Day Four
The Karma of Past Lives:
I slept in the past,
that will never come back,
as though it was the present.
Around my pillow in my dreams
the perfume of orange blossoms floated,
like the fragrance of the sleeves
of the man who is gone.
- Princess Shikishi (13th century)
Okita Sōji...
I've been trying to write this entry for a couple days now. How to I explain my irrational attraction to some historical person I've never met... I have no idea but I can tell you that I doodle his name (沖田 総司) on my notebooks like other girls doodle Edward Cullen's.
Perhaps I should be embarrassed to admit that, but I'm not. Seeing even just his name gives me... Hope? Courage? It gives me a good feeling inside. Like, perhaps he's watching over me and guiding me on this path. That's an encouraging thought because he was a master swordsman, one of the best in all Japan they say. He picked up a sword at the age of nine and was a master of Tennen Rishin-ryu by the age of eighteen. He became one of the founding members of the Shinsengumi, fought bravely for the cause and died of tuberculosis at the age of twenty five; alone.
Perhaps it was the fact that he was said to be kind and of good nature that makes the fact he died young and alone so sad to me. How must it have been for him to be so weak that he could not wield a sword and fight along side his friends? How terrible it must have been to die alone, far from the people you were cared about...
Unable to find proper words to express my feelings for Okita Sōji, I have found some old Japanese poems that may better explain...
Others may forget you, but not I.
I am haunted by your beautiful ghost.
- Empress Yamatohime (7th century)
Following the roads
Of dream to you, my feet
Never rest. But one glimpse of you
In reality would be
Worth all these nights of love.
- Ono no Komachi (9th century)
Separating the man from the myth is difficult. No one now with living memory can tell us who he really was, or what is true and what is false about his life. The information I have access to in English is a mixture of fact and fiction, but I cannot tell which is which. One of the reasons I work so hard at my hiragana/kanji lessons is because I want to be able to read more about that time period to get a clearer view of the man I admire.
Even so, I suppose right now it doesn't matter who was the man and who was the myth. All that matters is inspiration I find in him.
I slept in the past,
that will never come back,
as though it was the present.
Around my pillow in my dreams
the perfume of orange blossoms floated,
like the fragrance of the sleeves
of the man who is gone.
- Princess Shikishi (13th century)
Okita Sōji...
I've been trying to write this entry for a couple days now. How to I explain my irrational attraction to some historical person I've never met... I have no idea but I can tell you that I doodle his name (沖田 総司) on my notebooks like other girls doodle Edward Cullen's.
Perhaps I should be embarrassed to admit that, but I'm not. Seeing even just his name gives me... Hope? Courage? It gives me a good feeling inside. Like, perhaps he's watching over me and guiding me on this path. That's an encouraging thought because he was a master swordsman, one of the best in all Japan they say. He picked up a sword at the age of nine and was a master of Tennen Rishin-ryu by the age of eighteen. He became one of the founding members of the Shinsengumi, fought bravely for the cause and died of tuberculosis at the age of twenty five; alone.
Perhaps it was the fact that he was said to be kind and of good nature that makes the fact he died young and alone so sad to me. How must it have been for him to be so weak that he could not wield a sword and fight along side his friends? How terrible it must have been to die alone, far from the people you were cared about...
Unable to find proper words to express my feelings for Okita Sōji, I have found some old Japanese poems that may better explain...
Others may forget you, but not I.
I am haunted by your beautiful ghost.
- Empress Yamatohime (7th century)
Following the roads
Of dream to you, my feet
Never rest. But one glimpse of you
In reality would be
Worth all these nights of love.
- Ono no Komachi (9th century)
Separating the man from the myth is difficult. No one now with living memory can tell us who he really was, or what is true and what is false about his life. The information I have access to in English is a mixture of fact and fiction, but I cannot tell which is which. One of the reasons I work so hard at my hiragana/kanji lessons is because I want to be able to read more about that time period to get a clearer view of the man I admire.
Even so, I suppose right now it doesn't matter who was the man and who was the myth. All that matters is inspiration I find in him.