Listening Across Distance — II

The Void Between Us Is Not Empty

Yesterday, I wrote about two pieces of music.

A blue pearl suspended in the darkness of space. An emerald boat moving across the sea. One reached me through Will. I sent the other back across the distance. They were not created for one another. Their composers did not know that the two pieces would ever meet. Yet they met inside one act of listening.

Today, I want to remain with the space between them.

Chihei Hatakeyama’s Void series has always resonated deeply within me. Each work is beautiful, but its depth does not come from trying to fill every space.

The music leaves room.

Sound, memory, weather, and distance are allowed to remain without being forced into a conclusion. The word void can suggest absence, emptiness, or something missing. But in Chihei’s music, I do not experience it as nothingness. I experience it as a field of possibility.

A space in which a faint sound can continue.

A distance across which something may still be felt.

Perhaps the void between us is not empty.

It is the space in which resonance becomes possible.

There is a void between one person and another.

Between one island and the next.

Between the Earth and the darkness surrounding her.

Between the night of March 3 and the morning when Will’s message reached me.

Between a sound being made and someone, somewhere else, becoming ready to hear it.

These distances do not always need to be overcome.

A bridge tries to take us across a distance.

Resonance allows the distance to remain.

Two sounds do not have to become identical in order to respond to one another.

Two people do not have to share the same body, language, history,

or understanding for something to pass between them.

Resonance is not sameness. It is a relationship between things that remain distinct. Perhaps that is why a small knot feels more truthful than a completed circle.

A circle returns us to where we began.

A knot does something different.

It allows two separate threads to touch, hold one another for a moment, and then continue in their own directions.

The blue pearl remains the blue pearl.

The emerald boat continues across the sea.

Will remains on his shore.

I remain on mine.

Yet something has passed between us.

The knot does not explain the universe, the island, the music, or the people connected by them. It simply keeps them from passing one another unnoticed. On March 3, I thought Island Echo was beginning as a program. Now I wonder whether something else also began that night. Perhaps it was the first sound being sent into the distance. The performance ended. The stage was cleared. The eclipse passed.

The people who had gathered returned to their separate lives. But the sound continued. It traveled with Chihei to another island. It entered a new Void.

Months later, a song from Will gave me a way to hear it again. Only then did I understand that Island Echo had not ended with the event. Its name had become literal. The island had echoed. An echo is not the original sound repeated unchanged. It is a sound after it has encountered distance. The shape of the place alters it. Time alters it. The body receiving it alters it. By the time an echo returns, it is both the same sound and something new. Perhaps correspondence works in the same way. A letter leaves one person without knowing precisely how it will be received. It enters another person’s life, another history, another language, another moment.

The reply is not a copy. It is the original message after it has passed through someone else’s interior world.

A human being always listens alone.

No one can hear exactly what another person hears.

We inhabit separate bodies, carry private memories, and stand on different shores.

Music does not erase that solitude.

It gives solitude a form that can travel.

A song becomes a letter.

Someone opens it.

Then, from another shore, another sound is sent back.

This does not cure loneliness.

Perhaps loneliness is not something that can—or should—always be cured. It is part of the boundary of being a person. But music can keep that boundary from becoming a wall.

It allows us to remain separate without becoming unreachable. Listening is not the promise that we will completely understand one another. It is the willingness to let what another person sends enter us without immediately possessing, translating, or reducing it. That is also what moved me in Pérola Azulada. The Earth is not presented as an object that belongs to us. We belong to her. We live within her light, water, weather, and living body. The song asks us to respect the life she carries, not because it is ours to control, but because we are already part of it. Perhaps the ethics of belonging and the ethics of listening are closer than they first appear.

We cannot possess the Earth.

We cannot possess another person’s meaning.

We can receive.

We can listen.

We can care for what has been entrusted to us.

And we can reply.

