FLAVORS OF THE MIST

Up at dawn this morning in a cloudy light, awakened by an odd crunching sound outside that had an inviting succulence to it, like a horse eating a bunch of carrots beneath my bedroom window. I got up and looked out into the dimness and there saw the ghostly shape of the Baron, enjoying a late banquet of the chestnuts that now litter the ground, he having pretty much finished all the acorns.

He would nuzzle around among the spiky hulls, his rack of tines waving in the air, until he found a free chestnut and gobbled it up, then he'd stand stock still savoring the sweetness, crunching the nut hull and all, eyes half closed with the ecstasy, zoning out every bit as deeply as I would over a big chunk of chocolate or cheesecake or apple pie let's not go there, let's get back to the Baron standing lost in the flavors of the mist, his fine antler tines all well sharpened against the tines of fellow suitors that now and then wander into in the Baronetcy as I hear now and then in the clacking of head swords up in the forest.

What puzzles me, though, now that this year the chestnut harvest has sort of slipped by us humans unnoticed in the rain and workdays, is why the bears don't come and get it, given the abundance of acorns and chestnuts we have here. I hear a lot lately about country folks all over Japan being hassled by bears whose natural diet of wild acorns and chestnuts has been seriously diminished by unfavorable weather, so there's frequent news of bears wandering into human habitats like mine for acorns and chestnuts...

The Baron may be noble, but royalty has no value in the wild, than which nothing is truer...

Somehow this brings to mind the happenings on Wall Street...

BEARS WILL BE BEARS

Been hearing in the news about the sudden increase in bear sightings around the country and the commensurate rise in bear attacks, a great number of those sightings being in Shiga Prefecture. The large majority of those sightings and attacks have been on this side of the Lake, which is a lot more foresty and otherwise wild than the more urbanized regions to the east, where bears might occasionally, out of excessive civilizing, roam the streets looking for figurative couches and potato chips.

Over here on the other side, where the bears are more naturally satisfied because we are blessed with harder furnishings and slower food, every now and then there is an announcement over the village PA system that yet another bear has been sighted in a garden or orchard and we should be careful in going about our daily activities or at least be ready to wrestle.

In any case, the bear population in general has increased over the past few years of profuse acornification by the generous oaks, but as we are now experiencing in terms of human currencies - whose intrinsic value is less than an acorn (acorns at least being viable and edible) - the oaks even here are in recession and the bears, though not exactly homeless, aren't eligible for anything like food stamps, so must go off to wander human vicinities in search of sustenance for themselves and their young, an effort that can put the brawny creatures in a mood even worse than mine after two hours without breakfast.

One aspect to all this that is seldom mentioned in the news accounts is that bear gall bladders are worth their weight in gold because of their alleged tonic properties, which may explain the occasional rifle shots I hear at dawn in the mountains above. Mind you I'm not pointing any fingers, especially at folks holding rifles; anyway, if they're gunning for bear I'm sure they have licenses.

As for myself, after 15 years of not having directly confronted any of our ursine cohabitants, I still go outdoors and wander as usual in forest, to and from garden, firewood and mushroom inventory amidst the absence of acorns, while my garden grounds are rich with fallen chestnuts bursting with beary goodness, without giving a thought to it. I have to change that routine, especially at dawn and dusk: I should make it a habit to check the property before I go wandering out there. Despite my familiarity with habituation, though, it's surprisingly hard to create a new habit out of bears.

CHESTNUT WISDOM

After the long rains, on this at last sunny morning of blue sky filled with fine white clouds swelling their chests I was instantly out in the garden doing necessary tasks that didn't distract me too much from the beauty of the morning, such as slowly taking down the long net from the bush bean shoots. As I stood there rolling up the green length, I smelled on the breeze that musky fragrance that is the chestnut tree, engaged in the first step of chestnut creation-- taking advantage of this generosity of weather to put on its annual arboreal show. Now in full heat, it was thrusting all its catkins out into the air for maximum output of musk, the fragrance washing over me on the morning breeze.

