Chapter 2–- The Goddess of the Moon
The young horsemen find Master Wabi waiting just outside of the village. The horses are streaked with sweat, their riders silently, pointedly gazing at the horizon. They’ve nothing to say and say nothing. Master Wabi bobs his head in greeting and ambles off toward the village gate. It’s a small village, twenty or so dusty houses, a few shops with rolled up grass screens. A mud wall surrounds it, like every village where stone is scarce. The wall is long neglected, cracked and flaking away from the brush and straw that hold it together. Its gate stands open, untouched since Baso opened it that morning. A few chickens peck at a melon rind in the street. Joshu peers out of the corner of his eyes at the few shopkeepers and idlers sitting in the shade. No one seems interested in their return, no one seems to notice. The inn suits the village, a part-time occupation for the innkeeper who tends chickens behind it. The wife of the innkeeper dries her hands on a small towel and rushes across the courtyard, bowing and smiling to greet her customers. Her clothes are clean and tidy, speaking well of the inn.
“Gentlemen, welcome. It is good of you to return so quickly, please come inside. I have tea. Have you eaten? Will you be staying? My boy will tend to your horses.” She speaks quickly, pleased with this unexpected bit of good fortune.
“Tea, thank you. If it is no imposition. We would be grateful for dinner and a place to sleep,” Joshu calls out as he dismounts stiffly. Nodding to the small smiling woman, he slips off his sandals and follows Master Wabi inside.
Sunlight slants through the open doorway, bleaching the weave of the straw mat on the floor a pale gold. The four sit silently sipping tea. Each start of a conversation dies a lonely death and the straw mat and the bare walls offers no inspiration. The innkeeper’s wife finally breaks the tension, telling them that it will be some time before their meal is ready.
Master Wabi finishes his tea, smiles his appreciation and goes outside. The fierce heat of the day has softened pleasantly. Beyond the village wall, the rays of the setting sun touch the high clouds with rose and gold. Master Wabi folds his legs under him on the porch smiling as the sun warms his skin, enjoying the moment, his box in his lap. The box is small, and he spends far longer searching through it than its size warrants. He’s still at it when he hears Pa Kua’s footsteps behind him. Smiling to himself, he selects a small piece of wood. Then rolling his shoulders, he turns the wood slowly, deliberating on its qualities and the nature of its grain. Slowly his knife begins to scrape.
Pa Kua watches him for a few moments, looking over his shoulder trying to see what he’s doing, feeling vaguely uncomfortable. The woodcarver intrigues him. The stories he’s heard, probably, he hasn’t thought it out completely. He doesn’t believe in immortals, wizards or whatever they’re called. The stories of immortals are just that, stories. He’s just an old man and a bit of a puzzle. Maybe that’s it, maybe that’s the attraction, the mystery. Still, he hesitates, uncertain, feeling awkward standing there watching the old man carve. Then finds himself sitting down next to him unaware of having made any conscious decision to do so.
The old man slowly scrapes at the formless piece of wood, ignoring him. The silence grows steadily more oppressive. He hears the beating of his own heart sounding louder and louder. “I saw you carving and ah, I thought…..” It was a poor start and goes no where, not that he had a place in mind to take it. “Ah, what are you carving,” Pa Kua asks abruptly? It comes out sounding rude and not what he had intended. Nothing is going like he had intended. He feels jumpy, nervous, stuck there some how, wishing he had not sat down.
“It’s too soon to tell,” Master Wabi says without looking up, “I just hold the knife.”
‘Just hold the knife.’ He mulls that over then lets it go, unable to make any sense of it. The silence is beginning to feel pleasant, but his curiosity is insistent, pushing him to say something. “It is a curious piece of wood, full of grain. Hard to carve, isn’t it? And green!” He waits, but the old man continues to ignore him. “I, ah, thought everyone carves seasoned wood?” He waits a little longer, but the old man just sits there. “What if it cracks? You know when it dries. It must be heavy?”
“And dense,” Master Wabi says softly.
Dense? He decides to draw the old man out. “I, ah, think I can see the shape of a man in the grain. Will it be a man figure?” Sweat beads his forehead as he feels the strain from all this reaching.
“Perhaps. With the greatest difficulty, sadly enough. There’s much to be overcome, inside and out, and little enough to work with” Master Wabi replies with a slight cough.
Pa Kua charges ahead. “Will it be finished soon? I’d like to see it.” It isn’t what he was going to say. The thought jerks him back, confused.
“It will tell me, by and by. I scrape away a little sapwood, each piece fashions its own heart.” The old man’s eyes hold him. Eyes are like two holes in the night sky, probing, testing. He looks away rejecting what he saw, thought he saw. “This one has much to overcome. Perhaps, more than the others, though the differences are small. One being long and thin, one round as a nut, the other, somewhat in between”
“Ha, sounds like the three of us, you know Joshu, Baso and…. You have others?” It blurts out of its own volition. Startled, he wonders suspiciously of its source, changing the subject before he can find it.
