Thursday, March 24, 2011

The earthquakes and the Japanese.......quite moving

This is a letter I got via email today and I wanted to share it with you:
From Anne in Sendai, Japan where she has lived for the past decade teaching English. Very moving!!
Hello My Lovely Family and Friends,
First I want to thank you so very much for your concern for me. I am very touched. I also wish to apologize for a generic message to you all. But it seems the best way at the moment to get my message to you.
Things here in Sendai have been rather surreal. But I am very blessed to have wonderful friends who are helping me a lot. Since my shack is even more worthy of that name, I am now staying at a friend's home. We share supplies like water, food and a kerosene heater. We sleep lined up in one room, eat by candlelight, share stories. It is warm, friendly, and beautiful.
 
During the day we help each other clean up the mess in our homes. People sit in their cars, looking at news on their navigation screens, or line up to get drinking water when a source is open. If someone has water running in their home, they put out sign so people can come to fill up their jugs and buckets.
Utterly amazingly where I am there has been no looting, no pushing in lines. People leave their front door open, as it is safer when an earthquake strikes. People keep saying, "Oh, this is how it used to be in the old days when everyone helped one another."
Quakes keep coming. Last night they struck about every 15 minutes. Sirens are constant and helicopters pass overhead often. We got water for a few hours in our homes last night, and now it is for half a day. Electricity came on this afternoon. Gas has not yet come on. But all of this is by area. Some people have these things, others do not.
No one has washed for several days. We feel grubby, but there are so much more important concerns than that for us now. I love this peeling away of non-essentials. Living fully on the level of instinct, of intuition, of caring, of what is needed for survival, not just of me, but of the entire group.
There are strange parallel universes happening. Houses a mess in some places, yet then a house with futons or laundry out drying in the sun. People lining up for water and food, and yet a few people out walking their dogs. All happening at the same time.
 
Other unexpected touches of beauty are first, the silence at night. No cars. No one out on the streets. And the heavens at night are scattered with stars. I usually can see about two, but now the whole sky is filled. The mountains are Sendai are solid and with the crisp air we can see them silhouetted against the sky magnificently.
And the Japanese themselves are so wonderful. I come back to my shack to check on it each day, now to send this e-mail since the electricity is on, and I find food and water left in my entranceway. I have no idea from whom, but it is there. Old men in green hats go from door to door checking to see if everyone is OK. People talk to complete strangers asking if they
need help. I see no signs of fear. Resignation, yes, but fear or panic, no.
 
They tell us we can expect aftershocks, and even other major quakes, for another month or more. And we are getting constant tremors, rolls, shaking, rumbling. I am blessed in that I live in a part of Sendai that is a bit elevated, a bit more solid than other parts. So, so far this area is better off than others.  Last night my friend's husband came in from the
country, bringing food and water. Blessed again.
 
Somehow at this time I realize from direct experience that there is indeed an enormous Cosmic evolutionary step that is occurring all over the world right at this moment. And somehow as I experience the events happening now in Japan, I can feel my heart opening very wide. My brother asked me if I felt so small because of all that is happening. I don't. Rather, I feel as part of something happening that much larger than myself. This wave of
birthing (worldwide) is hard, and yet magnificent.
Thank you again for your care and Love of me,
With Love in return, to you all,
Anne
Z: I'm not sure what 'Anne' means by the 'Cosmic evolutionary step' (are you?) but I wanted to post this to show what the Japanese people are like first-hand in a time of crisis.  Remember during Katrina when most people were demanding and looting...and you'd see the Asians sitting in rows, quietly and expectantly, for whatever was being handed out to help?   Quite a people.
geeeeeeeZ

18 comments:

(((Thought Criminal))) said...

I so greatly admire the Japanese.

They're the only culture on the planet that could turn day to day living, anything and everything they do, into an art form. Everything has place and purpose.

They're not half-assed about anything.

Z said...

A friend of mine is of Japanese descent and I sent him this email last night (by the way, it didn't come to ME directly, Anne is not a friend of mine, but was sent to me by someone )....he wrote back how proud he was to be both American and Japanese. He added "I know this might sound strange.." I was surprised at that...not strange at ALL to me.
For a lot of Japanese in this country, that must be a good feeling...finally.

namaste said...

beautiful, z. thanks for sharing this.

Anonymous said...

I admire the resilience of the people in Japan. It is not wonder they have been around for ions.

Faith said...

"Cosmic evolutionary step" is a very New Age concept. I have a very old friend DEEPLY into all that and of course my Christian beliefs clash dramatically with her beliefs so we have to pick our way through any conversation very carefully unless we just give up on talking to each other at all.