Perhaps coincidence becomes correspondence in precisely this way. Not because we declare that two distant things were destined to meet. Not because we force them into the same story. But because someone notices a resonance and answers it with care.

One song arrived as a gift.

Another was sent in return.

Between them, something in my own life became audible again. The blue pearl connected the human body to the Earth. The emerald boat connected the human body to distance. The two pieces formed a small knot between the planet and the island, the universe and the sea, another person’s listening and my own. They did not resolve the distance. They allowed me to hear it. Perhaps this is what it means to listen across distance.

Not to make the faraway suddenly near.

Not to pretend that solitude has disappeared. But to recognize that the space between us may already be carrying something.

A memory.

A question.

A piece of music.

A letter that has not yet been opened.

Tonight, the Earth is still floating in the darkness—a small blue pearl. Somewhere upon her water, an emerald boat is moving.

On one shore, someone sends a song.

On another, someone opens it.

The echo continues.

The void between us remains.

But it is not empty.

We remain alone.

But we are not unreachable.

Listening Across Distance — I

A Blue Pearl and an Emerald Boat

For some time, I had been writing almost entirely for work.

Day after day, I looked at photographs of the sea, sunsets, and moonlight. I searched for words that might help someone else imagine an island night. I was paying close attention to light, water, weather, and the movement of time. Yet somewhere inside all that attention, I had stopped looking at my own life. I was writing about the sea, but I was no longer listening to what was moving inside me.

Then a message arrived from Will. He told me that reading my messages felt like receiving a virtual letter—something that delighted him each time he opened one. At first, I did not know how to answer. Perhaps because his words named something I had been trying to do without fully knowing it.

I want to live as though I am writing a real letter. Not only when I sit down to write, but in the way I listen, remember, and offer something of myself to another person.

His message did not solve anything.

It simply found me.

It reminded me that beneath all the words I had been writing for work, there was still a person here who could receive a letter—and reply. Will wrote about Japan and its attention to the small details of life. He wrote about Thailand, where he feels a sense of comfort and peace, and about the places at Wonderfruit that he hopes we might enjoy together one day. He also told me that it was only in the past three or four years that he had begun to understand what it meant to listen truly and to live in the moment.

There was still so much more for him to explore. He asked for my music recommendations. Then he sent me Pérola Azulada, performed by Thays Sodré with Toninho Horta.

Will said that sharing a song he loves feels like treating a friend to a meal or a drink. I pressed play. At first, I did not search for its meaning.

I simply listened.

Thays Sodré’s voice felt extraordinarily gentle and close. Toninho Horta’s guitar did not seem to sit behind her voice; it seemed to listen beside it. The whole ensemble breathed as though it were part of an intimate conversation already in progress. When I began to understand the Portuguese words, the music moved even closer.

Pérola Azulada means a pearl tinged with blue. The song imagines the Earth as a small blue pearl suspended in the darkness of space—precious, vulnerable, and alive.

The Earth is beloved.

She is mother.

She is the many forms of shelter human beings have made across different climates and cultures, and the one home that contains them all. The person singing learns to move within her, to rest when the journey has reached the bones, to live close to dawn, to swim in her blue waters, and to respect the life carried inside her.

Light, water, body, animal,

and human life are not separated. They exist within one another. The Earth is not something for us to possess. She is something we belong to. And then the song leaves us with a small, piercing question:

How many others will learn to live this way?

Its tenderness contains an urgency. The song does not raise its voice. It does not begin with an argument, a warning, or an accusation. It begins with affection.

Before responsibility, there is relationship.

Before protection, there is the recognition that we already belong to what we are trying to protect. I keep returning to one phrase:

A bênção, minha mãe.

A child asking their mother for her blessing. What moves me is its intimacy. The Earth is not addressed as an abstract idea or a distant sacred symbol. She is close enough to speak to. Close enough to ask for a blessing. Perhaps that is why the voice feels so personal. It is not singing about the Earth from somewhere outside her. It is singing from within.

