A wish for peace gentle footsteps.

Cloths of heaven NO.1
2019
by M.kaneyasu

 During the global pandemic, when the world grew quiet and movement became restricted, I found myself returning to a simple gesture: drawing circles in ink. What began as a repetitive act slowly became a way to breathe, to create space, and to hold fragile hope within uncertain days.

I create space by drawing circles in ink.
As I enclose various thoughts within each circle, the act of drawing feels deeply comforting.

These four paintings were created during the global pandemic, when our movements were restricted and a sense of confinement filled the days.

From my small room near the Tama River, which flows south of Tokyo, this was the sky I saw.

Around the time I completed these four works, I encountered the poem “He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven” by W.B. Yeats.　「Tread softly become you tread on my dreams」

Cloths of Heaven  No2
2019
by M.Kaneyasu

Perhaps I wanted to entrust some quiet hope to the clouds hanging in the sky—and to the poets who have looked up at it before me.

The sky is always infinite. It gently envelops humanity scattered across the world as one.

I hope there will be no war.
As Yeats wrote in his poem, I wish that we might tread softly—gently—upon this world.

                                   

                                            

Is sumo just a sport, or something more?

　Sumo wrestlers and Gladiators both push the limits of human strength. But one seeks the divine, while the other fought for survival. In an age of frenzy and noise, have we lost the "sacred silence"?

　Sumo wrestlers’ physiques are often referred to as "chanko bodies." 　The history of sumo runs deep. In Japan, sumo was traditionally regarded not only as a display of physical prowess but as a sacred contest of strength and strategy. By grappling chest-to-chest until one was forced out of the ring, wrestlers sought to delight the gods and the rulers of the era. I believe that cultures treating physical strength as something sacred are not unique to Japan; they exist all over the world.

　Consider, for example, the gladiators. In their world, the use of strength stood in direct opposition to the sacred; it was a brutal, life-or-death struggle for survival. It served as entertainment for Roman citizens while remaining a desperate reality for the warriors themselves.                                                                                                  

　Both sumo and gladiatorial combat involve pushing human physical limits. Both wrestlers and gladiators possess muscles that look ready to burst. The only difference lies in the direction in which that power is aimed—a direction ultimately decided by the society of the time.

　While gladiators no longer exist in the modern world, their legacy of "flaunting strength" lives on.

　In recent years, the atmosphere surrounding sumo has shifted. The frenzy over wins and losses, the heckling, the throwing of seat cushions, and the shouts that disrupt the tachi-ai (initial charge) have become frequent topics of concern. Once sumo loses its sacredness, strength becomes nothing more than raw power.

tachi-ai

To me, the most compelling moment is the brief, unified tension that fills the arena just before the initial charge. It is in that fleeting silence that people of the past may have felt a divine presence. This concept of the divine is different from the Western notion of a distant, singular God; it is something felt in the moment.

Beyond the accumulation of "swords" or military might, we must not lose the ability to sense and respect the invisible powers of humanity and nature. To me, "protecting Japan" should mean exactly that: preserving this sense of reverence.

The Power of Frames: How We See the World?

　

 Firewood :frame 1   

　One drawing is the original sketch of a branch. The other two show the same sketch, but the "frame" has been moved to change how it looks

Firewood: Frame 2 

　

Firewood  by M. Kaneyasu

　

Three sketches, one branch, and three different worlds.　

  By shifting the frame, a single branch can look like part of a massive tree, or it can look like it has been split in two. In reality, it was just a simple piece of firewood—something ordinary, easily overlooked. When I look at my own work, I am also questioning my own frames. These three sketches show us a powerful truth: how we see things depends entirely on the "frame" we use.

  In our daily lives, we also rely on frames to understand the world. We use labels for people's looks—like "cute," "handsome," or "chubby." We do the same with politics, using labels like "LDP" or "Ishin" without looking at what they actually do.

  It is hard to take off these frames and see the raw truth. But if we use our imagination to wonder, "What would I see if this frame were gone?", we might start to see a completely different world.

LDP: Liberal Democratic Party(Japan)

Ishin no Kai:  Japan innovation  Party

 

  

旅懐 Thoughts on a Jouney

 

 月華星彩坐来収 

   獄色江声暗結愁

  半寄燈前十年事

 一時和雨到心頭

　                          作：杜筍鶴

　                               書：金安菱雅

The moon’s light and the glitter of the stars gather as if dozing upon the seat,

the color of the mountains and the sound of the flowing river darkly knot grief within the heart.

At midnight, before the lamplight, I look back on the state of these past ten years,

and for a spell the sound of the rain softly echoes all the way into my heart.

                                                                                                    Poem:Du  Xunhe 

                                                                                                    Calligraphy: Ryoga Kaneyasu

Du Xunhe was a poet of the late Tang dynasty. Having failed the imperial examinations many times, he became a wandering poet whose travels were his way of life.