“I have two, no, three more, much the same, though I seem to be spending a great deal of time with this one.” The quiet scrape of his knife is loud in the silence. “All moody, new, and uncertain, the grain is all twisted and confused. They all need direction, of course, but there’s a likely bend to each of them.” He smiles for a moment and then frowns, his eyes on his work.
Pa Kua wants to say something, the words rushing to his tongue. Then he feels the old man’s eyes and whatever he was going to say, slips away. Suddenly he feels his head turning, turning up and around to where the old man can see it, where he can see the old man. The old man’s eyes have disappeared again, leaving only the dark holes behind. He hears the old man speak and his words appears in fiery brush strokes inside Pa Kua’s head.
“The work is demanding. The wood is green with difficult grain.” The moment hangs. “And yes, sometimes …..one cracks.” In the sudden silence, a soft whisper, “Now, go away.”
The image comes and goes, tugging at his reason, but only for a moment then it begins to assert itself. His hands twitch, his toes dig into the dust , still he sits there unsure. He has the curious feeling of being on high, floating, looking down. There, far below, is a small chick, pecking at the teeth of a dragon. Taking a deep breath, he coughs, and excuses himself, wanderiing off as though he has somewhere to go. As he walks away he glances back over his shoulder at the dark figure sitting on the porch carving, and feels a cold shudder, involuntary and fleeting pass through him. He feels raw, exposed somehow. He has this image of himself, as if he were seeing himself as someone else might, someone detached, uninterested. It is an odd feeling that doesn’t last long. Then there is this voice which is not a voice, one coming from the inside of his head.
“Look at all this nonsense you will have to overcome.” His head begins to hurt. “Have you thought of dying young? Pity. It would save a great deal of trouble?” Then, no voice, no image, yet undeniably there, his illusions, pretenses, deceptions, opinions, assumptions, one after another, all intent on being truth and certainty. The feeling of seeing himself as a stranger would, naked, without friendly context or kindly understanding, returns. With it is a feeling of being scraped and shaped by something beyond his comprehension, by questions to which he has no answer, unsure if he even understood them correctly. Anyway, it’s an awkward feeling having nothing to say, he finds the silence embarrassing.
Then he’s staring into the corral at the horses, no idea how he got there. The horses stare back with bellicose, accusing eyes. One sniffs an old pile of horse turds, never taking its eyes off him. Suddenly it snorts, the snort sounding alarmingly like an opinion. Looking over his shoulder, he smells the rice cooking and realizes he’s hungry.
The village has few visitors and those want no more than a place to eat and sleep, with an early start the next morning. The inn satisfies those needs well enough, the family’s hospitality and the corral in back of the house being all that’s required.
The house which comprises the inn is one long room, made of unfired mud bricks, covered with a high peaked roof that swoops almost to the ground. The ceiling is open, made of rough-hewn beams and the darkness that surrounds them. A wide straw mat hangs from a ceiling beam, separating the guests from the cooking area where the family cooks, eats and sleeps. The furniture is sparse, woven grass mats, a clean floor, a short plank table where lone shallow stone lamp casts its feeble glow. The lamp’s light flickers over empty dinner bowls, its dark, oily smoke disappearing into the ceiling’s gloom.
Joshu, Pa Kua and Baso sit around the table talking softly, almost whispering. Master Wabi sits by himself in the shadows along the far wall. He makes a point to smile at them from time to time over his bowl of rice, but makes no attempt to join them.
A troubled and reluctant Joshu approaches his guest, bowing politely before kneeling down.
“Forgive my rudeness. I know Lord Sunza’s request must be a great imposition. Is there anything I may do to ease the burden of this journey?” The question is asked hesitantly, one eye on Master Wabi, the other on his friends. Master Wabi smiles, but says nothing. Encouraged Joshu plunges on. “How may I assist you? You don’t want to ride a horse. Perhaps, a mule or an ox . . . ? Allow me to hire a cart, one with a canopy to shield you from the sun?” The words rush out of him like birds from a cage.