I wanted to answer Will with music. Not by explaining what his song had made me feel, but by replying in the same language in which it had reached me. He had placed one song on the table. I wanted to place another beside it. The piece I chose was “Emerald Boat” by Chihei Hatakeyama from his latest album, Void XXIX.

On March 3, 2026, during a total lunar eclipse, Chihei Hatakeyama and JYTM performed here in Yaeyama. That night, Island Echo of this year began. The sky, the sea, the wind, and the darkness came first. The music was not there to take command of the night. It was there to listen with us.

After the performance, Chihei continued to Iriomote Island, carrying his recording equipment. Iriomote has no airport. To reach it from Ishigaki, one must cross the sea. The crossing is not especially long. Yet traveling by boat restores something that air travel often removes: the physical sensation of leaving one place and arriving somewhere else.

The body feels the distance.

The shore recedes.

Another shore slowly approaches.

On Iriomote, Chihei spent time making field recordings, listening through the rain, the coastline, the water, and solitude. The journey became part of the background to his new work.

Void XXIX is not simply a documentary portrait of Iriomote. What it carries is more elusive: the sensation of being on an isolated island, separated from the place one normally inhabits, and the uncertainty of knowing where one truly is.

How does a human being know where they have arrived?

Through a map?

Through a name?

Through the duration of a journey?

Or through the moment when the body finally feels the distance it has crossed?

From this work, I chose Emerald Boat. In it, I do not hear a postcard from an island.

I hear someone listening alone at its edge.

I hear the distance between one shore and another.

I hear a body surrounded by water, trying to understand where it is.

Perhaps it is only a coincidence.

But the two pieces seemed to meet somewhere inside me.

A blue pearl suspended in the darkness of space.

An emerald boat moving across the sea.

One piece looks toward the Earth from the vastness of the universe. The other travels across her water. One reminds us that we do not own this living planet; we belong to her. The other asks how a solitary human body knows where it is.

Between them are light, water, distance, the body, and the fragile fact of being alive. They were not written for one another. Their creators did not know that this connection would occur. One piece reached me through Will. I sent the other back across the distance.

Will, thank you for receiving my words as letters. You could not have known how much I needed to hear that. Thank you for offering me Pérola Azulada with the warmth of sharing a meal. Thank you for placing its blue pearl, its water, its tenderness, and its quiet question in my life.

Chihei, thank you for the continuing depth of the Void series. Thank you for coming to Yaeyama on March 3, for sharing the night of the total lunar eclipse with JYTM, and for carrying your journey onward into sound.

What began as one friend sending another a song became a small knot between March and August, a Brazilian song and the sea of Yaeyama, the universe and a solitary human body.

The two pieces remain separate.

Yet for a moment, they touch.

The space between them does not feel empty.

