Part 3 Bearing Witness on Charnel Ground

Noble ancestor in Kyoto.

Home returning

This post culminates my personal journey, part pilgrimage, part odyssey. The third part of my yearlong journey takes me to Japan, my ancestral homeland. I began this journey a year ago to reconcile and heal ancestral wounds.  I felt a rooted connection in Japan; a homereturning in a most nourishing way. As with healing from wounds, they become scars, an intricate web of tissue and cells that serve as a layer of protection. I have learned to wear my scars with the concept of wabi sabi, a Japanese phrase that roughly translates to embracing the impermanent nature of all things and the beauty of imperfection. Simplicity, elegance, wisdom. Scars make us who we are as sentient beings. Imperfectly perfect.

 Wabi Sabi is wisdom, grace, courage, history, true elegance of form.  

pieces of broken pottery adorn the floor in the potter's studio

Potter's studio, Obama, Japan

So I continue to heal and feel as if I'm carrying kindred souls with me. 

Ryoan-ji Zen Garden, Kyoto, Japan

I carry the water, air, earth, sunlight for those who need to heal from injustice, discrimination, oppression. What is beginning to surface is the need to share healing and reconciliation, forgiveness and lovingkindness. I am driven to be one who continues to believe in hope and the deep effort it takes to forgive, to love and understand. What also continues to grow is the desire to open my heart for the benefit of all. This has been my experiment to bear witness to what I touched upon at Tule Lake and Hyde Park and opened to last year.

This journey began with a phrase that kept echoing in my mind: I am a descendant of incarcerated people. First it was necessary to let the words have a voice. My words took on more meaning when Rev. Zenju Earthlyn Marselean Manuel, read them out loud with her strong and empathic voice. As she approached the ancestor altar at a retreat for People of Color, a kind of energy arose inside of courage and the tendrils of healing.  Something was shifting. No anger or shame. I knew this opening was to continue. I knew it was bigger than my personal journey. I needed to continue for my ancestors, my 92 year old mother, my father who continued his journey 11 years ago, my siblings and my son and daughter. Today, I continue to offer it to future generations, to those known and unknown, blood relatives and spiritual friends, who want to enter a way to heal and understand, a path of healing and reconciliation. 

The experiences on the Tule Lake Pilgrimage, meditations for FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt in New York have led me to Japan. This is a path I chose, willing and open to move forward with hope and optimism through the practice of forgiveness and lovingkindness. 

Philosopher's Path, Kyoto

Part earth, part water, cedar and bamboo, part indigenous being from Japan.

a view from Miyajima Island

I belong to this part of earth. I came from these islands.

The vitality, hara of native Japan lives inside of me. The roots of my family of trees, mountains, water are a part of me. I feel I can replenish, re-nourish, reunite here. 

"Welcome back, Nakatomi-san, we have been waiting for you." 

Maple trees expressed their vibrancy in Kyoto, a kind of homecoming, homereturning.

 I was walking through a dream. Each day was like a homecoming after a journey of many lifetimes. I had arrived to meet my ancestors discovered in the forests, felt in the air, sensed near the ocean; the land and light of the rising sun. A deep sense of reverence arose. Looking up at the sky, opening my heart to reunite with the trees, the forests, the clouds, and sky.

  I recognized something nameless-felt in the late autumn air, the colors of the landscape of my ancestors, the cadence of native footsteps; so very familiar. I have returned to a source of my roots. 

 

Body returns to feel familiar ground. Separated for a longtime from the nucleus of ancestors and trees, boulders, air, water, sun-all a part of my ancestral DNA from Japan.  Heart softens on temple grounds in Kyoto as I walk across gravel pathways and wooden floors creak as I join the centuries of footsteps of my ancestors.

My feet are the roots that remember, we have returned to the sacred ground, soil, earth for a tender reunion with my relations.

 My hands long to touch, stay, wait, hold, reunite with the bark, the skin of my elder cedar, pine and fir family.

 

ancient ginkgo in Kyoto

Ginkgo leaves alight the ground

I continue to transform generational sorrow and shame as I reunite on sacred, charnel ground. 

