coffee bag on it.

Outside, a surfboard next to a bonsai. A perfect metaphor for Aso-san’s life.

The old style hibachi in the living room.

Koki blows through a section of bamboo to fire up the hibachi, and he grills brown rice mochi (rice popover) for me. He’s a very good cook of traditional Japanese food, and makes his own miso.

Ayako pickles eggplant, cucumber, carrot, onion and daikon in a large ceramic crock full of a doughy brine of rice flour, bonito flakes, beer, kombu (kelp), chili, garlic and salt which she kneads daily. They tell me their grandparents’ generation prepared these foods, but that few modern Japanese do.

When the mochi is puffy and soft, Koki wraps it in nori (sea vegetable paper) and adds a little shoyu (soy sauce) and Eagle-Crow chili sauce, the Japanese Tabasco. Delicious!

On our last day in Ohshima, Tammy, Mayumi and I use the tickets to an oceanfront hot springs that Mika so kindly gave us. Enchan drove over to take us to the hot springs and then to the pier. Here we are: me, Mika’s son Moto, Mayumi, Enchan and her daughter Mani, and Mika, in front of Mana’s house.

We present our tickets at the hot springs.

Enchan and Mani in the hot springs pool overlooking the sea.

We stop to say goodbye at the house Mr. Aoyama is building. It’s almost done.  Aoyama-san is at the door, Kaori is upstairs, and Tomo dances in the front yard.

It’s the same ship we arrived on: The Camellia, named for Ohshima’s famous winter blooms.

To our surprise, a group of our new friends come to the pier to bid us goodbye. That’s Mika’s older son, plus Fusako Ogata, Mayumi, little Moto, Edo, who did the sound for our concert, me, and Mika.

Hiro, who met Mayumi and me when we arrived and took us to the mountain hot springs, came down to wish us goodbye. She’s on the left, then Enchan, Edo, Moto, Mika and Fusako. We have tears in our eyes, waving goodbye from the ship.

Then our ship sails off and Ohshima falls into the distance.

Mayumi is delighted to discover two of her friends on board the ship. That’s Foxy, Mayumi, Miya and me.

Daytime travel is in comfortable seats and takes less than four hours. We were told a typhoon was blowing, but I only experienced the most gentle rocking of the ship, truly a pleasant experience. Mayumi packed the persimmons and Asian pear that Taro gave us, and cinnamon toast she prepared from the loaf of bread that Fusako baked for our onboard snack.

The harborlights of Yokohama, including a huge ferriswheel, greet our return.

In the forest outside of Moto Machi, Ohshima, Tammy and I visited Art Space Whitehead, the studio/loft home of Fusako and Katsuyoshi Ogata. Fusako attended my show at Oasis the night before and invited us. She greeted us warmly with a freshly home-baked rye bread, and showed us around the studio. I enjoyed looking at Mr. Ogata’s abstract paintings and assemblages of found objects.

Typical of an urban art loft, the studio is one two-story-high room and the living space is at one end, with two floors connected by stairs.

A reed boat in the Ogata’s front yard (maybe the same one that inspired the grass hut built in the forest? Was Mr. Ogata involved in building the hut? I didn’t quite get the story.)

I bid Katsuyoshi and Fusako Ogata a fond farewell.

Mana (center) leaves today for two weeks in Dharmasala, India, to work for the benefit of Tibetan refugee children. Tammy, Mayumi and I gathered with Mana for breakfast before Tammy drove her to the airport.

I am amazed at all of the interesting ferments that Mana creates—wines, pickled vegetables, fermented fruits. Mana explained the health benefits of each of her concoctions and offered us samples of the viva fruit.

Mana’s friend Mika comes over to take us hiking in the forest. Mika sells flower essences—homeopathic preparations of water inwhich flowers have soaked, and an interesting array of non-floral substances, including water inwhich crop circle grains and grasses have soaked, and water through which whales have swum. Mika presented me with a tiny cobalt glass pendant full of this last substance and says it opens the heart. She also gave us tickets to an oceanfront hot springs pool and a copy of her fascinating catalogue. I give her my CD.

The forest turns out to be the same one I visited while being photographed for the magazine interview on Monday. I didn’t have my camera then, and I’m thrilled to come back camera in hand. We walk to an ancient Japanese style rice straw hut, built by a local artist and a troup of children in commemoration of the sailing of a ancient style reed boat that landed at Ohshima last year.

Magnificent gnarled trees line our pathway.

We visit a temple to a healing goddess in the middle of the forest.

The Oasis Cafe’s exterior sign.

