Ki to the City – Details, episodes & analysis

In this captivating return conversation with Reverend Koichi Barrish, we delve further into concepts of energy, interconnectedness, and the metaphysical underpinnings of Aikido.

We begin with a fascinating discussion about the auspicious day of recording (Summer Solstice) as a "pivot point" in the annual solar cycle.

Reverend Barrish explains that just as the sun's energy begins to shift from increasing yang (activity) to increasing yin (recession) after the solstice, there are natural intervals or "kyō" in life. These intervals, he elaborates, are not merely voids but powerful spaces where transformational work can be done.

In Aikido, this understanding of kyō is crucial for effective technique, utilizing concepts like shikaku (dead angle) and oblique entry to create opportunities for leverage and influence.

The interview also offers a glimpse into the daily Shinto practices, with Reverend Barrish clarifying the differences between Gokito Kigan Sai (formal shrine visits where a priest prays on behalf of visitors) and Chōhai (morning prayer, where everyone prays together).

He speaks passionately about his personal daily Shugyō (austere spiritual training), which includes hours of Norito (Shinto invocations/prayer words), Tsuburi, Chinkon, and Kototama.

He describes this rigorous practice as being essential for purifying and strengthening one's ki, to remove obstructions and elevate one's energetic frequency. This allows for a deeper connection to and understanding of Kamisama (deities) and the whisper of great nature.

A core theme explored is Kannagara, which Rev. Barrish defines as "the restless, infinite movement of nature" or "the divine flow."

He eloquently illustrates this concept by describing the helical paths of planetary bodies, stars, and even atomic particles, emphasizing that "everything is in motion."

Aikido, he posits, serves as a "spiritual and physiological technology" to help practitioners "manifest Kannagara" and harmonize with this universal, rising and falling flow of ki.

It's not just about conscious understanding, but the direct, physical experience of training that helps one feel "one with the ki" and in a "state of grace."

Finally, Reverend Barrish addresses the feeling of being overwhelmed by the world's disturbing events, a sentiment I wholeheartedly share.

He reassuringly asserts that Aikido practice is not an escapism but a vital means of activating one's ki, coming to one's center, and becoming more effective in creating positive change.

O-Sensei explicitly said that the movements of Aikido were "gifted" to him by Sarutahiko no Okami, the "Guidance Kamisama" who stands at the crossroads of heaven and earth, guiding human beings on how to live.

This interview is a rich tapestry of spiritual insights, martial arts philosophy, and practical advice for navigating the complexities of modern life by connecting with ancient wisdom.

Reverend Barrish’s calm yet profound delivery makes these intricate concepts accessible, offering a compelling reason to explore the transformative power of Aikido and the deeper meaning of spiritual practice.

Please visit his website earthshinto.org and/or facebook and support his efforts.

Enjoy!

I want to start this episode off by reading a quote from Masahisa Goi, the founder of Byakko Shinko Kai, from his book 'The Future of Mankind,' translated by Fumi Johns, Byakko Press, 1985.

“The world is facing an age being placed at the crossroads of either manifesting destruction or heaven on earth. We must clearly recognize this fact.

A divine message is being revealed to all spiritualists—the message that Heaven will manifest on earth. However, there are quite a few who predict that the majority of mankind will be destroyed by the time heaven on earth manifests.

I also firmly believe that heaven on earth will manifest - however, I do not deny the tremendous loss which will occur beforehand.

If we, who pray for world peace, are only concerned with our personal salvation, it is certain that we will be saved, as well as those around us. This is so because we see all unhappiness and misfortunes as the fading images of the cause-and-effect from past lives.

We know the truth that when the karmic causes and effects vanish away, the true self, the inborn nature of the child of God, will manifest within ourselves. We also know that guardian divine spirits are always protecting us from a close proximity.

So no matter what will happen, we will pray for world peace, will not panic, cry, or clamor as common people may. We will only call upon our guardian divine spirits wholeheartedly and trust our destiny within the prayer for world peace.

