Japan

There is a new government in Japan. A party that did not exist two years ago has swept to power. There is a very interesting interpretation to be taken from the colour and shape of the symbol that has been chosen by the Minshu political party. It is fitting with their promise to the Japanese people. A message of change and new beginning.

The two red circles of the Minshu symbol

The symbol shows two red circles meeting on a white background. The red circle is an echo of the sun on the Japanese flag – and thus associates the Minshu party with Japanese identity. However the presence of the second red circle indicates something new is happening. We should pay attention. Something new is being added to the traditional situation.

Look more closely and you will see the lower circle has a shaky edge. Why? What can this mean? The lower circle seems to be more energetic, the shaky edge seems to express movement, as if this second circle is vibrating with some kind of energy. This second circle is alive. The message is the Minshu party is vibrating with energy, an energy they can bring to Japan.

Even in England the Japanese election result was treated as big news. It was described as a political earthquake. We were told that for 50 years Japan had had only one party in government, and the result was that everything had become very fixed: politics, big corporations, the bureaucracy, nothing could move anymore in this power structure. This election result has broken an important part of this fixed power structure, something new can now grow. A shaking energy has been brought to what used to be very solid. The symbol with its vibrating red circle hovering over the traditional fixed red sun perfectly expresses this new (red) awakening energy.

There is more though. See the white space where the two circles overlap. As the energised red begins to overshadow the original circle a white process happens. White is clearing, cleansing - like a blank page, white offers a fresh start for a new story. As the Minshu party move to the centre of the Japanese picture, more and more of the original red sun will be bathed in white. There will be a clearing from which a new start may be made. This is what the Minshu party and this election result offers. A fresh start from which Japan can emerge reenergised. This seems to be what so many people hope for.

Colour, shape and resonance offer insight into the messages of the symbols around us. They allow us deeper understanding of the messages offered to us. Look around and enjoy.

I am often asked why is Aura-Soma so popular in Japan. Here is a thought. Some of the ideas beneath are not held be everybody in Japan, and Japan is changing. Nevertheless i think the ideas are true to the traditional Japanese way of life which all Japanese have been born into. The idea is inspired by some stonework i was admiring while staying in Kyoto earlier this month. I was on the edge of the city on a hillside close to the forest - the area has a traditional look. Here is the wall.

Every stone fits in Japan

These are not small stones! You will notice that every stone is uniquely shaped, retaining some originality. Yet as a whole this wall is tightly knit. If a stone were removed another could not be easily found to replace it. This says several important things about Japanese society.

First it says that great care has been taken in building this wall. Each stone has been placed with care and attention to detail, small adjustments have been made at the edges to ensure a tight fit. These are magenta qualities: care and attention to detail.

It would be much easier and quicker to mass-produce regularly shaped bricks. But in Japan things are valued for their unique quality. Originality of form is prized, respect for each other is paramount. I once asked a Japanese friend if she would wear a brace to change her teeth. She replied that teeth were a gift from her parents and should be respected as such. The wall is more important than the stone! No stone in the wall requires another to be different, each is accommodated as it is, or at least the chipping away happened so long ago that now there is no memory of things being any other way. This gives greatstrength to society, yet, at the same time, it is impossible for any stone to move without upsetting the whole.

This is true of individuals in Japanese society. They live in cities of millions and millions. Any day at any hour almost every train is full. People moving together. People are expected to give a huge amount to work: traditionally you should not go home if your boss is still in the office. Everyone should know their position in society and bow to everyone else accordingly. So where is the space for the individual? Not much on the outside is the answer. “The nail that sticks up will be hammered down” is a traditional Japanese proverb.

But here is where Aura-Soma has something to offer. It presents a non intrusive, gentle, private way to nurture and explore your inner world. You may not be free outside, but you can grow inside. Come to know your inner shape better; like the stone in the wall, find your uniqueness and bring it to life with consciousness. Mike Booth used to like to talk about making pots, that every so often a pot would be made under his hands on the wheel that seemed to sing. It had an inner quality of aliveness. Aura-Soma helps to bring that aliveness to each individual life, and in Japan, that has a very high value indeed.