Master Wabi continues to look at him with amusement. “Ah, my dear Joshu, I walk to be walking. It gives me great pleasure to see the world one step at a time. I know it’s time to stop when I’m tired. I leave when I’m rested.” His voice is comforting, almost sad in a self-satisfied way. “A horse would disrupt this harmony.” He pauses for a moment to appear deeply profound. “Consider, to some a journey is the going from place to place, here to there, such is it’s purpose. For me. all things exist, all life is therefore a place, each step gives a different view, a different perspective to all things.” He’s enjoying his explanation, finding a good deal of satisfaction in it, suddenly he stops and slaps his forehead. “What am I thinking? I forget myself, I must apologize.” He seems flustered, indeed the very essence of flustered, something he takes great pride in. “You must be in a great hurry to return to Qualin. You are concerned I will delay you? Ha. Please, no worries. Tomorrow, I will walk more quickly.” He smiles smugly as if he had just solved the most troublesome of questions.
The silence gathers considerable depth and substance while Joshu kneels there stunned.
“More quickly? Ah, no, please. Your pace is most rapid, ah, indeed most adequate, perhaps more than what is required. The horses tire more quickly than you and lag behind.” He leans forward, intent, eager. “Can you do that every day?” He sags back, embarrassed. “No matter. It’s unseemly for us to ride while you walk.” An idea occurs to him while he is talking. It might work. Hope surges inside him. He clears his throat and presses on. “Ah yes, what will people think? What would Lord Sunza think? You are his honored guest. How must we appear? People will point and call us disrespectful rascals to ride while you, Lord Sunza’s quest, walk? I, we, could not live with such unbearable shame.” Joshu bows with great sincerity, veneration, respect and humility.
“Ah Joshu, Joshu, I have embarrassed you. How rude, how unmannerly of me? Have I no regard for others?” Master Wabi seems to be speaking to himself. “How thoughtless, I think only of my own pleasure. I must work on that,” his voice low, serious, thoughtful. Then, “Of course, you must walk with me. Tomorrow, we will walk together and talk of meaningful things. The weather, perhaps, or the latest fashions at court? There are fashions at court? Yes, that will be much better. However, now you must forgive me. I must rest these old bones.” With that he stretches out on the straw mat, slips his box under his head and begins to snore.
Dazed, Joshu returns to the table, interrupting his friend’s endless diatribe regarding force or form, which having what effect, and so forth.
“Ah, Oh, honorable leader, tell us of your victory.”
“Will you forget that, Pa Kua,” Joshu hisses. “and must you really shout?”
“Just tell him to ride the horse,” Baso interjects. “It’s not proper, us riding, trotting along after an old man on foot. It looks like we’re herding him to market? It’s embarrassing. Disrespectful.”
“Well then, my dear Baso. I have good news,” Joshu replies, his cheerful sounding voice an obvious lie. “We sell the horses. Tomorrow, we walk. Master Wabi apologizes for his selfishness and insists that we share his joy, one step at a time. You should find that comforting, Baso. Is there anything else troubling you? I do hope not. Do you have any more questions, Pa Kua? Remember Lord Sunza’s instructions? We must treat this woodcarver with respect. Obey him, as you would me, says, Lord Sunza.”
Pa Kua coughs quietly. “He doesn’t know that, does he?”
“Ah, my dear Pa Kua, your pitiful whining squeezes my liver. It doesn’t matter if he knows or not, now does it?. No, of course it doesn’t. We know it, and we have sworn to obey, to honor our honor, if for no other reason. That is the path that takes us through the wilderness of doubt, the darkness of indecision. No one shall fault our word. Are we not warriors of Hawn?.”
Pa Kua looks shyly at the floor, back up at Joshu, smiling. “I love the way you talk, Joshu, the tumble and flop of your jade tongue. It makes me tingle all over.”
Baso belches and scratches his great belly. There’s nothing to say. He and Pa Kua received the same look from their fathers, no speech, no talk of important missions, just, well, that look. He coughs solemnly, “This Master Wabi is a——ah, strange man.” Coughing fills so many gaps and gaffs in life. He coughs again. “If we should ask him, would he like a new robe, or fresh sandals? Who knows where that might take us?”
“Oh, yes, most perceptive, Baso. Yes, entirely so,” Joshu sighs, slipping further into the bowels of dejection. “Yes indeed——most sticky. If my last conversation with him is any measure, we could find ourselves barefoot and naked. Tomorrow we walk and perhaps, talk,” Joshu pauses meaningfully, “of meaningful things. The weather perhaps, or the latest fashion at court?”
“He said that?” Pa Kua’s face slumps
“He said that.”
“What have we done? Forget the tea,” Pa Kua calls out. “Bring wine.”
“We have no wine,” A woman’s voice comes sleepily from behind the screen.
Master Wabi chuckles in his sleep. Soon the house is filled with the night sounds deep or shallow, of people sleeping, or trying to sleep.
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South of the steppes, the mountain ridges rise in sharp folds growing ever steeper, higher. It’s a land of close shadowy canyons, of unexpected narrow valleys lost among the high ridges and broken peaked mountains. It is a land of secrets, secret places, and people who keep them, a land that draws those few people there together and discourages visitors.
