I saw in the New Year at Onsenji Temple in Gero Onsen, deep in the countryside of Gifu Prefecture and one of Japan’s most famous hot spring towns. The video accompanying this post captures the minutes immediately before and after midnight when people lined up in the cold night air to toll the temple bell, waiting patiently as the old year faded on the long, receding note of the temple bell, each toll marked by a deep, lingering resonance. Of course, this is the modern world, so before we get too poetic, it would be remiss of me not to point out that the patient wait was greatly allieviated by the entertainment provided by each aspiring bell-toller's smart phone.
Gero Onsen sits deep in the mountains of Gifu Prefecture and has been known for its healing and beautifying waters for over a thousand years, but only thanks to a bird. Apparently, a wounded heron bathed in the waters in these parts and was healed, and revealed the hot springs to the otherwise ignorant locals.
The town itself feels suspended between eras – the era of the old bubble economy, post-war "modern" ryokans, ghastly buildings and neon signs set against clean, rock-strewn rivers and forested hills. At its spiritual heart stands Onsenji Temple, traditionally associated with the discovery and protection of the hot springs. On New Year’s Eve, it becomes a place of collective pause (apart from the never ending flicker of smart phones - mine included!).
One amusing incident that speaks to contemporary Japan was a gaggle of Asian immigrants who called up their distant relatives for a live stream on one of their smart phones and exitedly gabbled about what they were getting up to (queueing up to bong the bell).
Meanwhile, in "traditional" Japan, during the New Year (O-Shōgatsu お正月) the act of ringing the temple bell, (known as joya no kane 除夜の鐘), is traditionally performed 108 times, symbolically clearing away the 108 earthly desires that cloud the human heart. Each toll lingers in the cold air, not sharp or celebratory, but deep, slow, and resonant.
I don't know what all those 108 earthly desires are. I have a few, myself, some of which are not fit to be mentioned here and which I shall pass over with a veil of silence, but generally speaking, my earthly desires are just the three biblically sanctioned ones:
"to eat, and to drink, and to be merry,"
Ecclesiastes 8: 16
which I have no intention of relinquishing in this life.
That is why I did not join the queue to bong the bell. I thought it would be better for one of the faithful to bong the bell if only 108 bongs are to be bonged. However, it turned out that nobody gave a damn how many times the bell was bonged and so the bell kept on bonging well past the 108th bong, deep into the early hours of the morning.
Speaking of the bonging, in the video, you can hear the resonance of every bong of the bell stretching into silence, as if time itself briefly loosens its grip.
As midnight passes, the camera lifts from the bell to the winter sky. The night was crisply cold and mostly clear, with a gibbous Moon in Taurus, partially veiled by thin, hazy clouds. No stars are visible in video, but both Orion and Taurus were clearly visible in the sky above Gero Onsen that night, and the Moon majestically sailing through the constellation of Taurus.
The video ends with an image of a Fire Horse, wishing viewers a Happy New Year. The Fire Horse (Hinoe-uma 丙午) occupies a curious place in Japanese cultural memory. Traditionally, Fire Horse years have been considered inauspicious, especially for girls, due to the tragic story of Yaoya Oshichi who happened to be born in 1666, the year of the Fire Horse - and of the Great Fire of London.
In 1683, Yaoya Oshichi fell in love with a handsome young temple acolyte during a great fire in Tokyo that briefly threw them together. Hoping to see him again, she thought that the best thing would be to set another fire, for which she was promptly arrested and tried for arson. As she was still only sixteen years old, the magistrate, a soft hearted and fond old cove, asked her,
"You are just fifteen years old, aren't you?"
At that time, children under the age of sixteen were not subject to the death penalty, so if the magistrate could get her to agree to his question, he could enter her age as "fifteen" in the court document, try her as a minor, and thereby and save her life. She failed to take the hint and replied that she was sixteen.
"At a loss, the magistrate asked her firmly again, "You must be fifteen years old, are you not?" Not taking the hint again, she honestly stated her age as sixteen, leaving the magistrate no alternative but to sentence her to burn at the stake."
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaoya_Oshichi
So it goes.
Happy New Year!
▶️ 3Speak