It made me look up, and there above me like its own cloud beneath the big others rose the chestnut, resembling a big cauliflower, festooned with all its ivory catkins (great word, that), limbs outstretched to all the moths and butterflies, bees and beetles, flying bugs of every description that were practically lining up in the blue air to get some of that rare nectar. Even the scoldy bulbul broke off from his tirade about me being near his strawberries and began diving here and there into the big white waves after the wreaths of sweet blossoms and the swarms of bugs. I of no wings down there on the ground was fully pleased to just stand there on my own time, draped with green garden netting, and watch it all going on up there.

What richness of life was centered by that time-rounded tree, draped in a shawl of old lace, arms outstretched in the success of being, offering scintillas of its own sweetness in exchange for chestnuts it will grow and one day let go of, bright-coated treasures I will gather by the bucketful and be nourished by, as I am nourished even now by realizing that the old tree has always known these things...

THE CHESTNUT THIEF

This year we had a bumper chestnut crop because of the heavy rains, which not only pumped up the tree, but also helpfully kept down the insects that usually spoil many of the chestnuts. In a normal year at least 30% are unusable; this year we had twice the usual crop, but only about 5% insected. Delight comes in infinite forms.

Thus it was that on the first morning of the heavy chestnut fall I gathered a bucketful of the thoroughbred beauties, then two mornings later (workday in between) I came out to do some other gardening work and the ground was covered with sleek brown gems gleaming in the morning sun, where they had bounced out of the spiky burst husks, all that hearty tastefulness and nutrition just lying there to be picked up. I forgot about the other work (a groundful of ready chestnuts is irresistible) and went about just picking up the free good ones, leaving those that were still in their husks, and got another bucketful. I left the ones in the husks because I knew that the Chestnut Thief was coming.

Sure enough, that afternoon I was planting potatoes and heard behind me "Kuri no dorobo kimashita!" ("The Chestnut Thief has arrived!") It was Ms. T, our upmountain neighbor, who lives in Kyoto but has a plot of land here on the mountain that she tends once or twice a week (a lot of tara-no-me there). On her way back home she often stops by our place to pick some wild herbs (we have a lot of fukinoto and mitsuba) and, every year about now, to garner the last of the fallen chestnuts. We chatted as we worked at our tasks for about an hour (she said an inoshishi (wild pig) had uprooted one of her herb beds, looking for earthworms). When she left our place she had a big bag filled with chestnuts to help make up for it.

Speaking of chestnuts, I saw on an organic gardening forum somewhere the question "Can I add chestnut husks to my compost pile?" The answer is yes, but first let the husks dry out enough, then rake them into a pile and burn them, tending the fire to watch out for (and keep out of the way of) any exploding chestnuts; then throw the ashes on the compost pile. If left to decay on their own, the spikes take a couple of years to disintegrate; you don't want to get stabbed by surprise in the meanwhile. Having a chestnut thief helps make the whole process easier.

Then you make one long slit across the 'crown' of a handful of chestnuts, roast them in the oven for a few minutes, take them out and you have a crowd of waraigumi (laughing chestnuts), sitting there all wobbly and laughy, ready to crack open and eat. Kids love the happy creatures.

ABSOLUTELY FREE

This morning when I went out into the golden air to put some compost atop the potato mounds to see if I could protect the plants against the first frost due any day now (I put some early compost into the potato hole at planting, too), thinking the warmth might keep the temp up just enough, on my way there (I finally did get there and do that), as usual I couldn’t pass up all the chestnuts lying on the dewy ground, shining in the sun in that gemlike way they have, calling to those childhood yearnings in me to invent all the things there are to do with beautiful chestnuts absolutely free, you cannot just leave them lying there) I had to pick them up, even though we already have far more than we can use this year-- I figured T-san, the lady who lives right in the heart of downtown Kyoto and comes out a couple of times a week to tend her piece of land just above us, might want them; she usually stops by on her way home and gathers wild herbs on our land, and chestnuts at about the right time of year, but came early this year and found none, only the brown empty early reject husks.