The village wall is rough and uneven, made of stacked shale packed with mud and straw. Behind it, only the thatched roofs of the village can be seen. Bushes and trees grow precariously in niches and crevices, little enough to feed the flocks of small long haired goats. Still, both the goats and the small children who chase them up the rocky slopes seem well fed. There’s little reason for the village to be there, perched hard against a towering mountain ridge. There are easier places, better places, yet the village is old and prosperous. Behind the village, a well-worn path passes through a hidden cleft in the ridge, a high, narrow crack formed when the mountain was young.
The path winds down through a narrow canyon, narrow and dark, wet with ferns and fragrant with cascades of white jasmine. The canyon widens where high canopied trees dapple the ground with spots of light as the path turns to follow an arching canyon wall, green with moss, damp from a trickling waterfall. A dark shadowed pool catches the splashing fall, cheerful in the quiet gloom. A few steps beyond the pool, the path turns sharply and narrows until one feels obliged to hold their breath passing in the narrow shadows between the towering cliffs, cliffs suddenly thrown wide to the small round valley beyond.
Peach and cherry trees cover the steep mountain slopes, a meandering path winds across the valley floor, over ground thick with rocks and thin with soil covered with grass and flowers. There in the center on a flat blue stone, a white jade statue stands; a statue of a young woman whose beauty takes your breath. A statue called the Goddess of the Moon.
The statue stands alone, out of place in the emptiness of the valley, the flawless sheen of the white jade offers no explanation for its presence there. Closer, the shape and form gather detail and the detail so draws the eye that the fullness of her presence takes you by surprise. Her head is head bowed, a half smile on her lips. There is an air about her, a feeling that draws your attention, compels your consideration. You forget the stone, the hard substance of her being. Beauty, gentleness, and compassion come alive in her. No hand of man created such perfection. Words to describe her feel empty and go unspoken. Just on the edge of reason is the feeling that given a touch of warmth and color, she would breathe. In the hundreds of years, thousands perhaps, no one know how long she has been there, not one scratch, not a nick, mars her beauty. No mindless small boy has ever thought to climb her back; no stone, no rotten peach ever sailed near her. Yet the birds, being birds, do unspeakable things to her head and shoulders. It is why young brides to be, carefully wash her before their wedding ceremony, placing flowers around her neck. Small children guard her with piles of stones, daring the crows and pigeons to come closer. But it’s a small village and weddings are few and there are many, many birds.
The villagers tell their children the story of the most beautiful woman in the world, the daughter of the Wizard King, the Goddess of the Moon. It is a story they too heard as a child, of Kegon, the evil wizard, who kidnaps the King’s daughter, giving her a magic love potion to steal her love. Her father rescues her from the evil wizard, but he is too late and the evil wizard’s love potion turns her to stone. The story is old and famous throughout the world. Something the villagers find perplexing for no outsider has ever seen the statue, if they did, the outside world would fight like dogs for the right to take her back.
There is no doubt she is the Goddess of the Moon. She was there long before the village, perhaps even before the story was first told. No one knows. Perhaps the story is true. One has only to look at her to think so. With all the compassion, there is terrible sadness in her face and form, the way she stands. Yet her sadness also speaks of strength and a quiet air of defiance, something the story never mentions.
Late in the evening, as the pale rabbit moon casts its silvery light through the blackness of the narrow canyon, a dark figure comes leaping, bounding, down the dark, twisting canyon path. The shadowy figure flashes across the pale moon-washed valley, past the dusky boulders, scarcely touching the dark flowers and the silvery grass.
A man stands in front of the statue, gazing up at her face. A long twisted stick taps gently, absently, against the blue stone. He paces slowly around the statue, and again to be sure. The stick floats in the air, impatiently waiting for him to return. Then man and stick begin slowly a dance of turns, and turns within turns, each movement, precise, complete in itself, yet part of the next. And the stick begins to change, leaves appeaar becoming a form feminine, graceful as she blooms with light, soft, sweet as a fragrance born of a morning’s dream. She floats and glows, bending as a willow bends, singing with the sound of a million leaves. The light of the moon begins to shimmer, its light rising, falling as they dance, as if it too were part of the dance. The two figures pause for a moment, he breathes gently, she quietly shimmers, and the dance begins again, each movement the mirror image of the first. The two figures seem to grow larger as they dance, he becoming formless, yet glowing in some dark fashion. The two swirling over, enveloping the statue as the dance continues, shimmering light and glowing dark intertwined defining, clarifying the other.
The statue glows softly. The perfect whiteness of the jade softens, fading to the paleness of the moon. Slowly a rose blush appears then fades. Warmth and color slowly return to her face, her hands, her eyes fly open, she begins to breathe.
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