In his poem “Traveling Thoughts” he layers the pure light of stars and moon over the mountains sinking into darkness to express both the loneliness of his own circumstances and the quiet, inward-descending state of his heart.

The beauty of the starry sky, and the loneliness that nestles beside it—

The AI selected poems that resemble Du Xunhe's “Traveling Thoughts”: Seamus Heaney’s “Postscript,They are poems by Japan’s Bashō, Iran’s Hafez, and Germany’s Goethe... For me, it was an unexpected introduction to these poets. I will read them. There is a sense of a new encounter waiting.

Across time and cultures, people have looked up at the same starry nights and moonlit skies, and have felt their hearts tremble in the same way.

Their beauty still, even now, quietly continues to cast questions into the inner lives of those who know it.

And yet, why is it that humanity tries so little to understand one another?

 

            

 

What is the social energy that can replace violence?

 

What Is the Social Energy That Can Replace Violence?

Requiem and Silence as Alternatives to Violence

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Giri, Ninjō, and Moral Responsibility in Japanese Culture

In traditional Japanese society, human relationships were shaped by two ethical concepts: 

giri and ninjō.
Giri refers to social obligation—the duty to repay kindness, loyalty, and support.
Ninjō expresses human feeling: empathy, compassion, and emotional closeness.

Unlike Western moral systems that emphasize individual rights, Japanese ethics historically placed greater weight on mutual responsibility and emotional restraint. These values helped sustain social harmony for centuries. From this cultural background emerged distinctive forms of storytelling and popular culture.

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From Feudal Ethics to Popular Cinema

After World War II, Japan experienced rapid modernization and social disruption. Many people felt disconnected from traditional values. During this period,  ninkyō  films—chivalry movies about yakuza figures—became popular.

Although centered on criminals, these films portrayed their protagonists as tragic figures bound by giri and ninjō. Like Western westerns or gangster films, they dramatized conflict. Yet they differed in that moral duty often outweighed personal desire. Through these stories, audiences found emotional stability in an unstable era.

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When Moral Stories Collapsed

By the late 1960s and 1970s, audiences began to lose faith in idealized heroism. Political unrest, social movements, and generational conflict weakened traditional moral frameworks.

Filmmakers shifted toward “true account” films that emphasized chaos, corruption, and raw violence. The influential series Battles Without Honor and Humanity rejected heroic myths and depicted crime as morally empty. With the deaths of major actors and producers, the genre gradually declined.

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Outlaws Without Codes

In today’s media, criminals are rarely portrayed as figures bound by ethical principles. Instead, they often appear as purely self-interested individuals.

“It’s the victim’s fault.”
“Might makes right.”
“Rules are meant to be broken.”

Such attitudes reflect a worldview shaped by competition rather than responsibility. While Japan is internationally known for safety and politeness, hidden forms of violence—bullying, fraud, exploitation, and addiction—continue to harm ordinary lives.

Physical confrontation has decreased, but psychological and economic violence has grown.

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Where Crime Begins

Outlaw behavior does not arise in isolation. It is influenced by poverty, educational inequality, social isolation, rigid expectations, and fragile self-esteem. In a society under strong pressure to conform, failure and exclusion can silently accumulate. Crime is often a symptom of deeper social fractures.

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Violence and Memory: A Personal Witness

When I was a student, during the period of campus protests in Japan, I once witnessed an elderly professor being beaten by students. My heart began to race, and my mind went blank. I felt as if all the blood had drained from my body. Even now, more than fifty years later, I can recall that scene as vividly as if it were a moment from a film. I did not know the professor. I did not know the students who attacked him. Yet the violence carved itself deeply into my memory, without my consent. It left a wound not only on the victim, but also on those who merely witnessed it.

Sometimes I wonder: What are the children who run through today’s battlefields seeing?
What images will remain with them for the rest of their lives?

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What Can Violence Really Solve?

  Violent films once offered audiences emotional release. Through dramatized conflict, people temporarily processed frustration and anger.

  Yet unabsorbed social tension often returned in real tragedies, such as political extremism and collective violence. History suggests that violence—whether fictional or real—never resolves fundamental problems. It merely postpones them.

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Requiem and Silence as Paths to Renewal

Ink sketch after Noh “Atsumori”
by Michiko Kaneyasu

There is no such thing as “small” or “large” violence.

Violence is, at once, an expression of rejection toward others and an expression of losing oneself.

What, then, can replace it?

I believe the answer lies in requiem and silence.The true alternative to violent expression is art that connects human hearts through mourning, and prayerful silence that honors suffering.

Only through such practices can individuals and societies begin to recover from violence.

In Japanese culture, silence has long been valued not as emptiness, but as a space for responsibility, memory, and compassion.