Haven’t seen her since, so I figured I’d save these for her before the bugs got to them, filled my cargo pockets and wound up walking around with bulging thighs while splitting wood and listening to a solitary but loquacious frog in the bamboo who heard something deep and moving in the bass impact of maul upon iron wedge into thick-barked oak and simply had to respond, so the frog and my labors had a sort of conversation, a rhythmically perky exchange that gave an uplift to the proceedings, frogs have much to say, and need someone to say it to, so I was happy to fill that need, happy to listen to such natural eloquence coming from a cloud of green leaves…

Now and then all through the day the occasional wafts of kinmokusei fragrance would come drifting along on the air and lift me from whatever level I was at the moment, the kinmokusei trees not sending out their heartstealing scent constantly, they’re smarter than that, somehow know that our weak noses would soon get used to the fragrance and stop smelling it, so they send it out in waves every just-right now and then, to stop us in our tracks and make us reel with appreciation, remind us of that big thing we’ve forgotten about again, which is even more effective at the end of the day when your mind is empty as a desert sky and you’re carrying firewood to the stack in the dusk as the birds are giving their evening concert with insect lyrics, your body carrying you along without complaint, your back, upper arms, forearms and hands pretty much used up after hours of gripping, swinging and lifting…

I was in the work-meditative groove and didn’t want to stop, the moments were perfect, like the air and light-- so I just walked back and forth between the split pile and the new stack carrying one split in each hand, stacking them and then going back for more at a slow pace like a mill horse, rambling around in a circle, allowing my absence off in that mindcloud somewhere, when T-san showed up at dusk and I gave her all those chestnuts; she gathered some more that had fallen since, then on the way back to her car held up the bag for her little dog in the back seat to see, said kuri, kuri! the dog barking in delight, she said the dog loves kurigohan (chestnut [cooked with] rice ).

Then I wrapped it up: stacked the last, put away the tools, watered the garden and let tiredness rule its hard-won kingdom.

CHESTNUTS

And I, oh I of little faith, castigating the chestnut tree as infertile, unproductive, judging by the bug-infested husks I found beneath it last year (having knelt on one in the grass and been stabbed multiply in the knee as by a sea urchin), and empty green ones in early September, at 6:00 this morning I was out harvesting the windfall of chestnuts, going OW! OO! OUCH! as I tried to pick them up in the dim light without gloves, trying to grab maybe one spine only...

Then, remembering another technique I had seen, I had to stop every few inches and winkle out a good-looking chestnut or two from the burrs scattered all over, using my feet the way the farm women do when harvesting chestnuts, stepping a boot on either side and forcing the chestnuts out, and how startlingly beautiful to the morning eye, when suddenly from the drab and spiky husks emerge those sleek, brown-coated thoroughbreds that fill my pockets, the morning silence the while punctuated by further thuds from the chestnut tree, the burrs falling, some bursting and spilling their contents out on the ground, others simply lying there voluptuously spiky in the grass.

And voluptuous is the word, with every bit of the quality of unmistakably overt sensual invitation to all comers, whether bugs, birds, beasts, or botanically lascivious guys like me. There are few sights more resplendent in their way than a thorny chestnut chest bursting like pride with its treasure on the dewy morning ground, gleaming brown gems even in the early light; and when husked and in a heap, how earthlovely is that deep glossy brown plumpness!

Rich brown chestnut-bulging husks all over the ground at my feet, I had a couple of pounds of chestnuts within a half hour, a process of great delight as being so direct and immediate in the link between me and all, like breathing, like sex, like being born, like dying, the ecstasy that pervades it all, so manifest in that brief burst of indistinctness from all that is...

And when peeled and boiled with rice, the chestnuts led me to experience first-tongue the deliciousness of kurigohan (chestnut rice): fresh and chesty chestnuts, steamed to just the right degree together with brown rice, become flavor and mouth-feel ambrosia when bitten into.

