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I encountered this
kamakiri (praying mantis) this morning. I was on my bicycle and noticed a new building in my neighborhood on a street I ordinarily don't ride on. It looked like a place that did some kind of natural healing, so I pulled in closer to take a look at the sign. It was early in the morning, and no one was around. That's when I saw the
kamakiri on the sleeve of my sweater.
If this had been about a year ago, I would have maybe squirmed and brushed it off, but today, I was curious.
I watched it on my sleeve as it crawled up my sweater. When it got on the strap of my backpack, it was my chance---I took my backpack off my back and put it down. I sat down on the asphalt and watched the kamakiri for a while as it eventually found it's way off the backpack and on to the ground.
I was about to go but it began to come close to me and I watched it some more. I remembered some things I learned this summer in a dance/meditation workshop about greeting 'things' in nature and decided to 'greet' it. I looked at it's movements and responded to them, in an awkward dance of bridging the distance between our two...forms.
That's when it crawled up onto my toe, and that's when I realized how my relation to nature has changed. With a shift to a kind of meditative state, I began to breathe. I inhaled and let go of any judgement of the moment, rather just felt the tickle of it's legs as it crawled up mine. Here was this bit of nature curious about me as I was about it.
I closed my eyes and became aware of the sensation, at one point not knowing where it was but knowing it was on me, somewhere around my head.
Then I I saw it's shadow on my hand, echoing it's movements in a silhouette, and knew it had made it's way up to the crown of my head.
Watching it's shadowed movements on the palm of my hand while ever so slightly feeling it on my head---gave me a miraculous sense of connection with it.
A woman approached me with a parasol, seemingly out of nowhere. In those kind of meditative moments, all the entrances seem to be out of nowhere, and she began to talk about "kamisama" (god) who made this insect and who created us all. I didn't want to get too deep into the conversation and handed her my cell phone and asked if she wouldn't mind taking a picture of the kamakiri on top of my head.
She reluctantly said ok but wasn't comfortable with the workings of the camera.
She attempted a few tries and after fiddling with it told me she wasn't cut out for taking pictures with it.
Then she removed the kamakiri from my head, placed it in front of me, and said it would be better if I took the picture myself the way I'd like it.
Sometimes a moment finds it's own natural way of ending. The woman disappeared as mysteriously as she came in, and I bid goodbye to what I later found out is, in translation, a praying mantis. I sensed it told me what it wanted to say, though I still can't say I'm exactly sure
what it was.
ai♡kawarazu
JGY