現実を 書き換えない。

私の現実、あなたの現実。

それぞれの現実を尊重したい。

少し外れた音。

揺れた声。

走ったテンポ。

不安定だった一瞬。

そして、それを直したくなる。

その気持ちはよく分かる。

作品を世に送り出すなら、

できるだけ美しいものにしたい。

けれど、ライブには、

作品とは少し違う役割と魅力があるのかもしれない。

だからといって、

何もせず、そのまま出せばいいわけでもない。

隠さない。けれど、雑に見せない。

ノイズを整える。

聞きづらい帯域を少し抑える。

その夜の空気を壊さない範囲で、

音を美しくする。

けれど、

その人が本当に鳴らした音まで

別のものに変えてしまわない。

私はライブを見るとき、

完璧だったかどうかは、それほど見ていない。

もちろん、間違ったらわかる。

でも、間違ったあと、

演奏者がどうするかを見ている。

すると、

その人がステージに立ったとき、

空気をつくれるかが見えてくる。

声に説得力があるか。

演奏者と、その演奏表現に、

本当にオーガニックな関係があるか。

いや、これは少し形而上的で、わかりにくい。

一言で言えば、

その場所で、

音楽が生きているか。

それを見ている。

だから、少し風が入っていてもいい。

声が少し揺れていてもいい。

音のバランスが、

完全ではなくてもいい。

その夜にしかなかったものが

そこに残っている方がいい。

現実を美しくすることはあっても、

現実を書き換えない。

たぶん、それは音楽だけの話ではない。

私も、そしてたぶん皆、

自分の弱さや未完成な部分を

なるべく見せたくない。

けれど、本当に誰かの心を動かすものは、

完璧に整えられた姿ではなく、

それでもそこに立っている

人の姿なのだ。

自信というものも、

自分に言い聞かせて生まれるものではないのだろう。

何度も立つ。

失敗する。

それでも続ける。

誰かの音を聴く。

自分の声に戻る。

そういう時間の積み重ねが、

いつか身体の中に残る。

そしてある日、

自分の演奏を見返したときに、

ここを直さなければ、

ではなく、

あの夜は、ちゃんと生きていた。

そう思えるようになるのかもしれない。

それに気づくかどうかは、

結局、その人自身にしか決められない。

誰かが教えてくれることでもない。

だから私は、

自分が何を信じているのかだけを

ここに残しておこうと思う。

隠さない。けれど、雑に見せない。

現実を美しくすることはあっても、

現実を書き換えない。

そして、これは誰かの音楽を見ながら、

自分自身に言っていることでもある。

もし、もう一人の自分がいればいいのに、

と思うことがある。

自分を少し離れたところから見て、

大丈夫だ、と言ってくれる自分が。

けれど結局、

自分の敵も、

自分を許す人も、

自分の心の中にしかいない。

Do Not Rewrite Reality

My reality, your reality.

I want to respect each for what it is.

A note slightly out of tune.

A trembling voice.

A tempo that rushes.

A moment of uncertainty.

And then comes the urge to fix it.

I understand that feeling.

When we send a work out into the world,

we want to make it as beautiful as we can.

But perhaps a live performance

has a different role,

and a different kind of beauty.

That does not mean

we should leave everything untouched.

Do not hide it.

But do not present it carelessly.

Clean up the noise.

Soften the frequencies that are difficult to hear.

Make the sound more beautiful,

as long as the atmosphere of that night remains intact.

But do not turn

what someone truly played

into something else.

When I watch a live performance,

I am not particularly interested in whether it was perfect.

Of course, I notice mistakes.

But what I watch is

what the musician does after the mistake.

That is when I begin to see

whether this person can create an atmosphere

simply by standing on a stage.

Does the voice carry conviction?

Is there a truly organic relationship

between the performer

and the way the music is expressed?

No.

That sounds too metaphysical.

Put simply:

Is the music alive

in that place?

That is what I am looking for.

So a little wind in the recording is fine.

A voice can tremble.

The balance of the sound

does not have to be perfect.

I would rather something remain

that could only have existed on that particular night.

We may make reality more beautiful,

but we should not rewrite it.

Perhaps this is not only about music.

I, and probably all of us,

would rather not reveal

our weaknesses or the parts of ourselves

that are still unfinished.

But what truly moves another person

may not be a perfectly polished image.

It may simply be

the sight of someone

who is still standing there.

Confidence, too,

is probably not something

we can talk ourselves into.

You stand there again and again.

You fail.

You continue anyway.

You listen to someone else’s sound.

You return to your own voice.

Those accumulated moments

eventually stay somewhere in the body.

And perhaps one day,

when you watch your own performance again,

instead of thinking,

I need to fix this,

you may find yourself thinking,

That night was truly alive.

Whether someone comes to understand this

is ultimately something

only they can discover for themselves.

It is not something

another person can teach them.

So I will simply leave here

what I believe.

Do not hide it.

But do not present it carelessly.

We may make reality more beautiful,

but we should not rewrite it.

