I was just up in northern Colorado visiting the Shambhala Mountain Center. Though the land was glorious and the people wonderful I found myself missing home and realizing that the life Mikey and I created here does not prompt a strong need to "get away." The highlight of the trip - the discovery of the Kami way and the shintos they made a tradition of creating - will leave a lasting impression on me.
The founder of the Shambalah Center, a reincarnate Buddhist teacher, enshrined on the land a deity or goddess of the sun named Amaterasu Omikami. The Buddhist view extends that humans, by way of living off the solar energy in plants (to name one dependence on the sun), are solar cells that store solar energy. The deity therefore plays a daily role in the lives of humanity. In Japanese style and tradition this deity was enshrined in a shinto which is high up on a mountain and viewable by those who make the journey. The reason that this shrine was my favorite part of the trip is that it exposed me to the Kami way, which is the way of the indigenous racial Japanese. The Kami people enshrined deities when they were identified in nature.
There was an undeniable feeling on that mountain top. More significant to me and to the land work here at Holy Scrap was the notion of repairing the land to such a degree that a deity would wish to inhabit it; that this would be noticed and undeniable; and that a shinto be deservedly placed right here in Truth or Consequences. This is a myth that I am pledging to carry with me and allow myself to be inspired by. It is a wonderful reminder of our role in the making of what is sacred.
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