Goodbye....

Well... my grandma passed away last week. She was suffering a lot, she had a nother stroke, and couldn't take in nutrients, so she quickly faded away. There are a lot of people who will miss her. I am going to bake a pumkin pie and think of her, thank her, while I bake it. She was a WONDERFUL cook. She would make huge feasts, and the whole family would come and enjoy Christmas and Thanksgiving at her and Grandpa's house. Their house smelled so good... like roses, and when it didn't smell like roses, it smelled like good food cooking. She made huge, yummy breakfasts. She and the family had a successful family business, a rose garden where they sold roses to the whole world. My grandpa and grandma loved to travel, too. One time, I was about 8, and my mother used to lead me on guided meditations, after which I would meditate by myself for about 45 minutes. That time, I was meditating, and I guess I suddenly told my mother, ' Grandma and Grandpa are on the airplane and they are coming back from Europe.'I had no way of knowing this, but that evening we got a call from Grandma, and she said that they had just arrived from Europe. Another of their travel memories is when they came to Japan. They came a few times, I think. They liked it very much. They went to visit Hiroshima, and when they came back, they gave me a souvenir. It was a book of bonsai. It was one of the things that brought me to this country in the first place.
Thank you Grandma and Grandpa, for many wonderful memories and including me in your lives. I hope that you are both happy and together. Rest in peace. With love, Sofia.

Retelling what we have learned

The students are prepairing for their Gakushu Happyou Kai or, literally, the meeting for telling what they have learned in school. They practice almost every day for a few hours.
One of the things they are learning is a traditional dance of the village, the Kagura. The dance is a call to the Goddess Amaterasu, calling her to a beam of light that they create through the dance. Its a pretty cool idea, and the dance itself, although it looks easy, is actually pretty hard to master.
This dance and music remind me very much of an indian Pow Wow. There is a drum, a banging board, and a bamboo flute. The dancers hold a sword in one hand, and a bells on a stick in another. The dancers cut the air or do complicated foot movements while shaking the bells. It is an interesting dance to learn, and it makes me want to know more about Native American dances, and other native dances, in order to compare what is similar or what is different.
I am looking forward to winter, when the Kagura is danced every Saturday in December, from night until morning.