This is my second time in Hiroshima.  I was deeply touched on my first visit by the Peace Museum that commemorates the detonation of the world’s first atom bomb. The event is presented in such a detached, balanced and human way; it is a profound experience to travel through the build up and aftermath of that event.

Peace Museum and Peace Fountain at foot of Peace Park

This visit I find myself exploring the Peace Park that surrounds the Peace Museum. My Aura-Soma organiser here, Hiromi Ishida, told me she thought there was a chakra layout in the Park. Early last Sunday morning I got the chance to explore it for myself.

I started at the northern end of the park. It is on the top part of an island in the river. The bridge that accesses this northern tip of the island is the very bridge that was the precise target for the atom bomb dropped out of a clear blue sky at 8.15 on 6th August 1945. The bomb exploded 500m above ground level. As one enters the park from this direction one immediately meets a twisted metal tower of three steel girders. It is a clock tower. The clock, spherical like a ball, sits suspended high above the ground.

Just across the path, a little further on, is the Peace Bell. A huge bell, that any passer by may sound, it has the map of the world etched into its metal, along with I presume words of peace. When the bell is struck the world image is vibrated with the intention of peace. The sound of the bell, which carries the intention of peace, then expands this message into the wider world.

Peace Bell, Hiroshima

Slightly further on again and the next monument one finds is the Child Peace monument dedicated to the children who died either in the blast or as a consequence of it in the months and years that followed. Two children grace the outside of the structure, as if swirling up to heaven, at the top is a girl who lifts a golden crane which is entrusted with dreams for a peaceful future.

Child Peace monument

I am writing this part of the text here in the top section of the park just a few days later. It is peaceful here, trees shade the path and there are many birds around. Behind me is a mound where the ashes of so many of the dead were brought and buried in the months that followed the blast.

Continuing past the Children’s Peace monument, one immediately has to cross a small road that cuts across the island. It marks a divide and thus a step into a new section of the park.

Clock Tower at the 8th chakra

Where are the chakras?

As I had been walking through the park that Sunday morning I had been asking myself where are the chakras to be found in this park? The spherical clock on the twisted tower at the head of the island, suspended above the earth (just as the bomb itself had been above Hiroshima that fateful day) had immediately suggested the 8th chakra. This chakra sits above the physical body, it is purely energetic, and in the Aura–Soma system corresponds to the colour magenta. Magenta is also the colour of Pluto, discovered in the 30s at the dawn of the atomic age and thus associated with atomic force.

The Peace Bell was surely to do with the 6th chakra. In Aura-Soma this chakra is connected to the master of sound Lady Nada, and the bell was all about using sound. Moreover the global quality of the bell with its map of the world suggested something that holds a higher view, and this the 6th chakra does.

I was not so sure about the location of the 7th though nothing stood out. I now think it is the base of the clock tower. These two, the 7th and 8th chakras, are sited together – one over the other. So was then the child monument the 5th chakra – it didn’t feel that it was so …

Another world

I looked over the road to see the rest of the park laid out before me. It was much more open – there were no more shady trees, but immediately in front of me there was a striking feature. A long rectangular basin; split in two sections. The top half (from which I was approaching) is a dry concrete slope angling down to the mid line where a wall is constructed. Beyond the wall, filling the bottom half of the basin, is a stretch of flat, peaceful water. Between the two, atop the wall, is a large concrete slab in two parts, at its centre burns an eternal flame.

Fire and water at 5th chakra

It was not easy to feel comfortable here - the water finishing with fire and after just dry concrete. As I walked down beside this pool, thinking about chakras it hit me: this was Daath (the Abyss in the Tree of Life), this was the path of the High Priestess in the Tarot, associated with the Blue/Blue bottle, B2, in Aura-Soma. This was the throat chakra!