   I had abandoned a significant part of me as a child from the pain of feeling other and oppressed by racism. I obscured myself, allowed myself to embrace my ethnicity and heritage at arms distance to protect from the pain of being singled out, of not fitting in. Here, I reunited with stability, vitality, inner wisdom and a connection to nature. Nature welcomed me back without discrimination but with trust, love and deep belonging. Welcome back Nakatomi-san. 

Feeling the pulse of my ancestors who made an epic journey across the Pacific over one hundred years ago, living beings I am connected to, who ventured to another continent, to begin again, to plant new roots, and create different lives of potential-  They survived and thrived from the conditions of poverty, hunger, out of a deep resonant hope for a different life. My grandparents, like so many immigrants and refugees, were the ultimate risk takers, adventurers, those willing to take a leap.



In a way, I'm here to honor and express gratitude by cleansing, renewing myself to this sacred home.

Incense wafting through the air invites me back to the prayers and spirits in nature, from the indigenous Shinto tradition on Miyajima Island near Hiroshima, my father's homeland.

Shinto Temple, Miyajima Island

Pouring fresh water over my hands from a carved stone vessel, a cleansing ritual- homereturning, to my ancestors.  

This is where my childhood connection to nature began in my bones, vessels, cells. Heart connects with the warmth of kinship, of family

Our roots and bodies lived and worked on this land. It's natural to feel an affinity here. It permeates my skin, through my bones and courses through my lungs and vessels with every breath and heartbeat. We share so much DNA, bloodlines felt in the weight of air, the sweetness of water.

 I am looking with the eyes of my ancestors, walking with their feet to offer incense at shrines, feeling sacred ground in Hiroshima. This is my father's family home. 

At age 8 or 9 or 10, I had an unnameable curiosity and affinity to study history books of the atomic bomb site in Hiroshima. In December, I met my father's second cousin for the first time in Hiroshima.  I discovered that my third cousin was a Red Cross nurse. She perished in Hiroshima while working on August 6, 1945 never to return home, her remains never recovered.  Perhaps she is who I was looking for when I was 8 or 9 in those photos? I knew her, I was connected to her.

I am descendant of Hiroshima Atomic bomb survivors and victims.

Genbaku Dome, Hiroshima, Japan

There is palpable heaviness. Pilgrims young and old, come to learn, to make sense of something senseless.Statistics range from 90,000-226,000 people perished in Hiroshima. Millions of animals and plants perished too.  I believe it takes great courage to come here to witness the devastation and the capability of human beings. Deep sigh, deep sadness, deep silence. 

Feeling the devastation, the remnants, and the very real the pulse of my relatives who still live here. Was there a great deafening noise when the bomb impacted the city center?  Was there a great silence following it? Is that my imagination or can it be my way of connecting to something that touched my heart as a very young child? Difficult returning, harsh homecoming to the land, the islands, the ocean.  

This is part of my family's charnel ground. I was confused as a child and felt a double responsibility for how I was connected to lives in California and Japan, to nature and earth in both places, to loss, devastation seared in my memory. Sorrow felt but rarely spoken. Felt in my body and bones and here in the soil, the air, water, wide open sky. I hope I carry some of my cousin's sweet kind heart, some compassion of a Red Cross nurse.

 This journey grew out of my need to bear witness to my familial truth. The truth of forced incarceration at Tule Lake and Gila River and the conditions 120,000 had to live under for years. The truth of learning racist beliefs held by FDR, who some consider one of our greatest presidents. The truth that Eleanor Roosevelt tried to sway her husband's mind in signing Executive Order 9066, her subsequent trip to Gila River, during my mother's incarceration. The truth of the devastation of war, the atomic bomb and the scars it leaves for the Japanese natives, for many still too painful to visit. 

The truth of learning I have a relative who perished on August 6, 1945. I know why I was drawn to the photos of devastation in Hiroshima as a child. I came to know my suffering and through it the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people here in America of forced incarceration, loss of homes, property, livelihood and rights and something deeper, our humanity. We lost a part of humanity when America dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I think many of us are still recovering from the unimaginable trauma.  

 This journey has let me exhale  in a way I have never exhaled. It's as if I've been holding my breath for a very long time to protect myself or to hide deep shame. I held my breath, my power, my words, my story inside to protect and to survive. Shedding light through writing, investigating, and fully exhaling, a kind of openness has emerged and a kind of fearlessness. I have a growing capacity for peace. I feel like I have the strength and capacity to stand as one of the tall cedars in the forest.  