In case we were to die with such thoughts, we know through the experience of many people that we would definitely be born in another world even better than the present. This means that whether we depart or remain in this world, it is of little significance.”

Byakko Shinko Kai is a Japanese new religion founded in 1955 by Masahisa Goi, primarily focused on achieving world peace and elevating human consciousness, encapsulated in its prayer, 'May Peace Prevail on Earth.'

May peace prevail on earth.

May peace be in our homes and countries.

May our missions be accomplished.

We thank thee, guardian deities and guardian spirits.

O Sensei is quoted as saying that Goi is the only person who ‘truly understands his heart’. He delivered a series of lectures specifically to Byakko Shinko Kai, which were published as 'Takemusu Aiki.'

This collaboration was pivotal in the internationalization of Aikido's spiritual message, as Byakko Shinko Kai's universalistic approach provided a framework for O Sensei's philosophy to be more broadly understood beyond its specific cultural origins.

I still have much to learn about O Sensei’s spiritual quest, not to mention my own. I’ve barely scratched the surface.

Tatsunori Imamura Sensei, a current member of Byakko Shinko Kai and esteemed Aikido sensei from Hokkaido, visited my dojo last fall. We recited the prayer for world peace together and also enjoyed a clean, powerful, precise practice session. I’ll put a link to the seminar just in case you possess time-traveling abilities and want to go back to attend, or if you want to read the blurb and see the cool picture: Seminar.

Now, getting back to the quote above… Personally, I've always leaned away from apocalyptic narratives, talking about 'the end of the world.' When I was 9, I asked my grandfather when the end of the world was going to be, and he told me, “When you die, that's the end of the world—for you.” It made sense at the time.

Now I have strong Platonic propensities—I hold pretty steadfastly to an Orphic understanding of the soul, meaning my soul is an immortal piece of an immortal world-soul, which is fashioned and nourished by a divine intellect which still can't explain everything…

At the end of the day, (the beginning of night?) there’s still a higher quality that holds the divine intellect together in unity. But if you try to call it 'the one,' problems arise in your discursive mind, so in Damascius’s (and my) opinion, you're better off calling it the ineffable.

Within the realms of the divine intellect and the world-soul, there are many questions to be answered. One of the questions I'm most intrigued by is the proposed existence of 'guardian divine spirits,' as Goi calls them.

There are mountains of recorded experiences—spanning generations—describing beings that humans (and probably most animals, maybe even plants, rocks, and water, who knows) have been in communication with since the early days of known history.

My own personal guardian divine spirit simply tells me to 'focus on Aikido'—'go to the dojo.' Despite facing some serious fiduciary obstacles, I’ve been listening.

I'm not usually one to speak of Armageddon because I believe the world is eternal (again, Platonist here, hi…). I believe that no matter what we do, no matter how corrupted and destructive some of us may become, we're never going to destroy the world.

We're destroying ourselves. That's evident. That's obvious to me.

In fact, the past few days, I’ve been in a deep depression, realizing that I’ve spent most of the first 49 years of my life trying to destroy myself in one way or another, partly based on the romanticized notion of aesthetic self-destruction I had foisted upon me by intelligence agencies through pop culture and decadent art.

And there's still a sliver of my soul that wants to make decadent art.

By decadent art, I mean art that tries to distill poignancy from the inevitable decay of this particular lifetime and all its emotional attachments, buttressed by a persona I constructed/conjured/tried to peddle to 'the world' in an active exploitation I hoped would be attractive enough to pull me out of poverty.

But along the way I got obsessed with Aikido, and through daily practice—now also through a diligent foray into the spiritual principles that undergird its creation and what I feel to be the actual purpose of the art—I may have just been rescued from this drive to narrate my own self-destruction.

Possible salvation aside, I still feel the need to address 'the end of the world,' at least to tie this rambling dissertation back to the opening quote, and also to show that my eyes are not closed to current geopolitical events.

