Search - Eitetsu Hayashi :: Haru

"HARU - Faraway...I have dreamed of a deep-blue ocean that glistens and expands as far as the eyes can see. The mountain is high and thick with green foliage, somewhat reminiscent of a tropical island. I am on top of the mountain overlooking the azure blue of the ocean below. There once was a movie called "On a Clear Day, I See Forever" - what I see in my dream, is exactly that. I have not actually seen such a place, but it is so beautiful a dream, that I believe it is a Tokoyo - a land of eternity, an utopia. People in Asia used to believe the land of eternity lay far away beyond the ocean. It is a place like the Dragon Palace, that Urashima Taro, the fisherman visited in a turtle's back or like Mt. Horai, where the secret herbs of eternal youth are believed to grow. It was the Emperor Shih-Huang-Ti (259-210 B.C.) of the Chin Dynasty, who ordered Xu Fu to go to Mt. Horai to search for those herbs. Some believe Mt. Horai is to be Mt. Fuji (literally meaning Immortal Mountain). People in Asia were connected to each other by the seas. They sought an utopia beyond the seas. This means, that each Asian country was another's utopia. This thought comforts me. The seas of Asia have been great oceans indeed, over which information and people traveled, as well as compassion and yearning. A poet once said >Mother sits within the Chinese character - Ocean