There's this general New Age idea that things are rapidly coming to a great change of some sort throughout the world, and perhaps the universe itself. Pretty much parallels the Christian expectation that we are right on the edge of the Last Days, but of course what we expect to happen is radically different.

That is a very nice picture in that email though, of cooperative life in a disaster and you do have to admire that calm and helpful spirit in the Japanese.

Anonymous said...

Z, I received this letter from a friend as well, & I also thought of the Katrina looting, as I live in north La. A national disgrace & embarrassment! Not only that, but think of the rioting & looting that goes on when a sports team has won some stupid championship.

Silvrlady

cube said...

That email is illustrative of the Japanese people's grace under pressure. Even though they are dealing with horrific circumstances, they retain their humanity. I wish more cultures did the same.

Anonymous said...

the earth is in 'birth' pangs awaiting its Savior

Faith said...

Which Savior? is the question.

FrogBurger said...

Beautiful!

"They're not half-assed about anything."

That's true.

I had the pleasure to work with them at a IT Japanese huge corporation and they were great to work with, even though, there definitely is a sense of bureaucracy in their corporate culture. And things go really slow.

Anonymous said...

"Utterly amazingly where I am there has been no looting, no pushing in lines. People leave their front door open, as it is safer when an earthquake strikes. People keep saying, "Oh, this is how it used to be in the old days when everyone helped one another."

We might gain something if we exported all of New Orleans to Sendai and imported all of Sendai to New Orleans!

Just a thought.

As far as that "cosmic" quote goes...a little "hippy dipppy" ya think? LOL

WomanHonorThyself said...

o yes Z..remember the debacle at Katrina and elsewhere...but shhhhhhhhh don't say who was involved or u will called a racist..pftt!...nice post Z!

Z said...

"birth pangs".........??

Faith, it is weird, isn't it...thanks for clearing that up; I had a feeling she was 'out there' on that subject.
Imp, you're right.....a little Twilight Zone music here, please....

but, the way she paints the Japanese is very eloquent and so worthwhile hearing.

"which savior", indeed, Fatih.

Jan said...

Z..whatever 'cosmic evolutionary step' means to the writer of the email, or anyone reading it, what I got out of it was how wonderfully the victims are behaving toward each other--how caring, and concerned about the needs of others, sharing their own meager supplies of food and water..stoic, and not acting out in anger toward others because of a terrible tragedy which was the fault of no one, but giving comfort as best they can, under the circumstances.

It was a beautiful, and touching account of that person's experience, Z, and I thank you, so much, for sharing it with us.

Anonymous said...

Before any earthquake the animals are warned by the very low frequency (around a C/S) acoustical VIBRATIONS.

one week before JAPAN's earthquake 110 dauphines nauted to beach on new zeland's shore.

This extremely low frequency Acoustical Vibration is heard by the Animals.

In the water, this Vibration is heard MUCH better by the BIG FISHES and it is harmeful and a great headache for those Mamniferes, to free themselves from those very strog hawlings, they have to put out their head out of the water, and this is the reason why they naut to beach.

These EarthQuakes low FREQUENCY Vibrations is Correlated with the earth movement background noise and the current technology is not able to decorrelate the different signals from each other.

I do it with my Technology.

But I need the Governmental possibilities to put it on application.

With this Technology, we can predict the point of the EarthQuake, It's intensity, and the exact day of the earthquake several months and several years before happening.

The countries who have the UNDERGROUND nuclear research possibilities can even ABORT the incoming earthquakes.

Hopping that one day, one Government hears the message.

SAM

Anonymous said...

This is an example of a non-multicultural society. A respectful, honorable one as well.

The Japanese people have remained true to their values, and traditional heritage, and in this portrayal it certainly shines a light on how important it is to honor the foundation on which their country was built.

There are many examples of goodness, generosity, and humility.
Very touching.

Pris

Major said...

"his portrayal it certainly shines a light on how important it is to honor the foundation on which their country was built."


Amazing isn't it? A feudal society becoming more of a democratic republic than the US after a horrific beat down?

This tells me something....that the US needs to have it's ass kicked by patriotic Americans who are willing to destroy the status quo.

(((Thought Criminal))) said...

This tells me something....that the US needs to have it's ass kicked by patriotic Americans who are willing to destroy the status quo.

Don't wipe out useless cities like Boston or Seattle.

If you nuke Memphis and St. Louis, you'll shut down fuel oil supply pipelines to most of the Midwest's farm country and starve everybody else in America out.

I mean, if you want to kick America's ass...