Besides, even if 'the end of the world' is my own personal projection, it's coming.

I got maybe 35 years left in this body if I'm lucky.

I hope I have the nervous strength not to project my fears onto society as a whole—to not imagine 'the world' itself ending. That being said, the modern collective catastrophe is real. We got billions of us acting out our own inner eschatons, and some are in positions of power. No wonder s**t is so crazy all the time.

I'm going to look more into Byakko Shinko Kai. I hope to interview Imamura Sensei soon. Maybe a simple prayer for world peace and trust in divine guardian spirits is all I could do anyway.

I could easily rail about technocracy, transhumanism, psychopathy, atomism, materialism, the void, social engineering, the psy-op of 'evil spirits,' Rockefeller medicine, how the left-right paradigm is a weaponization of the Hegelian dialectic used to foment division amongst us serfs to allow for further enforcement of cybernetic control—but it's all just a manifestation of a process, a process which there’s no escape from anyway.

I'm going to the dojo now (of course). It's Wednesday, which is the night I lead class (at my dojo we don't say 'teaching the class'; we say 'leading the class').

I shouldn’t really say 'my dojo'—it doesn’t belong to me - I belong to it. I should say 'the dojo I belong to.' It’s just the way I talk. Or maybe it’s inherent in language to always denote possession.

I'm hoping more than two people show up, but I'm not holding my breath. I'm not going to talk about the impending world war or guardian spirits… At least not until after class, maybe walking to the train station, depending on who's there.

In class, I really just want to work out—get rid of some karmic cause and effect…"

and what an encouraging and captivating conversation it was…

Richard Moon Sensei, with over 55 years of Aikido experience, starting circa summer of love San Francisco (I forgot to ask if they really had flowers in their hair… I’m so jealous…) delves deep into the magi-poetic meaning behind the art. We ruminated on the "the floating bridge of heaven," explored Takemusu Aiki, and Moon Sensei also generously shared some fascinating stories of his training with Robert Nadeau (who studied directly with O Sensei.)

Plus, an incredible connection (I seemingly couldn’t get over) to the man who recorded the iconic Alan Watts tapes! Prepare for an insightful journey into the philosophy and energy behind Aikido that goes beyond physical techniques.

And check out Moon Sensei’s links:

A free download of his book

Extraordinary listening

Youtube channel

Thanks supporting in this endeavor to bring more Ki to the city!

I found another reason why I’m so fascinated by O Sensei’s life story, besides the fact that he devised the metaphysical fitness regimen I’m pleasantly addicted to.

He belonged to the generation that’s influenced my life the most dramatically. I mean, literally dramatically—the generation that laid the bricolage for the swirling psycho-dramaturgic escapades that constitute my semiliterate cybernetic peasant existence.

In other words, my favorite writers are from that generation—from the late 19th to mid-20th century…basically…more or less.

You got P.D. Ouspensky—brilliant Russian mystic philosopher who found the fifth dimension and was able to describe it in eloquent pedestrian terms, making it accessible even to regular run-of-the-mill mamalukes like me—but then he gets caught up in a neo-gnostic cult run by a conman carpet merchant hypnotist talking about how “we are food for the moon.” Okay, even if that’s true, what else am I gonna be? If that’s what it is, that’s what it is.

You got Fernando Pessoa—whose Book of Disquietude will forever haunt my own vain attempts at metapersonal esoteric poignancy.

And then you got Henry Miller (of course), Anaïs Nin—sprinkle in a little bit of D.H. Lawrence… While I’m not nearly as decadent, these three literary libertines helped me understand how to not take my own orphic tendencies so seriously, so urgently, and to let myself sink into the fragrant patience of the scenery…a little bit…sometimes.

Meanwhile, in Japan, you got Deguchi-san and O Sensei conducting seances—conjuring gods—building shrines and dojos—communicating with ancient deities—caught up in the current come along with apprehensions of mechanization, industrialization, plowing, vowing, striving to retain kinship with the spirits of nature. The Kami.

