A Little Japanese Magic

In my lifetime, I've had a few brushes with the strange and the possibly supernatural. No, I've never seen Bigfoot, UFO or Jesus' face on a grilled cheese sandwich. I believe this is the only life we have to live and the only reason we're here is from a series of 1 in a crap-zillion coincidences and mutations. I also believe in possibility. The universe is enormous, like, mind-splittingly ridiculously enormous with who knows how many galaxies, solar systems, etc etc.

We barely understand how the human psyche works. We work incredibly hard to find answers to everything: that's just a part of being human. We need patterns and explanations. In essence, we're basically 5 year olds, constantly asking "Why." And if we don't get an answer, we're like college students, pulling stuff out of the air to satisfy our theory.

That said, I had a bit of a startling weekend. It being the new year, I decided to take a little trip to Hiraizumi again, this time revisiting Motsuji Temple to get some atmosphere and see the pond in full winter mode.

Motsuji is absolutely beautiful, no matter what season. It was early autumn last time I went there, just before the leaves turned. This time, snow covered the trees and terraces where there used to be irises and thick grass. I spent plenty of time walking around the pond, but finally the cold started getting to me so I decided to warm up a little in the museum before heading back to the train.

After all these months living just 30 minutes away from Motsuji, I finally started to learn about the legend behind the land.

The first thing you see when you enter the museum is a large panel in a glass case, detailing the legend of Mostuji. Next to the text is a copy of an old painting of a priest looking uphill at a white stag with black horns.

The text was all in Japanese, so I couldn't read most of it, but I know "white deer" when I see it.

Here's the story. In 850, a priest of the Tendai Buddhist sect, was traveling around Tohoku when he became lost in the thick mountain fog. He couldn't see where he was going and was afraid to take another step for fear of becoming more lost.

He looked down to find the path and instead saw some white deer hairs by his feet. He followed the trail of white hairs until at last he found a white stag in his path. As he approached the deer, it vanished into the fog and instead, an old man appeared and told the priest, "This is a sacred place. If you build a temple here, Buddhist law will spread."

The priest believed the deer and old man were the incarnation of the Buddha of healing, Yakushi. He followed the old man's advice and indeed, the temple complex complete with its beautiful temples, many halls and pagodas, became the hub of Buddhism in the area for generations. It survived renovations and a few fires, but in 1226 it all burned to the ground and was never rebuilt in full. It was revived for public access and later was made a World Heritage Site in 2011.

So where do I tie in with all this? Well, when I was still in middle school, I was riding the bus home one day. I looked out the window towards the woods that surrounded my neighborhood. I liked looking for the herds of deer that lived in the woods. I even would go walking through the woods to find them and run with them for fun. That day, I was amazed that one of the deer was bright white! I knew about albinism in wild animals and was astounded that such a beautiful mutation was living in my back yard! I promised myself I wouldn't tell anyone because I lived in an area where a lot of hunting families took advantage of the local and free cuisine.

I saw the deer a few more times, but by then, hunting season was close...and I never saw it again.

When I was in college, during my senior year, a friend and I had to read a book and produce a project based on author, Marilou Awiakta. It was a shot in the dark, pull a name out of a hat, pick a name of the list sort of draw. In Cherokee, "Awiakta" actually means "eye of the deer," and is a prominent name because in Cherokee beliefs, the white deer is sacred to the tribe.

Finally, in the last few weeks before I left America for Japan, I was having very vivid dreams. I chalked it up to just being excited and stressed, but one dream stuck with me. I was standing on the back porch watching three deer walking around. This isn't terribly unusual: the deer that come through my parents' yard gave zero shits about who was around. But in this dream, out of nowhere came a white deer with black markings on its face. It looked at me with big black eyes and then ran off with the other deer.

After reflecting on all this, I wrote to my friend, Harue, and asked her impressions. She got back to me after a little while and told me I am "the lucky woman" and that white deer are symbols of happiness. I want to find out a little more about the significance of white deer and white animals in general in Japanese folklore and religion.

I'm sure I'll get a little skepticism from some people regarding all this, but really, that doesn't matter to me. What matters is how I feel and frankly, that would be "a little freaked out." But in a good way. I'm a lucky woman, after all.