Junko Aoyama and her husband own and run the Oasis Cafe, Inn and handcraft shop in Moto Machi, Ohshima’s largest town. A dear friend of Mana’s, Junko was easily persuaded to host a dinner party and concert for me and Mayumi. Her husband, an artist and carpenter, created all of the furniture and interior decoration for the cafe and inn, as well as an impressive collection of bonsai in the cafe’s garden and ALL of Junko’s clothing. Junko is a master chef and she set an unforgettable meal before us.

Exterior of the Oasis Cafe

Interior of the Oasis Cafe

The dinner included grilled lotus root, slices of kabocha pumpkin, rice balls with ume plum and nori, grilled peppers, a vegetable stir fry with aburage (deep fried tofu), the grilled reef fish that Taro brought, and deep fried fish dumplings and mashed Ohshima potato. Next to me is Tammy, then another Mayumi, recently back from visiting Hawaii, next to her, a friend of hers, then Taro and our Mayumi.

In the red bowls, sea snail soup with sea vegetables. The trick is to remove the tasty sea snail from the shell with a toothpick without its slender tail breaking off inside the shell. Mana can do it perfectly, resulting in a four ringed spiral of snail.

Mayumi opened the show with four deeply felt songs.

I sang (and danced) songs from What Living’s All About, using the karaoke CD from the master mix behind my voice and guitar.

Tomo, who works for the Aoyamas, gave us the wildest applause.

Everyone enjoyed the show. That’s Junko, the chef/owner, seated on the right.

Mana selects a CD of Taro singing and playing shamisen to which she will dance.

For four years now, Mana has been studying traditional Japanese dance with Taro, and she invited me, Mayumi and Tammy to come with her to Taro’s house for her lesson. Mayumi, who has studied traditional Japanese dance for many years, was particularly thrilled to have this opportunity, and we all instantly fell in love with Taro.

Taro welcomed us warmly, and agreed to allow me to photograph her while she danced six dances for us. Mayumi said her dances reflected life on Ohshima; fisherman rowing, farmers planting and harvesting, the wind and the sea. She marveled at the perfection of every gesture in Taro’s dancing. Later Taro led us in Obon (ancestor worship festival) dance, and afterward would not let us leave without three large persimmons, a huge Asian pear, an offer of tea, and an offer of freshly caught fish. Mayumi and I declined everything but the fruit, but invited her to come to our performance that evening at the Oasis Cafe.

A slide show of Taro dancing 

Mana later told us Taro’s story. Taro was a widely respected geisha and the daughter and best student of a geisha famous throughout Japan for her dancing, singing and shamisen playing. The house where she now lives was once the geisha house where she and other geisha lived. At 74, she represents the last generation of geisha in Japan. When she was young, she charmed the husbands of many women in Ohshima. Four years ago, after her danna (patron and lover), the greatest fisherman in Ohshima, died, in desperation she took a job picking up trash at the public parks. The women who still hated her would throw rocks at her while she was working. She became dirty and bedraggled, and contemplated ritual suicide (hara kiri) with a large knife. Then Mana came into her life.

Mana, too, had been devastated by an unhappy marriage that ended suddenly, and she understood Taro’s pain. She persuaded Taro to teach her to dance, and at the same time, found other students and opportunities to share Taro’s tremendous cultural knowledge. She brought Taro to Hawaii to teach Obon dancing at the Buddhist temples. Taro was transformed by this journey and the love and appreciation showered upon her by her students. She got rid of the big knife and rededicated herself to her dance and music. Mana organized an art exhibition of Taro’s fabulous collection of handmade art treasure kimonos.

The former geisha house where Taro still lives, which survived a big neighborhood fire and is now the only traditional style house in her area of Ohshima.

To everyone’s astonishment, Taro attended Mayumi’s and my concert at the Oasis Cafe that night. No one had ever seen her at a public event before. Mayumi asked Taro for a CD of her songs, so she can practice playing shamisen with them, and Taro obliged her. It is Mayumi’s dream to play shamisen for Taro and Mana’s dancing and to tour Japan with them. I said, “What about Hawaii and California?”

Taro, Mayumi and Mana at the Oasis Cafe dinner and concert. Taro brought the rare and very freshly caught reef fishes she had offered us, and Junko, the owner of the cafe, cooked them up crisp and tender for everyone to enjoy.

Map of Ohshima tile set into a Moto Machi sidewalk.

Mayumi and I took a walk through Moto Machi, Ohshima’s largest town, and discovered a few of its treasures.

Mayumi led me up a steep staircase (so steep there were ropes to hang onto) to pray at the local Shinto shrine.

We passed a geodesic dome tea house that also sells handmade gifts.

Like Puna, Hawaii, where I have lived most of the past five years, Ohshima recognizes its active volcano as central to its identity.

This wonderful ancient carved stone stands in a public park.

Also like Hawaii, Ohshima loves the underwater world, as witnessed by this sidewalk tile.