Inside the tomb of Soga no Umako
After communing with Emperor Jimmu at Kashihara Jingu, I went to see the ancient rock tomb of Ishi Butai not far away. Inside the tomb I was taking a picture when a friend took a picture of me. Down in the righthand corner appears a round disc of light. What on earth can it be? It certainly wasn’t any object in the tomb, so it could only be one of two things: a marvellous piece of trick light effects by a digital camera, or the soul of Soga no Umako (551?-626), who was buried in the tomb. In Japanese tama is ball but is also a homonym for spirit (as in tamashii) and I’ve been told that traditionally in China souls are thought to be round and bright! Apparently there are many ghost stories or films where the soul comes whirling out after people, borne along by the wind…. I’ve also read that this is the traditional Shinto view of the soul too. ‘They may move in the air in the shape of balls shining in the darkness,’ says Joseph Spae in Shinto Man page 37. Spooky!
Timothy Takemoto of the Shinto mailing list blew up the disc, and below, amazingly, is what the soul actually looks like close up…. Wow, the colours! Maybe the psychedelic movement of the 1960s had it right all along….
To start with, John, congratulations with your new green shinto blog.
The mystery object is a startling new phenomenon seemingly related to digital photography. In the past I have made 1000’s of pictures with Kodak TriX film and never got such a spiritual intruder. But since I use a digital camera, my pictures sometimes are illuminated by these “aura”-spots, specially when the object is a sacred event.
Nikon has tried to explain the phenomenon scientifically as a humid particle just in front of the lens, but an explanation based on ESP might be more plausible.
Maybe it is not necessary to explain it, it is just there.
Thanks for sharing.
Paul
maybe there are many versions of what can be the light. and maybe we can choose one of it, without fix only one right.
i very much enjoyed imagining the souls listening to rock & roll of 60s.
my soul would irradiates a pink floyd song too
shine on diamond soul :)
Thanks, Michele…. Shine on, you crazy diamond!
That’s a great discovery.
Most time I don’t think verry highly of this kind of photo, but there is absolutely no reason for John D. to photoshop a human soul or something. ^^’
Indeed, the humid particles theory is quite dubious, since there is no reason fot them to live in ghettos in sacred places. You can find water everywhere, and water is connecting everything in the world, or even in the universe, since there is a lot of water in the galaxy just not in it’s liquid state. And so, rather than saying hippies were right all along, ancient, primitive humans, who saw the human body as macrocosmic thing, and thus tried to live a Cosmic Life, were right all along.
The problem is nowadays, only ascetes do that… almost.
I have read on Tsubaki Grand Shrine of America’s web site, that Aikidô was considered as Misogi itself by Ueshiba Morihei, and that he worshipped the Great Kami Sarutahiko as the embodiment of Nature as a whole. According to them, Ueshiba-senseï worshipped him every morning with his martial practice. So maybe average martial artist can try and live cosmic life too by religious and martial practice.