Story Photos
 Photo by Roger Werth Scott Genmyo Miller, left painted Jizo murals that will displayed in Japan. At right is Jan Chozen Bays. |
Pilgrimage for Peace -- Clatskanie woman's project honors those who died in bombings of Hiroshima, Nagasaki
Friday, July 29, 2005 10:16 PM PDT
By Associated Press
Printable version
E-mail this articleCLATSKANIE -- She drew breath and cried for the first time the day thousands of voices were silenced half a world away. Jan Chozen Bays was born Aug. 9, 1945, the same day an atomic bomb leveled Nagasaki, Japan.
Bays, born in Chicago, grew up in a family dedicated to civil rights and global understanding, and became a pediatrician. Later, she went on to become a Zen priest in the Japanese tradition, and is co-abbot of the Great Vow Zen Monastery in Clatskanie.
Linked from birth to Nagasaki, Chozen had long planned a special pilgrimage on her 60th birthday.
She'll be part of a group of 30 who left Friday for Japan as part of a peace project that has drawn responses from around the world.
The group will bring more than 370,000 Jizos, beloved cultural icons in Japan that are found everywhere from toys to temples.
She originally planned to journey with 60 Jizos as a gift of peace. Then, in September of 2002, she visited atomic bomb museums in Japan, and the magnitude of her vision changed.
"I began to grasp what it was to have 100,000 people killed at one time," she said
Bay's larger vision was to bring one image of Jizo, the patron of Great Vow Zen Monastery, for every person who died as a result of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, settling on the number 270,000.
"We opened the project up to the world," said Ryushin Creedon, 25, a resident at the monastery. "Jizo represents unflagging optimism, fearlessness and benevolence, and is a caretaker for those in transition, women, children, travelers, or those who are ill."
The power of the Internet came into play, and the cause gained momentum. Along with the 370,000 Jizos will come messages of peace and healing from every state and around the world.
"People include their name and where they're from and how many Jizos are on the panel," Bays explained.
Jizos from children in South Africa are stacked between banners from Belize and Germany, and prayer flags from prison inmates in Wisconsin.
A Jizo quilt from Cannon Air Force Base tops off the stack.
The pilgrimage includes travelers from Canada and Germany. Each pilgrim will heft a large suitcase of Jizos as one of their check-in bags.
Before she left, Maiya Hall, 32, an attorney on a one-year sabbatical in residence at the monastery, packed Jizos of every size, shape and description. She and Chozen rolled up the huge parade flag, made in painstaking detail of kite fabric by a member of the Zen Community of Oregon.
"At last count we have 106 quilts or banners, and thousands of prayer flags, plus wood and clay, wax, and fabric Jizos, one woman made a string of 1,000 origami Jizos," Hall said.
Fired clay Jizos, designed by Bays, are being taken as gifts for survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
"One nursing home we're visiting has 'Hibakusha' (survivors of the atomic blast.) There was a real stigma for a long while after the war toward survivors," Bays said. "Some are still reluctant to admit it, they feel shame. But there are those who are now determined to tell their story."
Jizos for Peace inspired composer Robert Kyr of the University of Oregon to write a peace symphony, and make the pilgrimage.
"We will be singing 'Living Peace,' a very small part of that symphony, while performing for the mayor at Nagasaki," Bays said. As the Japanese and American choirs sing (in Japanese and English, respectively) they will move toward each other until they merge at the end.
For Amee Turner, 33, of Portland, making Jizos was a family project.
"My grandfather was on Tinean Island when the Enola Gay was being built, and was in a Navy construction battalion September 1945 through February 1946," Turner said. "I asked if he ever went to Nagasaki afterwards, and he got really quiet and said 'No, I never wanted to go.' My grandfather made a Jizo panel. He's 87 -- I think he's one of the oldest people to make one."
"The mission is to help people cultivate peace within themselves and use it in their daily lives," Bays said. "Peace begins in each person's heart. This is how each one of us can work for world peace."
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