I am a descendant of incarcerated people 

and

I am a descendant of Hiroshima and Fukuoka and atomic bomb victims
I am a descendant of survivors
I carry a legacy and gift of compassion and energy to heal from my ancestors.

I rise from strong and resilient island people.
I rise with stability, clarity, and an open peaceful heart.
I have the capacity to embrace all relations.


I offer the energy of love, generosity of spirit, and the courage to heal with openness and understanding. 

I am grateful to have the opportunity, resources, and community who support me and makes my writing possible, that in turn make my life possible. Expressing my thoughts and deep feelings into words have been healing for me and for my 92 year old mother. I honestly feel I have healed some generational wounds. I don't know how future generations will heal but perhaps I've opened a small window of hope, through my experience that will remain open, let more light in, more warmth of the sun.  Thank you for encouraging me to tell this story, thank you for supporting me with your kind words and most of all for your warm energy that propels me forward. 

 The theme of offering peace and reconciliation was inspired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela and the courageous survivors who came to tell their stories of the brutality of apartheid at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa in the 1980s. I was touched deeply listening to women and men who walked miles to speak their truth.  I was also inspired to learn about the Zen Peacekeepers led by Tetsugen Bernie Glassman for many years bearing witness at retreats in Auschwitz-Birkenau. I wanted to see if I had the courage and capacity to heal, to grow and meet peace and reconciliation.

And to Dear Thay, Dear Thich Nhat Hanh. I am grateful to you for opening a dharma door 17 years ago, to mindfulness, to practicing and learning to cultivate the insight to forgive, to be grateful for "my appointment with life". You are the teacher I didn't know I was looking for. A deep bow to you.

To my parents, Bette Nakatomi and James Nakatomi and the Nakashima and Nakatomi lineage, pioneers in California, who worked as growers, farmers, florists, early California artisans. What beautiful roots you have planted, what beautiful seeds you have watered in your continuation of children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, four generations of Californians, and soon to be a fifth generation in September! 

From time to time, behold

Check out Katie Yamazaki's murals in communities across the country. Talk about uplifting art in social activism! http://katieyamasaki.com/work/moon-beholders-japanese-american-national-museum-little-tokyo-los-angeles-ca-2014/ 

To those who seek a new perspective, like a moon beholder, look up from your daily life. When we look up at the sky to behold the moon, we take an action away from our regular lives to pause, to gaze, and imagine. In that space, I want to appreciate more, joy resides there. 

Today, I begin share some things I do that keep me hopeful and able to shift outside myself and force me to look up, literally and figuratively, from the negative and narrow pull (of media and other distractions) to refresh my senses. 

 From time to time, I'll be sharing things I do, see, read, listen to -to be like the moon-expansive, illuminating, spacious, evoking peace.

This mural touched me. We were in Los Angeles in February to witness the Day of Remembrance and exhibition at the Japanese American National Museum marking the 75th Anniversary of Executive Order 9066. 

This mural greeted us in the parking lot!  It caused me to look up and extend my perspective and has stayed with me. The image of the little girl, eyes closed, upside-down, the pattern of her furoshiki patterned shirt, glowing lanterns, accompanied by the poem by Basho made me realize, I want to see more light, be more of a light, to offer some light, when the world seems dark. 

-and so I begin to share what illuminates my days and nights with this:

A short video, to remind us of the power of nature and what happens when we behold.

Starling Murmuration video-be awed, really awed by the power of nature.

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=vimeo+starling+murmuration&&view=detail&mid=8FA282D00D0CED222A638FA282D00D0CED222A63&FORM=VRDGAR. 

Thank you, Puja, this video gently pushed me to look up on my birthday!


- be one who observes, witnesses something extraordinary!

Part 2 Transforming generational sorrow and shame

Tender healing and reconciliation


This is my story of emerging forgiveness and lovingkindness with difficulty and discomfort-a sacred and necessary journey for me, for my ancestors.

Kyoto, Japan  Fall 2016

-A continuation of a story of remembering, to a place called Hyde Park, New York in the summer of 2016. 