Deguchi’s voluminous writing is so tempting to tackle. Part of me’s glad it hasn’t been translated into English yet—it would take forever to read…

I also figured out why I’m obsessed with Chinkon Kishin.

Because it’s from pre-factory farm times.

It’s from before we were doomed to factory labor or, for us in “developed nations,” living off its exploitations.

Chinkon Kishin is from before the peasants had to symbolically choose between state-run factory farms or corporation-run factory farms—either way, we were getting factory farms.

Who decided this? Who knows?

But I don’t blame the gods.

Aikido was created during this crucial time in human history—right as we were being merged with machines—to keep humanity divinely animated. If this spark is lost, the bridge between heaven and earth collapses—or so I’ve heard.

If you’d like to learn more about Bjorn’s work, and I promise you will once you’ve listened to our conversation, check out his website here: Bjorn Saw

And don’t hesitate to get in touch with him. Especially if you’re into exploring cross-cultural spirituality from an experiential place.

He’s got a wealth of wisdom.

I’ll admit, sometimes I feel like I can identify more with Deguchi than O Sensei.

My (staying vague for now) childhood pain also bled me to feel the urge to “impact society” through adopting a trickster persona. So, I know how that feels. I might’ve actually been possessed by a coyote spirit—who knows? I'm not saying it’s a bad thing—pop-culture shamanism—I’m not ashamed of my past; I'm just making a cursory reference to it, as is customary in written dissertations. Even clumsy ones like this.

The nature of my own four souls is clear to me.

One soul simply wants to be a psychographical stoner, a hypnagogic sojournalist.

One wants to be a mystical martial artsy philosopher—and is disappointed by the lack of an Alan Watts accent, stronger ankles, and a full head of hair I could put up in a bun.

One wants to be an orangutan, more or less.

And one just kinda pouts about being a mildly delusional nobody from New York.

Five months ago, in earnest, I decided to "start focusing on Aikido more."

What that meant was, in addition to training 12 hours a week, I would write about Aikido instead of penning depressing dystopian songs and lyrical essays protesting techno-fascism.

What I’ve found so far is that Aikido is incredibly hard to write about…

Actually, that's not true. It’s pretty easy to write about as long as you just disregard the moldy opinions of the online gatekeepers.

If you have any semblance of an inner self—which I know some people say is illusory—but if you believe that you have one, if you admit to having an inner abiding spirit, a Naohi—and you're not one of those few people said to lack a narrative voice in their mind, then you've surely composed your own story about Aikido. Or, if you’re literarily gaudy and awkward like me, maybe you’ve composed some prose poems.

If you don't practice Aikido and somehow you’ve managed to stumble upon this obscure project—whenever you see the word Aikido—substitute it with whatever it is you're obsessed with. If you're obsessed with Pickleball, if Pickleball is your thing, every time you see the word Aikido just think of Pickleball. And whenever I mention “O Sensei” just substitute Joel Pritchard, Bill Bell, and Barney McCallum. (They invented pickleball, I looked it up.)

I've been obsessed with other physical activities: badminton, tango…

I guess that's pretty much it—I mean, as far as activities go—of course—I've been obsessed with people and places—but as far as being physically obsessed with the euphoria of participating in a specific activity—it’s only really ever been badminton, tango, and Aikido that put me in that “flow state.”

So, the fact that this exercise—Aikido—brings me to such a heightened state—and the fact that I keep going back to the dojo… yeah, you could say I'm addicted. I have an addictive personality—after all—my parents were junkies. I'm not saying that to disparage them; I'm just telling you where I come from. My life has seemingly been a series of substituting one addiction for another. I've been addicted to sugar, cereal, cookies, crayons, cartoons, fruit punch, chocolate milk, ice cream, Reese's Pieces, Hubba Bubba, Bubblicious, baseball cards, foreign films, pills, potions, lotions—everything, you name it…

(Okay, I was never really addicted to lotions, but I’m a sucker for sonority.)