And while I may be thinking about someone else’s music,

I know I am saying this to myself, too.

Sometimes I wish

there were another version of me.

Someone who could stand a little farther away,

look at me from a distance,

and say,

You are all right.

But in the end,

the person who stands against me,

and the person who can forgive me,

both live

inside my own heart.

負を引き受ける

「負を買いなさい。先に負をもてばいいじゃないですか。

誰にだって負はあるんです。

それをちゃんと自分で意識しようじゃないですか。」

——松岡正剛『正負の法則』『負の先払い』について

東京から西表島へ。

西表島から石垣島へ。

西表島までの時間は、ずいぶん恵まれていたと思う。

だから石垣島で、大きな負を払っているのだろうか。

そんなふうに考えることもある。

けれど、人生は帳尻合わせではないのかもしれない。

これは自分の負だ、と静かに引き受けてみる。

消そうとせず、誰かに返そうともせず、抱えたまま歩いてみる。

すると負は、罰ではなく、

これから何を選ぶのかを支える重しになる。

五十を越えて、ようやくそのことを学んでいる。

そして今、「月と波のこと。」を始めている。

すべてが軽くなったからではない。

負を抱えたまま、それでも大切なものを選び始めたのだ。

もしかすると、

これが「負の先払い」なのかもしれない。

避けられないものを引き受けることで、

これからの人生を、少し軽やかに生きるための。

What We Choose

For a long time, whenever something did not work,

I tended to see it as a problem with people.

Why does this person do things this way?

Why can’t we understand each other?

Why does the same problem keep returning?

Lately, I have begun to see it differently.

When I see it as a problem with people, I become frustrated.

When I see it as a problem of structure, I can understand it.

When I see it as a matter of my own choice, I can move forward.

No one needs to become the villain.

People have their own ways of working,

and organizations are shaped by what they have allowed to become normal.

And we, too, are free to choose

where, with whom, and how we want to work.

I want to work in places where responsibility and authority are clear,

where only the words that matter need to be spoken,

and where people can move quietly.

Quiet does not mean that nothing is happening.

Quite the opposite.

It means that people know their roles,

and things can move naturally

without someone constantly having to raise their voice.

Perhaps that is where good work begins.

Soon,

Yaeyama will enter one of its busiest weeks of the year.

People will arrive from everywhere.

The island, the sea, and the town will become full of movement.

And that is precisely why

I do not want busyness to take this summer away from me.

I want to notice the morning light.

Feel the wind.

Look at the sea at sunset.

Find the moon when night comes.

I do not have to solve everything.

I can take responsibility for what is mine,

and let go of what is not.

And through it all,

I want to remember what it means to be here.

Summer in Yaeyama does not begin

when the work is finished.

It is already here, inside the day itself.