I am a descendant of peaceful, resilient, incarcerated people.

I am a descendant of the issei and nisei, the first and second generations of immigrants from Japan.

Nakatomi Grandparents, circa 1900

I am a descendant of the east and west.

I am allowing tears of sadness and gratitude to flow of unresolved grief and sorrow for and of my parents and grandparents to surface and release.

Mom and Dad's wedding, circa 1948

I can do that much for them. I am here because of their lives, their choices, their actions and their deep desire to survive the conditions of forced incarceration. They remained loyal and steadfast. To stand on the ground at Hyde Park is a kind of sacred healing. I feel like I carry the scars and pain of thousands here. I can be steadfast here. Now. On behalf of those no longer able, I can walk and breathe and offer healing and forgiveness. I can begin to heal the patterns of war, of hate, of paranoia, and misunderstanding. I can pause and be peace here and now.  

It's late July 2016, only a few weeks since the pilgrimage to Tule Lake. My husband and I made a plan to visit FDR's family estate and presidential library in the Hudson River Valley, New York. 

FDR estate Hyde Park, New York

I made a commitment, shared with my 92 year old mother, that I intended to reconcile for our family, some of the heaviness and generational scars of incarceration and offer a meditation on forgiveness while on the grounds of Franklin Roosevelt's family estate.

Mom and me

I carry the weight of my relatives, my ancestors. I intend to lighten the load by releasing, walking intentionally on this vast estate and find a way to offer forgiveness. This is not easy because it begins with me.

I intend to continue to forgive myself for holding on to shame, anger and underlying fear of allowing to be a victim of incarceration, different and marginalized.

I walked under the same wide and open summer sky as FDR, often touted as one of our greatest presidents who ushered in The New Deal. I breathed in the fresh, sweet air of the Hudson River Valley and our shared history. 

Although this journey to Hyde Park was neither smooth nor light, it was a valuable step in healing painful, deep wounds.

Kyoto, Japan  Fall 2016

Feelings we ignore and don't talk about for decades, and in many ways there are no words to have your rights as a citizen stripped away, to have your government betray you, to lose your livelihood, your home, all your possessions because of wartime paranoia, discrimination, and deep seated racism.

Tule Lake, California

 I felt responsibility to carry through with my commitment. Although it was lofty to commit to offer forgiveness, I needed to be bold and courageous in reverence to the ways my ancestors were able to continue on in 1942 and beyond build their lives after incarceration. 

Tule Lake, California, circa 1942

I felt a sense of freedom and openness because of their sacrifices, my ancestors secured this moment for me to arrive, walk the vast estate of the man who changed my family's history.

"May the injustices and humiliation suffered here never recur."

One action did not define this president but it did affect hundreds of thousands of people for generations. Did FDR have any opportunity to know someone of "Japanese ancestry"? Did he foster a respectful relationship with anyone of color, of a different class, of a different religion? Would it have influenced his decision?

  

I made a second commitment to walk for Eleanor Roosevelt and to offer lovingkindness.

Eleanor boldly disagreed and tried unsuccessfully to sway FDR's decision to sign Executive Order 9066. The first lady made a decision to visit a concentration camp in Gila River, Arizona where my mother remembers meeting her when she was still a teenager. She remembers a range of conflicted and difficult emotions when learning the first lady was to make a visit to one of the barracks at Gila River. http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Eleanor_Roosevelt/  

Mom in high school, a cheerleader

Eleanor Roosevelt visits Gila River, Arizona

Girls Scouts  Tule Lake, California

Lovingkindness, Metta in Pali,(Maitri in Sanksrit), is a Buddhist compassion meditation to offer from our heart an end to the suffering of all beings: May all beings be filled with lovingkindness. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be free from suffering. Many believe an honest and dedicated Metta practice can be an antidote to fear.

We walked into the cottage called Val Kill where Eleanor Roosevelt lived and worked independently from the family estate. 

Living Room -Val Kill

I imagined Eleanor Roosevelt writing her first draft of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as her role as delegate to the United Nations General Assembly here. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights 

Forest near Top Cottage

As we hiked up the hill through the tree-lined forest, to FDRs private cottage, the discomfort lifted as I gained my stride and hiked for my parents whose commitment to democracy and love of this country didn't falter. I carried my grandfathers and grandmothers with me.