So, after living with myself for almost 50 years, I’d say that what I'm looking for now lies mostly in the realm of theurgy—further merging with the universe. Even if my perceived separation from the universe is an illusion based on my limited scope. And…

Aikido is theurgy.

Quote me on that.

Lia Suzuki Shihan is the chief instructor at Aikido Kenkyukai International USA, a non-profit organization dedicated to enriching people’s lives through the practice of Aikido, The Art of Peace.

She also hosts a very popular video series called “the virtual dojo” which you can see here on her Youtube channel

I’m not going to give away too much of what we talked about - but it was very encouraging to me personally, in my own quest to find new ways to offer Aikido practice to young people who might otherwise never have the opportunity.

I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did.

Just had this wonderful conversation with Corky Quakenbush (and I never use the word wonderful.)

Hope you can take the time to check it out.

If Corky’s words inspired you as much as they did me, here are some of his links so you can see what he’s up to at his Aiki lab:

Corky's Youtube channel

Corky's dojo

I still want to write that book about “Aikido as theurgy,” but I'm being overly pragmatic. I feel like there’s probably only 11 people in the world who would actually want to read it, and alas, sadly, I fled long ago from academia, so I'm never going to get a grant or whatever magic academics conjure up that enables them to write about such obscure and interesting topics.

Can you tell I’m a little bit jealous? Feeling some pangs of regret about dropping out of community college (almost 30 years ago) to “focus on music.”

I've compiled (and actually read) dozens of books on western mysticism, theurgy, Japanese religion, and the roots of O Sensei's spiritual practices, but who am I kidding? Even if I could get a grant, I know I wouldn't be able to present a logical thesis anyway because my mind works in such a swirling fashion.

So, instead, for today, I'm writing a 698-word prose poem about wanting to write a book about Aikido as theurgy.

Here we go. Ready?

To me, theurgy (lowercase t) is free from any historicity that, if I was more of a scholar, I’d feel obliged to address.

As a mere amateur prose poet, I can use the word to mean just what it means etymologically—which is “divine activity.”

Aikido is a divine activity. It was developed while consciously engaging in divine activity. Of course, almost anything could be construed as divine activity at the end of the proverbial day because everything was created by the gods.

I think… Right?

Up at the top of the page, I called myself pragmatic and attributed my procrastination on writing this book, “Aikido as theurgy,” to the fact that it would only garner an audience of 11 people. The irony does not escape me that a prose poem about not being able to write that book will probably only amuse myself. And I’m obviously not pragmatic. The truth is, I feel like I can’t really write anything other than prose poetry.

I told you I dropped out of community college, right? but I had such a good connection with my creative writing teacher (who’s actually my earliest Substack subscriber) that she let me continue to attend her class for a few years after I quit. She gave me a book of Baudelaire and Rimbaud’s prose poems, which became my bible. This was while my mother was dying, so writing became a creative outlet. This was way before I found Aikido. I started going to open mics. That opened some doors. I can write regular rhyming poems too, but they become songs, and then I want to sing them—but I can't seriously ever entertain any musical endeavors while going to the dojo as much as I do now, so I just don't do it anymore…

Anyway, if you ever want to talk about Aikido as theurgy, just message me on Facebook. I still don't know how Substack works in terms of messaging people. I don't know if you can message me on Substack. If you know how that works, then do that. Otherwise, just message me on Facebook.

Truthfully, I’m exhausted. Trained too hard last week. There were some people testing, and I wanted to take “good ukemi” for them. I feel like I got hit by a bus. When I said that to my wife, she asked me if I’ve ever been hit by a bus. I haven’t, but I can’t think of a better way to describe how my body aches. “Fell down the stairs”—I don’t want to be dramatic, but…

I feel like the only choices I have in life are to be sore or to be stiff. If I don’t work out hard enough, I feel stiff, or even worse, flabby, but then I work out too hard, and I feel beat up. I've never been able to find the balance.