High Priestess at 5th chakra

The long rectangular shape of the structure echoes the High Priestess sitting between the two pillars of the Tree. Half way along this path in the Tree of Life – at the mid line - everything changes. To cross Daath, the abyss, one has to disappear. It is the path to oneness with spirit, and to become one with spirit we have to let go of our self, our separate self: we have to disappear!

Just beyond, as one travels up the chakras, over the road that I had just crossed, is the Child Monument dedicated to those who disappeared. The whole top section of the park is the spirit world! In Hiroshima, in an instant, thousands of souls passed together into the spirit world. Of course the park would have a disproportionately large spirit section - it is inherent in the nature of what happened here: a mass opening to the spirit world. In Aura-Soma B0 Royal Blue / Deep Magenta is called the Spiritual Rescue. This top part of the park does not emphasise violet – the crown chakra – instead it is all about Magenta and Royal Blue. The Spiritual Rescue!

The map shows the layout of the Peace Park. Note the map image is upside down! The allows the journey i describe to start at the top of the image and travel down, north to south. The relative size of the spiritual area can easily be seen. The small road is in grey about one third of the way down from the top.

Peace Park map

Returning to the pool, at the throat chakra itself, we find an eternal flame. Silently it declares “Fire.” A mute testament to what happened here: Fire was unleashed, and in the symbolism of the Tree of Life “fire” is not physical: it is spiritual. The fire that was unleashed here was not material in nature - it was atomic, energetic, spiritual.

Flame at Daath

The lower chakras

The next chakra is easy to spot now. At the far end of the water is a tomb dedicated to all those who were killed by the bomb. It is the heart chakra of the park. It is a place of reverence where the living come to remember and honour the dead.  A truly sombre energy for a heart chakra, I took a photo and regretted it as a girl stepped up to bow and pray before the tomb, reminding me of the real meaning this spot has in people’s hearts here. Nevertheless now i include it here, reverently.

Tomb at 4th chakra

As I travel down from the heart chakra, next is a large open space: the broad concrete path leads between two large grass lawns – yellow and desolate at this time of year - winter’s end. Ahead of me further down the path the Peace Museum dominates. It is a large concrete structure which straddles the path of this chakra journey.

Looking to Museum across yellow desolation

The large gallery of the museum which houses the permanent exhibition here is actually raised above the ground. It forms a huge bridge that people can walk underneath. This building is surely sited on the orange chakra of the Peace Park. Orange is associated with shock, and what happened here in Hiroshima in 1945 was such a shock to process, such an event to come to terms with and release. The museum does this work dispassionately, as I said at the start of the article its calmness is profound. There is no emotionalism to cloud the waters here, facts are presented simply, blame is shared. (Hiroshima is where the Japanese bombers made their practice runs before Pearl Harbour – the war certainly came home to its beginning here!)

What other way could there be to work towards releasing shock than this? The fact that the hall is above the ground (echoing in a way the clock tower at the 8th chakra) reminds me of the huge difficulty to bring this shock to earth, to finally bury the past.

The large yellow space of the third chakra so desolate above it seems fitting too. The yellow space – our individuality – where the “I” lives – is simply empty here, void of life: no people left. The huge shock and the devastation to the personal is reflected in the sparseness of this part of the park. The green chakra above it is also severely affected, death is at its centre where ordinarily life would be enshrined here. Even the blue level is difficult, water and fire, elements that will not mix, meet. Only when crossing the road do we come to life: trees, birds, the Peace Bell, the spiritual world here full, the world into which all those yellow selfs entered.

(By the way I took a lunch break here and discovered that my watch had stopped during the writing of this article. The time was 2.56.36. …  look at the bottle positions on the Tree of Life and it will show something very interesting!)