What We Choose | 私たちが選ぶもの

長いあいだ、うまくいかないことに出会うたび、

人の問題として考えていたように思う。

なぜ、この人はこうするのだろう。

なぜ、伝わらないのだろう。

なぜ、同じことが繰り返されるのだろう。

けれど最近、少し違う見方ができるようになった。

人の問題として見れば、腹が立つ。

構造の問題として見れば、理解できる。

自分の選択の問題として見れば、次へ進める。

誰かを悪者にする必要はない。

人にはそれぞれの働き方があり、

組織には、それを許容してきた時間がある。

そして私たちにも、

どこで、誰と、どのように働くかを選ぶ自由がある。

私は、責任と権限が明確で、

必要な言葉だけが交わされ、

人々が静かに動ける場所で仕事をしたい。

静かであることは、何も起きていないということではない。

むしろその逆だ。

一人ひとりが自分の役割を知り、

誰かが声を張り上げなくても、

物事が自然に動いていく。

良い仕事とは、

そういう場所から生まれるのかもしれない。

もうすぐ、八重山に一年で最も賑やかな季節がやってくる。

たくさんの人が島を訪れ、

島も、海も、町も忙しくなる。

だからこそ今年は、

忙しさに夏を奪われないようにしたい。

朝の光を見る。

風を感じる。

夕暮れには海を見る。

夜になったら月を探す。

すべてを解決しなくていい。

わたしが引き受けるべきものを引き受け、

そうでないものは手放していく。

そして、この島にいるということを、

ちゃんと味わっていたい。

八重山の夏は、

仕事が終わったあとにあるのではない。

この一日そのものの中にある。

身体は、まだ回復することを知っている。

わたしは長い間、

自分がもう深く眠れなくなったのだと思っていました。

けれど、

立ち止まり、

休み、

食べ、

身体の声に耳を澄ませた数日のあと、

私は七時間続けて眠ることができました。

今回、本当に大きな発見だったのは、

足首が治り始めたということではありません。

(一昨日、ビーチで捻挫をわたしはした)

私の身体は、まだ回復することを知っていた。

“Let nature take the lead. Let music follow.”

このわたしの最近の心の中にいつもある言葉は、

月や波や音楽のことだけではなかったのかもしれません。

自然とは、

私たちの外側にあるものだけではなく、

自分自身の身体でもあります。

自然のリズムを取り戻すとは、

新しい自分になることではなく、

もともと身体が知っていたリズムを、

もう一度思い出すことなのだと思います。

My Body Still Knows How to Heal

For a long time,

I believed I had forgotten how to sleep deeply.

Yet after being forced to stop,

after resting, eating well,

and allowing my body to recover,

I slept for seven uninterrupted hours.

The most important discovery was not that my ankle would heal.

It was that my body still knows how to heal.

Perhaps

let nature take the lead.

Let music follow.

It was never only about the moon, the sea, or music.

Perhaps

it was also about listening to the quiet rhythm within myself.

Nature is not somewhere outside of us.

Our own body is part of nature.

Recovering its rhythm is not about becoming someone new.

It is simply to remember

the rhythm that has always been there.

‘Say it to me now’

I still remember the first time I watched “Once.”

I cried.

Not because it was a sad film,

but because it reminded me that music could be a way to live.

Glen Hansard didn’t simply write songs.

He reminded many of us that an honest voice is enough,

that beauty doesn’t need to be loud,

and that hope can begin with a single guitar and a single heart.

Years have passed,

but his music has stayed with me,

quietly shaping the way I think about life and the path I want to follow.

Thank you, Glen.

Your songs will continue to accompany people

between sunset and moonlight.

Rest in peace.

p.s.

Because of you, I never stopped believing that a life devoted to music was possible.

あなたのおかげで、

私は音楽に人生を捧げるという希望を、

信じることをやめませんでした。

Glen Hansardは、多くの人の人生に静かな灯をともした人でした。

アイルランド、世界中の音楽家たちから深い追悼の声が寄せられています。

わたしもここに記します。

An ordinary miracle | A Note from Tonight

“Travel breaks the illusion that your current life is the only one possible.”

Music Lovers in Hong Kong

Sometimes,
a journey begins long before a ticket is booked.

Last night,
after my DJ set on the beach,
a man from Hong Kong came over to say hello.

“Your music was wonderful.
Who was that song by?”

We talked for a while,
sharing the names of artists we both loved.

Then he asked,

“Do you have Instagram?”

I hesitated.

The truth is, I have never thought of myself as a DJ.

I’m simply a music lover.

I collect sounds,
memories,
and moments.

I play music because I love it,
not because I belong to a particular scene.

He smiled.

“Then let’s be friends—
as fellow music lovers.”

It was such a simple thing to say,
yet it stayed with me.

Later that night,
I remembered one particular moment.

I had played the final encore from Jack Johnson’s live performance in Paris—from Angel into Better Together.

From the booth,
I noticed him beginning to dance.

Nothing dramatic.

