Okay so. A cemetery was not what I had in mind when I pictured the highlight of my trip.
But here we are.
I walked into Okunoin not really knowing what I was about to feel. And honestly? The beginning was fine. Just… a walk. But the deeper we got into the woods, something started to happen. The noise in my head — the kind I've been carrying for months — just… quieted. Slowly. Like someone turning down a dial I didn't know was on.
The energy in there is no joke.
Thousands of tombstones line that path — moss-covered, ancient, each one keeping someone's name alive in stone. There's something quietly radical about that. Like remembrance is its own act of love. Massive cedar trees tower over everything, their roots older than anything I can reference. And the light — the light was doing the absolute most. Breaking through the canopy and landing on certain trees, certain stones in a way that felt way too intentional to be accidental. I kept stopping just to look.
I need you to understand — stillness does not come easy for me. But Koyasan didn't give me a choice. And honestly? I didn't want one.
We stopped to pour water over the statues of the priests and pray for those we've lost. I took my time. Nobody rushed me and I was so grateful for that. I prayed for the people I love. For my own health — something that's been heavy on my mind lately. For guidance when things get hard, and for enough wisdom to actually find joy even when they do.
Walking through the mausoleum I kept trying to wrap my head around where I was. Like… I am standing on ground that has held centuries of human beings feeling things. My brain just could not compute that. I started wondering — would life have felt calmer back then? Simpler? Would I have been happier?
I don't know. Maybe that's not the point.
What I do know is that when I walked out of that mausoleum — prayers still fresh, heart genuinely full — a small piece of bark fell from one of those massive cedar trees above me.
Just a little tap on the shoulder.
And after everything I had just asked for, everything I had just felt in that hour —
I'm sorry but that was not random. That was something.