But even though I feel beat up, of course it’s in the theurgical sense. I still feel blessed by the gods to have this beat up body to begin with.

Sorry I tied this all up so hastily, but I said it was going to be 698 words.

If it wasn’t for Aikido, I don’t know what I’d do with myself.

I finally did my taxes. Let’s just say I owe more than I have, and that’s not much. I’m a bit monkish, got a little Yamabushi in me, so I’m not really too bothered by the poverty—it’s the fact of how much of that money goes to funding the military behemoth that continues to commit global atrocities in the name of “freedom.”

But, hey, at least I’m going to the dojo tonight for some freestyle Koshi Nage practice—I already know I’ll feel much better after class. Maybe a little sore and banged up—but definitely “more in sync with the cosmos.”

Speaking of the cosmos, I have to admit, there’s somewhat of a selfish motive to my recent literary foray into the more esoteric practices of O Sensei and the propagation of Aikido as a spiritual path.

You see, I yearn to learn exactly how this art was brought forth into existence. Born a world away, a century ago, to serve as the perfect therapeutic exercise for soothing the psychosomatic stress of a pronoid pauper prose poet such as myself.

At the risk of sounding crazy (but not actually caring)—I believe it was through O Sensei’s genuine dialogue with the gods that this practice was created.

If you want to say “the universe” instead of “the gods”—or whatever else satisfies the vernacular restrictions of the modern paradigm, feel free. I like referring to divine mystery as “the gods” because I'm Magna-Grecian by descent. My ancestors believed in the gods. And, besides, I like the way it sounds.

Through his practice of Chinkon Kishin, Kotodama, and Misogi, O Sensei gained contact with, and was instructed by, entities he colloquially and culturally called “Kami” to develop a spiritual practice employing martial techniques to express universal principles and the interplay of cosmic forces through dynamic movement…

Also, to make the world a better place…

And that’s the most important part—innit?

I’m obviously not British, but I love the way they say “innit.” More quaint than “aint it”.

Anyway—that’s the most important part—innit, to make the world a better place?

I get so bogged down by metaphysics, I almost forget the ethics. Aikido is supposed to make the world a better place. But how? By getting more people to practice? Maybe if we got the whole oligarchy to start training, they would somehow learn to be more empathetic, and the subsequent societal benefits would trickle down to us peasants. Sorry, I shouldn’t call you a peasant too. I should only speak for myself.

As a social media personality test diagnosed empath—I can feel this thick, morbid anxiety everywhere I go. The transpersonal tension these days is positively palpable. It’s always been intense, for sure—it’s New York, after all—that’s why people come here—for the buzz—but it’s just insane now. People are so on edge, well, at least when they look up from their phones…

Lettuce costs $4. Partisan politics is a nonstop, stress-inducing, dualistic dialectic perpetuated by the corporate media. Somehow, it seems like we, as a species, are still hyper-susceptible to being hypnotized into committing atrocious actions for profit.

And it’s April; it’s been nothing but cold, grey, concrete rain—ain’t no cherry blossoms yet…

But, somehow, knowing that I’m going to the dojo makes it all tolerable.

Tests are coming up, so tonight we’re going to be doing some freestyle Koshi Nage.

Maybe it’s because I practiced Judo when I was younger, or because I’m still kinda into “professional wrestling” (don’t tell anyone), or because I trained at a Kanai Sensei Style dojo for 4 years—Koshi Nage is my favorite technique. I’m not saying I would ever try to use it as a “self-defense tactic on the street,” but you never know.

As soon as I typed “Koshi Nage is my favorite technique”—all the other techniques jumped up in protest. I almost felt obliged to say, no, actually Irimi Nage is my favorite, or maybe Sumi Otoshi—stickin’ to the basics…

Of course, ultimately, I know it’s not about technique.

But, I’m obviously not there yet.