Just as some people fall so hard for a pop idol that they will follow them anywhere, I have an idol of my own, and it is the Kuroshio, the Black Current.
I am completely under its spell, and nothing makes my heart race like the chance to see the Kuroshio with my own eyes. Tell anyone you are going to “see the Kuroshio” and they look at you blankly, yet there is a place where it can be done, and it is the finest place of all, on the southwestern shore of the Ashizuri Peninsula in the far southwest of Kochi Prefecture.
I never paid it much attention, but at some point I realized that I had been drawn, again and again, not only to the Kuroshio but to currents of every kind. I had traveled the entire Sea of Japan coast, all the way around Shikoku, across the Seto Inland Sea, and along the shores of Kyushu. I suppose this is what it means to truly fall for something. Before you know it, you are already in love. Or rather, by the time you know it, it is too late, and the thing occupies your mind day and night.
Perhaps it springs from some old memory that even I have yet to discover. At some point, I came to believe that every person carries two distinct lineages. The first is the line of one’s ancestors, which in genetic terms means the mtDNA inherited from the mother and the Y chromosome inherited from the father. The second is the lineage of the gods, and because it concerns spiritual sensibility, it is a different thing altogether. For me, roots mean the state in which these two lineages are returned to inseparability and joined into the One.
A family tree or a DNA test can trace the first, but the second is far harder to reach. Returning to these places over and over seems the only way. The tide calls me, and I go. No hour is richer than the one I spend watching the Kuroshio as the sun goes down at the western edge of the world. Only the roar of the surf echoes, and whatever ill spirits cling to me are blown away by the mountain wind rushing down toward the sea and the sea wind rising from the water like a dragon.
After a stretch in the city without sea air, I start to grow restless. That restlessness is the signal passed between the currents and the old memory, and I obey it by setting out in search of the glorious sea winds of the Japanese archipelago. I roll the car windows all the way down, stand on the capes, and simply let the wind pour over me. For me, purification means bathing in the sea wind, and once the impurities are gone, I visit the shrines dedicated to the princess goddesses of the Ama, the seafaring people who once calmed the currents.
I suspect this is how a custom begins, decided by no one and arising on its own.
