The Ahh-ness of Things (or The Sentinel of Mono No Aware)

Shared Space

I stood at the entrance to the Dojo. I took a deep breath & prepared myself. There was another world behind these doors. The place of the way. This was a scared place. Its purpose was to dismantle you from your physical form & rebuild you into a fully functional being. Focus. Direction. Purpose. To mould you with the use of sacred words & precise movements until every thought process, & every sentence you uttered, every muscle you moved was attuned to a greater energy. In line with one another. To move & think as one.

Master Splinter had once asked me if I were religious. I had answered that the only time I had understood the idea of religion was when I walked alone in the woods by the water. And when I entered this hall.

Here in this chapel, one is made whole. You confess through personal sacrifice & grace. There is no judgement, there is only refinement of your weaknesses into usefulness & in return only obedience is asked of you. Obedience to your family; to your clan. Obedience, & secrecy. Here, I was not the gangly, knock kneed tomboy with braces & old lady cat eye glasses. I was made strong & I could hold my own with beings of unnatural strength, twice my size. It was expected of me to do so. Here, when change came over me & my body seemed to betray me & I had no control over my mind; my brothers treated me exactly the same as if they had known all along who I was & what I was to become. 

Leonardo with his gentle, guiding hand like the wind to lead me. Michelangelo; his ever present humor to ease the pain & calm the distress with echoing laughter like a stream through the forest. Raphael to push me beyond my physical expectations of myself; to drive my frustration, to only fuel my desire to grow like a fire. And Donatello to soothe me with encouragement & admiration every step. Like the touch stone that pulls the soil up to root the land. To hold me from washing away in the waves of the sea. They were the four souls of Master Splinter's shinto parables. Harmony. Love. Courage. Wisdom.

I suppose, perhaps through reincarnation, they had transferred the spirits of kami into their presence in this life & had become living go-shintai. I imagine this is why their Master had them place hemp cloth belts around themselves like shimenawa, when they left home. To protect them. To house them, maybe even to protect the world out side from their destructive power. To keep them home.

I know a lot of this doesn't yet make sense. I'm sorry I don't want you to feel the need for a dictionary. I will explain, please give me time. So much happened on this day, I don't want to get ahead of myself. To make it simple for now; the guys are by appearances anthropomorphic turtle-human hybrids. They don't look like kappa at all; kappa yokai are horrifying creatures. They would be more like kame yokai. Turtle men, not goblins. This was more or less the point Donnie had been trying to make to Raphael. That & the belief that kappa have preternatural abilities. Although, I am an alien-human hybrid & I have supernatural abilities. So there's that. We are all human in nature either way; we all share this space together & we are all connected. No one is ever what they seem. Sometimes it takes incredible circumstances to show you what's really what & who's really who.

As I slid the doors open, I was met with the sight of three small children. Their backs to me, standing in a row as they bowed to their Master. They had heard me enter but their already budding levels of obedience kept them from turning their attention from the Teacher. 

***To my readers; a few weeks before this crazy virus took over everything, I began feeling like I couldn't write anymore. Not a block but a strange anxiety. I'm not saying I knew something was going to happen but I can say I felt like I needed to concentrate on my well being. Writing is my escape. Over the past week I have been trying to wrap my mind around the surreal happenings around the world. I know a lot of you are young, I don't mean to scare you; but this is unlike anything anyone still alive has ever seen. I don't mean the virus its self, I mean the global impact. There is a strange sense of peace at the same time as there is panic. Whole cities are on lock down but China can see the sky again, life is returning to the earth as people are falling ill. The canals of Venice are running clear for the first time in anyone's memory as the world's economies simultaneously run dry. Drinking water is hard to come by here in the USA. Water is a big theme in this story but I can't find much to drink. Even with all of this on my mind now, I can write again but I'm still having trouble writing what I intend to be the next entry. This is what came out. Let me know if you're still out there reading. Love, peace, & health to you & your's -bit*