The Sunrise of Compassion Hiroshima Commemoration Concert Mt. Fuji, Japan - July 30, 2005
The volcanic rock, reduced by time and elements to fine particles, crunched and slid beneath my feet in the dark as I made my way with the others high on the upper slopes of Mt. Fuji. The moon had not yet risen to reveal us, and modern day Japan spread out unseen far below in the night. We struggled blindly on this shifting and indistinct trail toward a small stage and a thousand people waiting to join together in concert to offer prayer and fire and song in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. The Sunrise of Compassion was the fifth annual concert in a ten year commitment by the extraordinary woman who had invited Ralf Illenberger and me to headline this beautiful marathon of ceremony, dance, and song.
Dr Kazuko Tatsumura Hillyer met Ralf and me at an Artist Advance musical evening in NY that I planned and hosted with Gloria Steinem. Shortly after that we received her call telling of the yearly concert on the slopes of Mt Fuji. And so it was that just a few months later we were on an apartment balcony with that immense and unforgettable mountain before us. On a small table near us was a lantern lit with embers from the actual fires that smoldered so very long in the bombed cities of Japan.
This fire came from deep under the rubble of an enormous bookstore that had been one family's birthright generation after generation. Only a few weeks after the bombings, family members went there, unaware of the dangers, hoping to find survivors and personal items amid the destruction. Under the huge pile of cinders and debris, glowed the red embers of the thousands and thousands of books still burning, all that remained. The family scooped these embers into a small flask-like container long used by rural Japanese to carry fire on a journey. This fire was nurtured on family altars until the relatives one by one succumbed to radiation poising. When it was apparent that the family line would not survive, the last members offered the fire to their temple where the Shinto monks continued to nurture it across the decades to now, never allowing it to burn out.
That day in the apartment on the slopes of the mountain, a flask was opened, an ember glowed, sparking fire in the small lantern and the glass vessel. With this lantern and vessel, and our blankets and baggage, our party labored up the slope in the deep ancient volcanic sand of Mt. Fuji. Near midnight, and starting time, we at last struggled our heavy instruments and equipment onto the small stage, breathless from the steep half hour hike from the parking lot. Soon the all night concert began.
Dignitaries were introduced: a beloved Japanese film director, a gifted clothing designer, the head Shinto priest from a revered temple, the well-known Japanese television personality--a wonderful man who would host the event. And the dear Kazukosan, as we had come to know her. The lantern and vessel with the original flame was presented before the entertainments began. The moon rose huge and full behind the stage and dropped her own cool reflected fire on the gathering. Over the course of the next hours, one wonderful performer after another sang, danced, drummed, spoke. It was cold in this high dark place but everyone pulled blankets around them, sharing with others, and plunging into the magic there. I tried to record the names and acts, but it was too cold for my pen. There were awesome singers, composers, dancers, musicians--performers of exceptional talent from around the world.
Then, two hours before the first pale of dawn, the Shinto priest took his place; monks from his temple lighted the large cedar bier and the fire ceremony began. I have sat at the fire ceremonies of many different cultures around the world and never one more potent. There was Spirit there, and Power, mingling in the smoke and roaring flames with hope, belief, faith, discipline, prayers, and focused intent. The priest was awesome in his presence and his chanting as he compelled a new world, a new time for an evolving humanity. Hearts flew open, tears flowed, minds stilled. Then each person took their small slips of handwritten prayers, making their way to the fire as the music beat and chants flew with sparks upon the wind. In one moment a snaking dragon formed clearly of the smoke just as a bellow of fire leapt up, seeming to come from the very jaws of the smokey dragon. It was a moment of great portent in the visitation of this ancient cultural symbol of power. When all had visited the lowering fire with their paper hopes and invocations, the crowd settled again.
It was at the last moment of dark that we took the stage, a German and an American, before this crowd of Japanese. This was not planned or orchestrated, but here we were: German, American, Japanese. We formed together the genetic remnants of a great and terrible moment in the human drama - each nation caught up and manipulated by political events, each people participant in sparking deep in the mind of humanity a dialogue about the survival of our race. It is a dialogue that continued into this time and this gathering. Feeling this, and the gentle goodness of the crowd, and the spiraling potency of the ceremony, we moved deep into the unknown world and sang and played with the voice and the fires of the ever evolving soul throughout. The early light paled its way into the dark giving the mountain its first dim silhouette as we performed. The light increased as dark fell back until, as if signaled by our final song, the sun rose at our backs and the new dawn struck the mountain top before us.
