Miracle Apple: Making impossible possible

Akinori Kimura, a Japanese farmer,  succeeded in growing apples without fertilizer which had long been considered to be impossible.

He married into an apple orchard in his 20s. Working there, he had been suffering from sickness and his wife from terrible skin inflammation caused by the fertilizer. While he was pondering what to do to improve this situation, he encountered Masanobu Fukuoka's "The Natural of Farming". He decided to adapt this method to grow his apples.

Soon after he stopped giving fertilizer, his 800 apple trees got infested by harmful insects. They were so many and he picked them by hands (three full plastic bags per tree,) They lost leaves and started dying. He kept trying to find the right fertilizer chosen from food items such as soy sauce, milk, whatever he found. He lost all the money and started working for a night club. His wife managed to prepare meals using wild grass as material. His children supported him as well. However, year after year, no sign of apple. After not being able to find a solution for six years, he decided to commit suicide to take responsibility. He went up to a nearby mountain and was looking for a place to hang his rope. That's when he saw an apple tree with lots of apples shining in a distance. He wondered why this tree is growing without fertilizer in a forest. When he went closer to the tree, he found that it was not an apple tree, but he got an inspiration. He immediately checked the soil and it was soft. He intuitively realized that if he can reproduce this environment, his apples will grow without fertilizer.

He went home and grew wild grass in his orchard. Every day he intensely studied insects and succeeded in recreating the ecological environment where the harmful and beneficial insects are balanced (so there are not harmful insects that infest apples). Three years later, all his trees produced apples which don't turn yellow being exposed to oxygen or deteriorate for years.

Being vital

I’ve been thinking about being vital. It is not the same as the energy we feel when we are excited. When we are in high tension. But sometimes these two seem to be granted as the synonyms. As a performing artist, I experience the ‘high tension’ moments on stage. Heated, exhilarating intoxication takes over me. I love my audience. There is a charged exchange between us. My body feels ‘filled’. I feel alive, and awake. Unfortunately, these moments are short-lived. They evaporate immediately after arising, and so, to fill the void, the cycle of regenerating more of this feeling continues. Being vital seems different. It's about feeling quiet and continuous motor inside the body. Gentle and effortless. This amorphous, vibrating essence exists in all living things. If we descend into calmness to connect with it, every moment in life becomes vivid and special without seeking for excitement.

Proof of existence

I participated in Dance Hakushu Festival last summer in Hakushu, Japan. As I was reading some of the e-mail exchanges amongst the staff members, I ran into one of this year's participants' blog. He was someone I had known from almost 19 years ago in Japan. At that time, he and dance seemed inseparable. I firmly believed that he was going to dance until the end of his life. I myself was just starting to make a serious commitment to the 'act of dance' and 'performance' without thinking too much about motivation or meaning. I clearly remember the time he faced me and asked me this question in a serious manner: "why do you have to dance?" He told me how 'he could not live without dancing". Dance was a proof of his existence. I didn't understand what he had meant at that time. Now I'm slowly starting to understand it. When asked, "what do you dance for?" after one of  his performances at PS 1 in November 2007, Min Tanaka answered, "first for myself, then for others, but I'm always in need of others's eyes." When I cast that same question onto myself, do I have an answer now?  I dance to explore. What is possible? Where is the boundary? Limit? How does inside and outside co-exist? How does past, present, and future co-exist in my body, through my body? How can I disappear and exist at the same time? How can I transcend this body? What is self? How do you reach ego-less body? Can I go there or am I staying here?

Dance is a quest to find the answers to myself. Answers to my existence. My existence in relation to the universe. The existence of the universe. It is a way to investigate what it means to exist. For me, it is a way to examine what this whole thing means, not to prove it.

In the blog, this dancer mentioned that he hadn't danced for quite a while since his ways of proving his existence has been shifted to his other business. After calling this opportunity his 'last time to dance', he casts a question, 'I wonder what might happen if I dance now. Would this really become the last time or not?" I wonder if this occasion is going to become a trigger to shake and move his existence and if that's the case, I wonder if the reason for him to dance might now be to find himself, not to prove himself.