It is funny the way you feel about a song can change according to your moods. A prime example is Circuit Breaker by Royksopp. The last week its rhytm has been feeling somewhat chaotic, just like my own head. Today, as I was walking back from the temple after getting some extra iai practise, I realized how calming the song actually is - there is a form in that chaotic rhytm after all. Needless to say, I had calmed down too.

It was interesting to practise at the temple. The hondô, main hall where the altar etc. are and where we usually do zazen, was free, and as it has the highest ceiling I practised there. It was a bit awkward coming to the temple, as I saw all the lights were off and no one in sight - and I wasn't even 100% sure the jûshoku remembered he had told me that tuesday would be ok (it WAS 1am by the time I had gathered enough courage to ask)... And I really am quite shy in situations like this. So, there I am on the doorstep of a temple, standing in the misty rain and seriously thinking about just going back home (yes, pathetic, I know), but after a short mental discussion on the lines of "shut up and ring the damn bell" I did. The earth didn't swallow me, no fire nor brimstone, nothing else but the sound of jûshoku's voice on the interphone and him coming to open up the place for me. It was somewhat weird seeing him in a T-shirt. *g* And now I also know they have 3 small dogs, and I have this picture in my head about him walking the small noisy dogs in his robes, and I'm not sure how I can listen to him with a straight face next time I see him...

But I digress. (And no, I still can't stop giggling at the said image - someone needs to go to bed soon.)

I also looked the hondô a bit closer than what I've been able to do before. I absolutely love the japanese way of offerings to ancestors - I saw canned coffee (Blue Mountain if I remember correctly, the small light blue cans you can buy from vending machines), Hello Kitty stuff and some wagashi (sakuramochi and maybe warabimochi?) with the more "orthodox" things like incense. I mean, if the dead guy liked Blue Mountain, what would be a better offering? You can also often see the small vending machine type sake cans offered instead of money in shinto shrines. The bookshelf wasn't bad either, but I think I'll wait a while before making any new requests... I was also told that I could use the hondô next week on both tuesday and friday, if I so wanted, and why not. Some extra practise is never bad, and by that time I should have turned in both my essay and the written part of the shinsa, and will have plenty of time for stressing myself to death about the shinsa itself. No, some extra temple/practise time certainly won't hurt, on the contrary. The temple kind of calms me down even as a place - there's a nice smell to it, probably a mixture of incense and tatami.

And if there's something I miss in Japan, it's the smell of tatami matting. I know it does sound a bit weird, I mean, Japan being the country of tatami and all, but at the moment the temple is the only place where I get to be in tatami rooms, while back in Finland I sleep on 2 tatami mats almost every night. I have a hard japanese mattress on top of those 2 tatami, a bed that I love and my boyfriend hates, but it is very good for my lower back that likes to torment me from time to time (I think it's in league with the right leg, or something). In Japan I have only a dusty carpet and a cheap bed with a cheap mattress - not a good exchange, I tell you. I want my tatami back.

Thank gods I can at least burn incense.