Mujuan : The re-use of the world




What we leave behind


Fallen barks, dead trunks, decrepit walls and forgotten bags are strewn all around Awaji. Coming here, I was given the keys of Mujuan, a tea pavillon as abandoned as the island. The 1995 earthquake has seriously shaken the two tea rooms and gigantic garden. A young beginner like me should not claim to open his own tea pavillon, but what master would settle in someone else’s house and, furthermore, a let down house ?

Aguste Comte said that « the dead rule over the livings ». They are the cause of our birth, our world is the result of their actions. We are born in ruins — palaces and forests that our ancestors shaped. Someone else grew what we are harvesting today.
Yet, we like new things. We like when an item is made for us. We like to be its first owner, its only recipient. The more I go, the more this mindset seems strangely vain to me. Ceramics I like will survive me for thousands of years. I am merely one of their guests.

I do not know of the story of Mujuan, I do not know who drew it, named it and used it. But I know that, today, if I do not go there, no one will. Entering into an antique shop, all that we see are items that no one wants.  What some acquires, another has thrown it away or sold it.


regeneration as an ethic


Many people’s dream is in the complete building of their own world. They want a flat land, a new bed and advanced technologies. It is a cartesian dream : to make a clean sweep and build everything again while controlling every atom, as a true « master and owner of nature ». But I think that it is also a chimerical dream : should we not admit the rule of our ancestors over us and start by keeping alive our heritage ? Always take something new and never taking care of the old, is it not the best way to exhaust our earthly ressources ? I am not advocating here for a kind of conservatism though : to keep alive is not to keep in a formol bottle but to make things evolve.

No one has inhabited Mujuan, so the spiders made it into their domain. Entering the pavilion for the first time, I really thought that there would be ghosts.  Cleaning the pavilion, I also thought that the dust would never go away. Today, with my tiny experience as a man of tea and my few spurts of will, I warm up the hut that others left behind.

To regenerate what is sleeping instead of sweeping off what once was seems to me to be the only way to go forward without ignorance of our history. Maybe, one day, I will make my own tea room, but I hope that it will be made of used wood boards.

In the meantime, I cultivate my own garden — a garden that does not even belong to me. This daily discipline, to offer every morning an hour of my time to rearrange the dirt that others have prepared, this discipline teaches me humility and, everyday, I breath with more pleasure. To maintain the world in order may seem like a poor activity to pyramid builders, but it is the only activity that teaches us to be inspired by the present instead of sighting at our future.


Comments

Post a Comment

If you like it share it !

Popular posts from this blog

World creation by Sasaki Kyoshitsu

Image
Sasaki during our last firing at Shoraku About two weeks ago, I asked Sasaki-sensei to make two tea bowls. The first one had to be made for his personal use, the second for his family. None of them should be made to be sold. What did he understood of my words ? I have no idea. Nevertheless, he started to make four bowls… Later, he would explain that it was a way to make sure that at least two would survive…but each bowl he made was different. One of these tea bowls will be my « ceramic » conclusion to this internship. Master’s style Sasaki-sensei il a smiling and sweet man, convivial and fond of bright colors. He loves shiny green glazes, chalk white shoes and the Japanese tapas bars where saké is overflowing.   A black or a red raku tea bowl is not exactly the perfect expression of his character. One can feel it in Sasaki’s works. His creations alternate between classic dark/red and colorful essays. Sasaki's tea bowls Before our last firing, I th
Keep reading

Chakaiki — A new invitation to wanderings

Image
After our last firing, Sasaki-sensei and I prepared tea together. In ancient times, tea people would write down records of their tea ceremonies and of the most important pieces they saw. It was called a chakaiki . This is a modern chakaiki with pictures and commentaries. Tokonoma — white boats and blue beauties All of this trip was made possible thanks to the help of Alex Kerr, a famous american writer in love with Japan and expert in —at least— calligraphy. As Sasaki’s friend, he accepted me in his old house full of treasures, only forty minutes by bicycle from the workshop —and that was the closest house ! My legs will certainly remember the seven endlessly uphill kilometers that I had to ride every morning in the mountains. But my heart will surely also remember Alex Kerr’s generosity. Before I left the house, Mr. Kerr offered me one of his calligraphy. He signs his works instead of using a stamp — I think that is his way of playing between Western and Eastern trad
Keep reading

Japanese Scent

Image
Melody in wood I still remember my first trip to Kyoto. It was in July. One day, while some scattered rains washed the trees and refreshed the airs with a soft wind, I entered the walls of Nanzenji, one of Kyoto’s famous temples. The great gate and its darkened wood pillars exhaled a perfume close to incense and moss. A top note, sparkling and emotional, came from nose to eyelashes like tears of joy. Then an earthy wave, the middle note, fresh and light like a breeze among the oaks. And finally, for the base note, a deep blow of sliced wood, low and rich, rough on the palate and caressing on the nose. I never forgot that perfume of Nanzenji. To me, it is typical of central Japan. I think I mentioned it a lot before. I had to, eventually, give it a proper homage. The missing history of perfumes Tanizaki said that Japanese aesthetic plays on shadows to suggest things rather than to show them. I never read anything about the smells of Japan. Yet, more so than shadows,
Keep reading