Later in the afternoon, home alone watching the veils of silver mist obscure and reveal the trees, wondering what could be the purpose of a life spent doing just such things, I realized like the mist and the trees the nature of revelation and concealment, that what is hidden need not be found to be known, need not be known to be worthy.

From the archives ... Sept. 28, 2002

GATHERINGS

Spent yesterday gathering a bucketful of chestnuts with Kaya, who stood and watched as I winkled the sleek brown throughbred beauties out of their porcupine husks with my boot toes, then she picked them up with the tongs and dropped them into the bucket with a very special quantity of satisfaction. When we were done she lugged the bucketful up to the house and gave it to Echo, filling the whole house with the pride of a task well accomplished. We then went to the park and tackled the long slide, after which Kaya napped while I sectioned the long whiskey barrel staves with the chainsaw, smelling fine whiskey all the while on the big snifter that is the air. At last when my right arm gave out (cutting stacked barrel staves with a chainsaw is basically a one-handed chainsaw operation) and I was wrapping it up, the wind was picking up to a good mountain howl when I spotted the mother lode of mukago revealed in the slant of evening sunlight. The lode was laced through the pulled-over tops of the bamboo just the other side of the cherry/pine firewood stack, upon which I climbed and stood teeter-hunched in the sunlit wind exploring the vast and deep fragrant tangle of green heart-leaved vines for the silvery air potatoes hidden here and there in the shadows like silver nuggets in the ground. When you harvest wild things that you suddenly find in abundance they just take you over, it's so much fun your self won't tell you when to stop; thank goodness pockets fill up and it gets dark, or I'd be out there yet.


Today we leave early for an overnight trip to Shigaraki and the Miho Museum.

CHESTNUTS

And I, oh I of little faith, castigating the chestnut tree as infertile, unproductive, judging by the bug-infested husks I found beneath it last year (having knelt on one in the grass and been stabbed multiply in the knee as by a sea urchin), and empty green ones in early September, at 6:00 this morning I was out harvesting the windfall of chestnuts, going OW! OO! OUCH! as I tried to pick them up in the dim light without gloves, trying to grab maybe one spine only...

Then, remembering another technique I had seen, I had to stop every few inches and winkle out a good-looking chestnut or two from the burrs scattered all over, using my feet the way the farm women do when harvesting chestnuts, stepping a foot on either side and forcing the chestnuts out, and how startlingly beautiful to the morning eye, when suddenly from the drab and spiky husks emerge those sleek, brown-coated thoroughbreds that fill my pockets, the morning silence the while punctuated by further thuds from the chestnut tree, the burrs falling, some bursting, spilling their contents out on the ground, others simply lying there voluptuously spiky in the grass.

And voluptuous is the word, with every bit of the quality of unmistakably overt sensual invitation to all comers, whether bugs, birds, beasts, or botanically lascivious guys like me. There are few sights more resplendent in their way than a thorny chestnut chest bursting like pride with its treasure on the dewy morning ground, glimmering brown gems even in the early light; and when husked and in a heap, how earthlovely is that deep glossy brown plumpness!

Rich brown chestnut-bulging husks all over the ground at my feet, I had a couple of pounds of chestnuts within a half hour, a process of great delight as being so direct and immediate in the link between me and all, like breathing, like sex, like being born, like dying, the ecstasy that pervades it all, so manifest in that brief burst of indistinctness from all that is...

And when peeled and boiled with rice, the chestnuts led me to experience first-tongue the deliciousness of kurigohan (chestnut rice): fresh and chesty chestnuts, steamed to just the right degree together with brown rice, become flavor and mouth-feel ambrosia when bitten into.

Later in the afternoon, home alone watching the veils of silver mist obscure and reveal the trees, wondering what could be the purpose of a life spent doing just such things, I realized like the mist and the trees the nature of revelation and concealment, that what is hidden need not be found to be known, need not be known to be worthy.