View from the porch, Top Cottage

Sitting in silence, breath grew longer and stronger. I sat on the porch at Top Cottage because of the causes, sacrifices and resilience of my ancestors.

There are a host of complicated and uneasy feelings to forgive with an honest, full and open heart. What does feel honest, strong and crystal clear is my dedication to healing and transforming fear discomfort, sorrow for myself and for future generations. 

In my quest for photographs of forced incarceration, I stumbled upon a quote by FDR that cut and stung. The roots of misunderstanding and placing others in a separate box ran deep for this man before he became president. Decades before he signed Executive Order 9066, he held deeply seated beliefs and views that laid a foundation to minimize "Asiatic" people. 

 "Anyone who has traveled to the Far East knows that the mingling of

Asiatic blood with European or American blood produces, in nine cases out of ten, the most unfortunate results. . . . The argument works both ways. I know a great many cultivated, highly educated and delightful Japanese. They have all told me that they would feel the same repugnance and objection to have thousands of Americans settle in Japan and intermarry with the Japanese as I would feel in having large numbers of Japanese coming over here and intermarry with the American population. In this question, then, of Japanese exclusion from the United States it is necessary only to advance the true reason--the undesirability of mixing the blood of the two peoples. . . . The Japanese people and the American people are both opposed to intermarriage of the two races--there can be no quarrel there." -- Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1925

My sweet son at 2 years

My children are multi-ethnic. Phrases like "mingling blood", "repugnance", "exclusion", "undesirability" ignite sadness and heartache. There's a reason I stumbled upon this quote, to offer sincere, deep forgiveness and lovingkindness I need to know all the painful, racist and ignorant beliefs.

My sweet daughter at 12 years

But then I flash on a memory of the Tule Lake pilgrimage- I was standing in line at the cafeteria.  As I waited my turn, tray in hand, I remember thinking this could have been my parents' experience-lining up in the mess hall for dinner 75 years ago. In that moment, I panned across the expansive dining hall and watched extended families sharing a meal, new friends engaged in conversation, the room pulsating with tears and laughter. It was a shared moment with my entire family, a snapshot of oneness in time, my heart was restored.

Tule Lake mess hall

Mess hall-Idaho

I felt a connection and the strength of my community at Tule Lake. I felt supported, strong and stable. I held the warmth of my Tule Lake community during the hard moments at Hyde Park and after discovering FDR's shocking quote.

 I gathered the energy of my community that provided me with hope while offering forgiveness to FDR and the causes and conditions of the time.

Tule Lake pilgrimage 2016, memorial

The energy of togetherness at Tule Lake and the community of hundreds that felt like my family, helped me to feel more grounded, able to know that hope can rise, love can rise, healing can blossom. I rise from my ancestors and my beloved community. 

I can be one of the many who can work, continue to love, understand and practice forgiveness. To quote Angeles Arrien, cultural anthropologist and author, I can be "one to bring forward the good, true and beautiful ways and break the harmful family and cultural patterns." 

Breaking harmful family patterns of holding old emotions and pain are a significant part of healing and reconciliation for me. Looking deeply and facing my truths are crucial to breaking the cycle as it feels like I'm letting in air and light to the places too painful for anyone to touch. Around 1994, I was shocked and amazed to watch televised portions of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. It was an authentic, painful, gritty practice of healing the gross human rights violations of apartheid. To listen to survivors of torture and abuse walk for miles, sometimes days, to speak of their egregious suffering and tell their stories in a public forum was a practice of healing and restorative justice that still resonates for me. Bearing witness to deep pain and suffering ended up being a necessary catalyst in making democracy possible for South Africa.

Can I bring the qualities of truth and reconciliation forward like the people of South Africa, with some of their courage in a healing way? Ever hopeful, I believe I can. By telling my truth, I can heal, I can be peace and reconciliation. I can be one of many who can continue on "to bring forward the good, true and beautiful ways." Eleanor Roosevelt and President Roosevelt are a part of my history, we are interconnected.


In part 3, I complete my pilgrimage on a journey to Japan to meet relatives for the first time in Fukuoka and Hiroshima and unravel my connection to the atomic bomb site, to my heritage and history that I can fully embrace.