|
This Mission was essentially in three stages: getting there, being there, and returning. Everything is considered in relation to the planet whole system. The land of Altai in the most remote heart of central Asia is locally referred to as Kin Altai," Altai, the navel of the Earth," and as the "Pearl of Siberia. "And that it is. Politically known as the Autonomous Republic of Altai, a member of the Russian Federation, a normal human being will find out that you cannot actually get to Altai by the usual means of train or airplane. In today's world, this inaccessibility in itself defines some of the nature and meaning of Altai. On Cosmic Moon 24, we left Portland bound for Altai via Japan, the staging point of our Journey. Arriving in Tokyo on Cosmic Moon 25, we met Maria of PAN Brazil, and along with Mitsy of PAN Japan, we traveled with too many bags by an assortment of trains to the Japanese resort town of Izu, where a two day Seminar had been arranged, The Campaign for the New Time. Attended by some seventy kin at the newly constructed Philosophical Retreat Center, the Seminar was for the purpose of initiating PAN Japan into the three year strategy of the Campaign for the New Time, the second and final stage of effecting the Calendar Change begun by the Seven Years of Prophecy. The event was successfully concluded on the morning of Cosmic 27, by an impromptu session on the mathematical cosmology of the Wavespell and the synchronic order of the Law of Time. On Cosmic Moon 28, Maria and ourselves traveled by train with our host, Hirohide Yanase, to Osaka, for the Day Out of Time festivities. On the evening of our arrival in Osaka, we met with a small group of kin from PAN Japan. The focal point of our day Out of Time was the concurrent Shinto festival, the Tenjin Matsuri. This event is one of the three major Shinto festivals in Japan and is attended by one and a half million people. Yanase-san wisely saw to inform the organizers of this major event of the Day of Out of Time and of the efforts to revive the notion of festival to its original meaning on this special day. Because of Yanase-san, Bolon Ik and myself were the special guests of the ancient ceremony at the Tenjin Shinto Temple Shrine which inaugurates the more public part of the event. Tenjin is the name of the "Sky God," and the purpose of the ceremony is to invoke the beneficence of the great Sky God. Only some 50 people are in attendance at this ceremony which is a performance of ancient court music and dance. This year, for the first time in 80 years, the ceremony features the bringing out of the branch of the sacred tree, the Sakana. As we sat for the hour and a half event so perfectly and precisely performed, I meditated on the relationship of the Sky God to the distant land of Altai - had the Japanese people, too, originally come from Altai? The ancient ceremony concluded, the great public event began with colorful floats and a parade that has its stunning conclusion on the water. For over two hours in the evening we floated on the waters of the River O, treated to fireworks and music on passing boats, including the haunting temple music know as gagaku along with the court dance known as bugaku...how strange and dreamlike to experience these ancient forms on the river in the midst of the modern metropolis of Osaka. The next day, New Years Day of the Year of the Yellow Magnetic Seed, we traveled by train and car to Mt. Fuji, where, high up the mountain near a lake, we met with local officials to plan for a major Day Out of Time event in 2004. We then drove to the site of a natural amphitheater and recording studio, "Eggs and Shep," where, the day before, a Cosmic Peace Day Music Festival had occurred. We continued the campfire event by performing with improvisational flute and dance, as well as being treated to some modern dance and guitar, by a musician named Zen. Eggs and Shep Studio is considered to be a major recording center for contemporary Japanese pop artists, and a welcome haven in nature, far outside of the teeming streets of Tokyo. Early the next morning we walked through the misty Mountain forest - one last touch of nature before descending again by car and train to Tokyo. Japan today is a culture in mutation. Its once proud economy ebbs lower every day.Far Eastern bastion of the G-7, Japan is now in search of its identity.The regimented look of the salary man and office girl is rapidly giving way to a generation of Japanese who dye their hair orange and look more like tattooed hippies than corporate job seekers. As the big companies like Toshiba are cutting jobs, violent crime is now an everyday phenomenon. All of this is in striking contrast to how it was just six brief years ago when we first started visiting Japan. One event then stood out, and now, in retrospect, seems like an ominous signal of the coming decline of technocratic Japan, and that was the Aum sect nerve gas bomb set off in a Tokyo subway station. Murder has become common place, and suicide is on the increase - 30,000 per year according to Newsweek magazine. In our analysis, Japan is experiencing the full deleterious effects of the 12:60 frequency which it adopted to with a complete abandon. Now 128 years of Gregorian civilization show Japan to be coming apart at the seams. These impressions and reflections deeply move us, and on the night of Magnetic Moon 3 we make a presentation of the Campaign for the New Time at the Nakano Zero public theater and performing hall to some five hundred people. Our talk is preceded by a performance by artist Hibeki of the traditional drum - a powerful reminder of the true integrity of a traditional art in a contemporary setting. Our message is plain and simple: complete the Thirteen Moon Calendar change by 2004 - the return to natural time is the only hope for Japan if it wishes to preserve its authentic spiritual and cultural identity. On the fourth day of the Magnetic moon we are joined by the two other members of the Altai Mission, Mother Tynetta Muhammad, "Mother of the Faithful" of the Nation of Islam, and journalist, Rosalind Muhammad. Maria Negishi of PAN Brazil is unable to join the mission because of visa difficulties. We all join members of PAN Japan for a "Farewell Lunch." Once again we exhort PAN Japan to the Campaign for the New Time, to spread the message to the people and to prepare for the great changes of 2004-2005. In a loving and sweetly emotional atmosphere, we depart. Japan, which had withstood the conquest of the great Kublai Khan, was vanquished seven centuries later by America and the atomic bomb. Now this great Asian nation is at another cross-roads - will it continue its nose-dive into technocratic oblivion, or rise like a Phoenix from its own ashes into the New Time of the Thirteen Moons of Peace?
> > n e x t > > < < b a c k < < |
Altai,
Sacred Land, Living Culture Report 