We passed
through the American immigration for the third time without any
problem again. I guess we were worrying about it too much.
The organizers had taken us to a local
Japanese restaurant last night.
For 20 years the restaurant, SAKURABANA,
have been a part of the local community. As you see in the photograph
below, the sushi that Mr. Takahashi had made for us were very
good. I guess I’m just used to having a Japanese person make the
sushi. I feel that at every part of the world I go.

The seminar started at 10:30 this morning and about
800 people showed up at the venue. The population of the town
itself is about 350,000 so this was a big percentage of the people
comparatively. There must be many spiritually inspired people
in this town.

What I was most impressed by was this woman that
used all her body and facial feature to present my two hours lecture
in sign language. After the seminar, I received a big round of
applause and standing ovation so I invited her on the stage to
receive the applause.

There was a long line for book signing. Many books
were sold out in the end.

Water Ceremony
After the seminar, from around two in the afternoon,
a water ceremony was held at a nearby lake. Even though it was
raining, about 400 people gathered and enjoyed different performances
for about two hours.
This man in blue is Waterman, a popular figure
for the locals.

dancing with the swans

There was a man in white (a swan?) that danced
the whole ceremony through.

There was a Japanese drum performance as well.
But why here in Burlington?

A dance performance as well.

A shishimai appeared too!! The performance was
wonderful. It was performed by a woman from Nagano. It came to
eat up Hiro, my son who was sitting next to me.

The beginning of a 13 ring performance by a native
performer.

There it is, all the 13 rings connected.

To wrap up the ceremony, different people that
attended the ceremony took a jug of water and walked around.

They placed the water in the middle and we started
the prayer ceremony.
The woman in red sweater on the left is Jessie,
one of the organizers of the whole event. She led the prayer expressing
the love, gratitude, and respect for water and to the gods of
each direction.

A special appearance by a child.

They brought the water that we prayed to by the
shore and poured it back to the lake while everyone standing by
sang together. It was so moving that I had tears in my eyes.

This is Stuart, the very person that introduced
Japanese drum and shishimai to Burlington. His father was a missionary
and lived in Japan during childhood. He had been living in Japan
for the total of 14 years where he learned Japanese drumming and
shishimai. He spoke Japanese very well as well.

This is the other organizer of the event Dianne
(on right) and her friend Robert and his wife. They had just gotten
married last October.

It rained pretty heavily during the two and half
hours of ceremony but I think most of the 400 people that had
gathered stayed until the end. Even for us, it was pretty cold
but we didn’t feel any strain about staying for the whole time.
It shows how moving and fun the whole event was. I’m sure the
water in the lake was all very happy too.
One of the things that really made me happy was
that a choir created a song about love and thanks and sang it
for the whole group. I have been talking about sending love and
thanks to water for about 7 years now and I was much moved to
see that this idea is spreading throughout the world in different
ways.
For those of you that attended the ceremony, and for Jessie, who
made this come true, thank you very much.

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