Requiem and silence do not erase pain.
They transform it.

Perhaps genuine social energy is born not from confrontation, but from listening to the wounded, remembering the forgotten, and enduring together.

In that quiet space, the possibility of peace slowly takes root.

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Study after Dürer / Pencil on paper
by Michiko Kaneyasu

Is the World Getting Worse?

 

Japan Culture "Girl's Day" symbol of peace

Is the world getting worse?

The morning news is filled with reports of war. Another tense day begins.
The intensity of that tension varies, but daily life is undeniably shaped by it.

The stability of modern society—built on the reflections of World War II—shows signs of unraveling in many places. Nations that once created order now struggle desperately to reorganize it. For ordinary people who simply wish to raise children, pass on culture, and live in peace, this reality feels harsh and fragile.

Japan, too, has experienced repeated cycles of collapse and reconstruction. Within that history, there remain precious records of how ordinary people lived through such times. One of them is Meigetsuki, the diary of Fujiwara no Teika, a 13th-century poet who lived during the transition from an aristocratic society to a warrior-led one.

Teika left records spanning nearly sixty years, from the age of nineteen to seventy-nine. Born into a low-ranking noble family, he devoted his life to waka poetry. In the noble hierarchy, the emperor stood at the pinnacle, followed by court nobles—a rank his father long aspired to attain.

As the power balance shifted toward the samurai, what did Teika think, and how did he live?
In Meigetsuki, he records daily events with remarkable calmness, even persistence. His physical existence—fatigue, illness, routine—is quietly embedded in these entries. This, I believe, is the diary’s enduring power.

Teika lived amid famine, natural disasters, and epidemics, in a world where ethical norms could not firmly anchor everyday life. What, then, is different today? One cannot help but question whether those who hold power truly possess ethical responsibility.

Meigetsuki has survived for a thousand years through the wisdom of those who preserved it. The writer Yoshie Hotta (1918–1998), who came of age during the Pacific War and later continued his career in Spain, held close a line from Teika’s first Chinese poem, written when he was nineteen. Its meaning is simple and severe:
No matter how chaotic the world becomes, do not be swayed by it. War is not my concern.

These words resonate with the sentiment of Satoshi Nakamura of the Peshawar Association, who said, “Do not be swayed by world events. Do what you can for the people in front of you.”

Reading this, I feel I can understand the heart of a writer who clung to words while facing conscription—then, and now.

Atomic bomb and life

 traveled to Hiroshima.

    Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park was overflowing with foreign tourists and groups of elementary, junior high, and high school students. Despite being a park bustling with so many people coming and going, it was wrapped in an atmosphere of “silence.”     Especially around the cenotaph, familiar from television screens, it felt almost like an altar. People lined up at this site where the words of a vow, an eternal flame, and the remains of the Atomic Bomb Dome could be seen. Some held cameras, some bowed their heads, some pressed their hands together in prayer.I was overwhelmed by the　atmosphere of the place, and tears welled up as I instinctively joined my hands in prayer. The number of victims from the atomic bombing is said to be about 140,000. The fact that lives and daily routines were taken in an instant is heartbreaking.

 By viewing the materials and exhibits at the Peace Memorial Museum, I could vividly imagine the scenes from 80 years ago, and it became unbearable. I wonder what kind of feelings people take home with them after visiting this place. Even now, the image of the Atomic Bomb Dome, still exposing its skeletal structure under the clear sky, scorched and melted clothing torn from burned skin, melted bridge girders, human figures burned into the stone pavement—these scenes flash through my mind.I find myself asking, “Why did this have to happen?” “What about the children? The parents?” “What if it were me?” It left a stronger impression than any documentary film or war novel ever could.

　Now, in Gaza, Palestine, Syria, Ukraine, Myanmar… all over the world, ordinary people are becoming victims of wars sparked by those in power. I pray that the silent presence of the Atomic Bomb Dome, which still stands strong despite the overwhelming destructive power of the bomb, and the quiet square filled with the remains of victims and the cries of those who mourned, may bring hope to the people of Gaza, Kyiv, and elsewhere　tomorrow.

　Japanese people tend not to speak much or express themselves outwardly in English. Our flat expressions make it hard for emotions to be conveyed, and we often humble ourselves naturally before people from other countries. Even toward an enemy, we smile and greet them. Even if we are not in the wrong, we say “sorry.”　We quietly endure hardships, suppress resentment and bitterness, and go on living our daily lives.
　Silent resistance. Non-violence. On the riverside looking up at the Atomic Bomb Dome, there was a statue of Gandhi.       

140,000 in an instant.　Even after such a sacrifice, what is the nature of the desires of great powers that still create the roots of invasion, exclusion, and attack?　Rather than becoming a slave to such desires, I wanted to stand with those who have become victims.
It was hard to walk away from that place.