Learning to Bow
Inside the Heart of Japan
Chapter One
He drew a circle that shut me out --
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in.
-- Edwin Markham, "Outwitted," 1915
I dropped my pants and felt a rush of cool wind against my legs. Slower now, I slid off my remaining clothes to stand naked on the stone path, which felt warm below my feet. The smell of pine from the nearby hills lingered in the air. The sun had just set. It was a midsummer evening, my first night out of Tokyo, and standing bare on this mountain, I soon realized how quiet a body can be.
Unsure, I kept my eyes down, shifting first from my feet now white with the chill, to my clothes, which lay in a shy heap on the grass, my pants still clinging to the shape of my body. Then suddenly I saw the other feet, and the legs. They too were bare. And as I watched them shuffling in my direction, my eye told me what my mind had not time to know: these feet were looking at me.
Stepping back, I met the eyes that the feet belied and for a moment felt locked in a frozen stare. There were twenty-four eyes in all -- open, agape, peering! -- and ... read full excerpt from Learning to Bow ebook
