The Environmental Poetry
of Princess Shikishi
Now the cherry trees
seem to have bloomed;
it's cloudy,
hazy with spring,
the way the world appears.
As a young woman, the 12th c. Japanese poetess, Princess Shikishi (Shokushi), served for ten years as saiin, or high priestess, of the Kamo Shrine, a Shinto center of worship located in Kyoto, in present-day Kamikyo-ku. Shinto, the "Way of the Gods," so-named to distinguish it from Buddhism, is an ancient, nature-based, polytheist religion indigenous to Japan. It is similar, both in myth and philosophy, to the Archaic Greek religion. At the end of her life, Shikishi became a Buddhist nun, and her understanding of the Buddhist path, at once detached and compassionate, is felt at times just as strongly as are the animistic and passionate elements of her poetry.
from Wild Imaginings: the Environmental Poetry
of Princess Shikishi
