Okazu

Being that our temple is situated in a wooded area, it is surrounded by many different species of trees and shrubs. Our predecessors built and nurtured a beautiful Japanese Garden. Along with all that greenery, we have many types of birds, a lot of geckos and unwanted rodents.

Several months ago, I put out a call via our newsletter for anyone interested in joining our Cherry Tree Club to meet at the church each Tuesday at 9 AM. The purpose was to enlist help in maintaining our church grounds which seem to require a lot of attention during the spring. Lo and behold a couple of weeks later a young lady and her 5 year old daughter showed up raring to jump in and do some gardening! The mother had never been to our church before but found out about my request through a friend. We concentrated on the Japanese Garden first, making sure that no black plastic showed through the white pebbles. The little girl helped me rake the leaves and using the “picker upper” (large dust pan with a long handle), she would hoist the leaves into a garbage can. She would shout “Oisho!” each time she lifted that “picker upper” (“Oisho” is a Japanese word similar to “heave ho”) and poured its contents into the garbage can. She would also say, “Kore wa weed” (“This is a weed”) and promptly pull it out of the ground. This little girl has a lot of enthusiasm when it comes to gardening and her spirit more than makes up for her size. Whenever possible, both mother and daughter continue to come on Tuesdays, working around the girl’s ballet and aikido lessons.

It’s Obon Festival time again and many of us are looking forward to participating in our Obon Odori. It’s a wonderful occasion as we honor and remember those who have passed before us by dancing under the chochin lanterns – women in beautiful kimonos or colorful hapi coats, men in hapi coats and children wearing lighted sandals or getas. The Obon Odori (bon dance for short) is a way of expressing our joy by dancing to Bon Odori Uta, Shiawase “Happy” Samba, Tanko Bushi and other numbers. No matter if you’ve never participated in a Bon Odori, have two left feet, or turn in the wrong direction, what’s important is that you have fun dancing rather than watching all the others from outside the circles. Besides, like the lyrics in the Dance of Fools, “It is the fool who watches from the outside.”

I have noticed that on many occasions within our temple when there is a gathering of people, laughter can often be heard during the conversations. Of course, there are some people who generate the laughter more than others. During a past cruise with three other couples who are my longtime friends from Hawaii, laughter was the norm – so much so that I got a permanent smile on my face. I think that at times we were too boisterous among the other elderly people around us. It was quite a contrast to the other cruisers who sat at their dinner tables hardly talking at all or carrying out a conversation with little or no laughter. It has been written many times in many journals that laughter is good for one’s health, both mentally and physically. It’s a great reliever of stress, pain and anger. It’s free and infectious, rubbing off on people around you, and often creates closer bonds, friendships and intimacy. In our world of constant change and impermanence, we should feel free to laugh, even at ourselves, and maybe our world would be better because of it. So next time you’re with other people, smile (you’re on Candid Camera) or better yet, laugh!

For some reason, this year has been a banner year for mice and rats at our church and adjacent buildings. They have been found inside and outside the temple, in the Retreat cabins, in the barn and in the minister’s house. We try to maintain the upper hand in controlling this problem by using traps and bait boxes but may resort to adopting a couple of feral cats to roam the grounds and call SLOBC their home. So if you see cats near the temple in the near future, they are not pets but have been “hired” to do a job.

Speaking of birds, those that are seen around our temple can leave quite a mess and even do damage to the structure. They smudge the glass adjacent to the front door, leave droppings on the railings and build nests under sheltered areas and in bonsai shrubs. Woodpeckers have even made large holes on the rear of our temple! We’ve hung shiny metallic strips of paper and images of owls from the eaves and achieved some success but they are not the most beautiful things to see on the temple. Let me know if you have any “tried and true” remedies for keeping the birds away.

Those of you who have parked your car near the bridge in our upper parking lot have fallen victim to one “pupule” (crazy) bird that pecks away at its image in the car’s side view mirror. Like a boxer, the bird would peck, bob, weave, peck, bob, weave ………… This would go on not for a few minutes but more like a couple of hours. The mirror would end up having a lot of smudges and the bird would leave a few of its droppings on the car’s door. I often wondered, “Doesn’t this bird realize that it’s his/her own image or is he/she “pupule” for continuing on for such a long time.” So a word of warning – if you don’t want your side mirror dirtied nor want any poop on your door, don’t park your car near the temple bridge.