Thirty Thousand Days

When your boat arrives at the sacred island of Miyajima, the first thing you will notice is a big gate in the middle of the sea, a floating gate that seems to be the entrance to a sacred and different world. As you feel the wind in your face, you may also notice the colours of the island: the green of the trees mixed with an impressive red that also covers the main gate. This red would be explained to me later as no ordinary red. Because of its uniqueness and importance it is baptized under a different name.

Miyajima, a land of the gods, was a place that man would not step into, but carefully tend to and worship as a divine place. Today this sacredness remains on the air, but tourists can visit, stay at its incredible ryokan, meet deers on the streets wandering like domesticated dogs, and perhaps most relevant of it all, walk up the mountain to see the buddhist temples and shinto shrines, one of the sacred highlights of the nation.

Walking up the path and ropeways to the top of the mountain probably takes you every time closer to its divine vibrations. Wisdom and beauty are clearly around, ready to be noticed through the many senses. The opportunity to walk this path together with a soul friend makes you see them and feel them even more, as we walk up both mountain and consciousness.

Not all can be shared in only words or pictures. From what can, I remember vividly a place just outside one of the buddhist temples where a little booth was selling commemorative writings for people who have reached their 60’s, 70’s, etc — and showing how many days the person had lived so far. Although very obvious after a quick math, I was surprised to realise that we live about 30,000 days only.

Some pictures at

That related a lot to Miyajima, the country and the traditions held by it — an individual dreams of finding the truth, act upon it and make changes in a world that currently bows to innovation and the new. Despite all our knowledge and information access of today, how can one experience the wisdom that have been around for many years in some thousand days? How do people imagine they had all figured out and worse, have a sense of urgency around it?

I walked down thinking to myself: don’t use your days to change what is truth, use them to experience it — experienced people might be all the change that is needed.