Beyond the Museum travelling yet further down, now nearing the southern end of the park and there is a large fountain. To my mind this is again part of the second chakra. Water is the element associated with the second chakra. This large fountain brings a great positive energy for life which supports the processing of the shock that the museum is dealing with.

Fountain at 2nd chakra

Beyond the fountain remains one more monument, It is perhaps the most moving of all. A woman is bowed down desperately trying to protect her baby and child. Unable to do so, she is broken, her baby is beneath her, her older child tries to climb on her back, all she can do is reach one hand back to help him. Is this the red chakra? I was thinking so … I still do. It is a very touching image. In the face of an atomic blast human life, red, is powerless.

Mother and children: 1st chakra

Yet there remains one more step. Though I had come to the end of the park, as I looked across the large road now in front of me, I saw 10 pillars. 10 is the number of the bottom sphere in the Tree of Life. The sphere of Malkuth, the physical, material world: the red chakra. I crossed the road and realised that these were not pillars, they were arch-like gates that could be walked through. Ten gates of peace – each covered with the word “peace” written in a variety of languages. These gates complete the Peace Park, they are the conclusion of the whole.

Peace Gates

From Red to Magenta, from the 1st to the 8th chakra, the structures and layout of the Peace Park seem to echo perfectly the intention, story and process of the Peace Park. A hidden pattern of energy that supports the layout and objects at each stage of the park. Such patterns can also be found in churches, towns and the land itself. You can find more about this in future publications of mine. I am compiling a book on travels with Aura-Soma, finding colour and its resonances in the places I visit.

Footnote

The dialling code for Hiroshima is 082. B82 is the Green/Orange combination. This is the return journey of the Emperor bottle B4 the Yellow/Gold combination. It seems very fitting that this would represent Hiroshima.

Number wise 82 is all about flexibility. The 2 has to bow, say yes, the blue energy, the 8 is about harmony (and also facing death since the name of the bottle is Anubis!). 82 is about bowing to the greater thing and finding a way to flow with it. That is what the people of Hiroshima have had to do. And the Green Orange is an expansion from the Yellow/Gold which is the area so empty and desolate in the park. The green and orange areas of the park both have significant features – the yellow area does not.

I have found Hiroshima to be one of the friendliest cities in Japan – and I like all Japanese cities – but here the people are particularly soft and friendly. Perhaps they have learnt to expand beyond the normal limits of ego and open to the world around them. It is a tremendous privilege to be sharing Aura-Soma here in a place on the planet where such a significant event has happened, and where the response to that event has been so profoundly positive. As they say in Japanese – “kansha” (gratitude).

A few days between courses in Japan and I am staying in Okayama. One of my hobbies is to relate a place with its telephone code and the equivalent Aura-Soma colour combination. Okayama is 086 which indicates the B86 bottle Oberon – Clear / Turquoise. There have been some (in the literal sense) extra-ordinary episodes.

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Osaka is Japan’s second largest city. Its telephone code is 06. As you get deeper into Aura-Soma, numbers become more significant - they indicate colour combinations. 06 is the number of the double red combination in the Equilibrium range. Red is the energy of the base chakra, the energy of mother earth, and also that of the female energy. It empowers all women.

While sitting outside an Osaka cafe one evening, casually watching the traffic passing by, a growing awareness of something surreal began to impress itself upon me. Many of the passing bicycles were being pedalled by men, but above and behind the man would be a woman standing up over the rear wheel. These women seemed like charioteers. Proud and commanding, as they sighted their path ahead, travelling effortlessly through space while the man beneath them worked hard.

I felt as if I were in another world, a civilisation of women warriors, a kind of mythic culture of dragons where the the female earth energy was in the ascendant, surreally interposed in this 21st century modern city scene.

From a telephone code that seems only chance, to a colour - Red - and to an expression of that red energy on the streets of the city. The dragon earth energy is strong in Osaka and it is the women who carry it. They experience what it is to be in the ascendant here.