SILK COUNTRY

Today a blustery cold rainy day, perfect for a long leisurely trip up beauteous stormy narrow coastal roads to the northwest of the Lake and the thousand-year-old silk-producing region where, as we saw in a long 'factory' tucked among the houses, they still produce by hand the finest master-preferred silk strings for koto, shamisen and the Chinese kokyu, silk strings being prized by the masters of those instruments for the feeling and nuance that silk affords, in contrast to nylon and other synthetics (production involves women running far back and forth wetting twisting corded silken strings that are then boiled in mochi (a special 'sticky' rice) paste, then in turmeric!); there is a cosmic lesson here about the natural being far more precious than the synthetic, ask any old master...thence to nearby Kogenji to visit again my favorite juichi-men kannon (11-headed Kannon) with the crazily smiling 11th head (Shiga Prefecture seems to have cornered most of the great juichi-men kannons as a result of the ancient wars, whence such treasures were sent here for safekeeping and here remained, lucky us)...But every bit as interesting to me was the nearby farmstand, where a genuinely smiling and goodwill-emanating farm woman stood selling mountainblossom honey, red peppers, persimmons, large adzuki beans (very unusual), home-roasted peanuts in the shell, yams, pickles, charcoal and some of the very nicest baskets I have seen in these parts. Bought adzukis and a basket woven of akebi vine, and the lady filled it with persimmons as a gift. As we stood there looking at the various goods, persimmons were raining about us from an old man up in the persimmon tree, who was laughing as he knocked down the bright orange fruits with a long bamboo pole as his wife ran around gathering them up. I helped her save a few from rolling into the roadside stream. Later a moment among the old buildings near the temple presented this haiku:

red-painted roof beam
smoke-blackened kitchen walls
peeling potatoes