Ring Five — The Pilgrimage

02031

Come the whole way. Then stop short.

Halfway. Five rings written, five still sealed.

To reach Jōmon Sugi you start before dawn. The first hours follow the old Anbō logging railway — the same narrow track that once carried the straight cedars down to the sea — walking the sleepers through moss and rain. On the way you pass Wilson’s Stump, the remains of a giant felled four hundred years ago, hollow enough to stand inside; look up from the right spot and the opening above you is shaped exactly like a heart. The island makes its jokes slowly.

Then the rails end and the trail climbs. Roughly ten hours, round trip, and at the end a wooden platform stops every visitor about fifteen meters from the trunk — built in the 1990s when the crowds’ feet began compacting the soil over the roots. There is no touching the tree. There never will be again.

People cross oceans, walk from before dawn, and stand where they are told to stand. Ask them afterward and they say the strangest thing: it was enough.

Some distances are the destination. Fifteen meters is one of them.

What have you been circling for five years — and how close are you willing to get?

Knock once next September

This page will never ask you for anything.
No account. No list. It only gives.

— Ian ✦