Being Called

There is a phrase in Japanese: yobareru, “to be called.”

In spiritual circles it is everyday talk, but behind the sensibility that gave birth to it lies a world of its own, and that world rests on one fact: Japanese has no subject. The phrase carries, richly, the world the Japanese language brings into being. And when I think about it, I am one of those who have walked the Japanese archipelago for many years, going wherever I was called.

No one told me to go, and it was not my own will either. Before I knew it, I had come of my own accord to a place, stood in its wind, and offered prayers to the gods who dwell there. Before I knew it, I had been given my mission, and become aware of the purpose for which I was born into this world, into this age. If I must name a teacher, it was the gods and the places themselves.

However far you go in Japan, it lives by this sensibility, and it is as far from the sensibility of a world built on the subject, the world of a language like English, as if heaven and earth had been turned upside down. Since Meiji, for 160 years now, the Japanese have lost this power that is Japan’s own.

If you are called, there is a right time. In a sense, a journey begins at the moment you are called, and so I wait until a place, or a god, calls me.

Among these, there are a few places in Japan that call me back again and again. One of them is Izumo Taisha.

It is the shrine of Okuninushi, the foremost of the kunitsukami, the gods of the land, who as “the Great Master of the Land” commands a powerful presence in the ancient myths. At some point I began to visit, and for the past six years or so I have gone every year.

Each time I go to Izumo Taisha, my back straightens and my heart is washed clean. Then, after a while, the chance to go comes again, and I make my way back. I feel like the gods from every corner of the country who, once a year, at the Kamiari Festival held at Izumo Taisha, look forward to meeting Okuninushi.

Perhaps the Kamimukae ritual, held on Inasa Beach in ancient times, began with people who had been called gathering from the sea to Izumo, entering the shrine, and talking over the making of the land and other matters.

This time, a friend of mine was called to Izumo Taisha, and I went with her. Ever since she was called, she says, her mind had been filled with nothing but Izumo. And then the day she had longed for arrived.

When I visit Izumo Taisha with others, I pass on what an elder of Izumo once told me. City dweller or not, I ask them to keep, for several days beforehand, the taboo against eating four-legged animals, and we go to pray early in the morning, body and mind honed sharp together.

All so that someone who has been called may savor to the full the chance to be welcomed by the gods of Izumo.

At the right time, with a spirit honed sharp, one is quietly welcomed. By the time the visit ends, my companion’s face has brightened all at once. Each time, I feel deeply how great the power of the Izumo gods is to receive their guests.

Of course, we eat no breakfast, and the night before, no one gets carried away by the trip and eats whatever they please. Hearing this, most companions hang their heads. So afterwards I plan a meal of the fine seafood of the Izumo peninsula. Whether it is the power of the Izumo gods I cannot say, but once they hear there will be good seafood, most of them keep the rule.

Then, as we make our way around Lake Shinji, I talk about how the gods come from the sea, the myths of Izumo, the origin of the sacred straw ropes, and the world of ancient Izumo.

Doing this again and again, with no one to teach me, I have gradually come to feel that yobareru is an open word, and a deeply Japanese one.

Where will I be called next?
That, as they say, only the gods know.