Just a natural response
to a song he already carried within himself.

At that moment,
I felt something familiar.

Music has always been like this.

It quietly dissolves
the things that usually separate us—

countries,
professions,
generations,
titles.

For a brief moment,

all that remains is:

“I know this song. I love this feeling, too.”

And perhaps, that is enough.

That is why I decided to travel to Hong Kong.

Not because it was convenient.

Not because it was on a list of places to visit.

But because somewhere in that city,
there are people who listen carefully.

People who carry music with them,
the same way I do.

Maybe we will meet again.

Maybe we won’t.

Either way,
the city already feels a little closer.

Music is a strange and beautiful thing.

It allows us to recognize one another,
even before we know each other’s names.

And perhaps,
the world is held together by countless music lovers,
quietly listening, in different corners of the earth.

Tsuki to Nami no Koto.
A journey to recover our natural rhythm.

Music Lovers in Hong Kong

香港へ行くことにした。

理由は、とてもシンプルだった。

昨日の夜、Island EchoのDJブースに声をかけてくれた人がいた。

「ねぇ、音楽、最高だった。あの曲、誰の曲？」

そんな会話から始まった。

「あなたのInstagramは？」と聞かれた。

少し困ってしまった。私はDJというより、ひとりのMusic Loverだから。

誰かに見てもらうためのアカウントも、特別な肩書きも、持っていない。

そう応えると、彼は笑いながら言った。

「じゃあ、友だちになろう。同じMusic Loverとして。」

その言葉が、とても嬉しかった。

その夜、私がかけていたのは、

Jack Johnsonのパリ公演のライブ音源だった。

最後のアンコール、“Angel”から、“Better Together”へ。

ブースの向こう側、

波際で彼が自然に踊り始めていたのをわたしは見ていた。

ああ、

この人も、

同じ音楽を聴いて生きてきたんだ。

そう思った。

音楽には、

不思議な力がある。

国籍も、

職業も、

肩書きも、

年齢も、

どうでもよくしてしまう。

ただ、「この曲が好きなんだ。」

そのことだけで、

人と人が繋がる瞬間がある。

だから、今回の旅は香港になった。

観光のためでもなく、

効率のためでもなく、

音楽を愛する人たちが暮らす街を、

少し歩いてみたくなったのだ。

もしかしたら、

彼のようなMusic Loverに会えるかもしれないし、

会えないかもしれない。

それでも、

香港には、同じように音楽を愛し、

日々の暮らしの中で、静かにレコードを聴いている人たちがいる。

そう思うだけで、旅へ向かう理由としては、

十分な気がしている。

音楽って、本当にいい。

世界中のMusic Loversが、

こうして、

どこかで繋がっているのだから。

月と波のこと。

人はただただ自然を求めているのではないのかもしれない。

石垣島のビーチに立っていると、

不思議なことが起きる。

人の感受性が、少しずつ戻ってくる。

それは、何か特別な演出によって起きるものではない。

大きな音楽や派手な光や過剰なサービスによって起きるものでもない。

月があり、波があり、風があり、暗さがある。

夕暮れから夜へと変わっていく空があり、急がなくてよい時間がある。

その中に数日だけ身を置くことで、

人は少しずつ、自分の中にあったリズムを思い出していく。

人は自然を求めているのではないのかもしれない。

自然の中で思い出す、自分自身を求めているのかもしれない。

月も、

波も、

風も、

音楽も、

何かを与えてくれるのではないか。

もともと自分の中にあったものを、

静かに思い出させてくれる、

何かを。

We remember the rhythm that was already inside us.

石垣島のビーチで起きているマジックは、

月や波そのものではなく、

人が本来のリズムを思い出していく過程にある。

だから「月と波のこと。」は、

自然を紹介するためのプロジェクトではない。

人が自分の感受性を取り戻すための

記録であり、

場づくりであり、

人が本来のリズムを思い出していく、

その実践であり、

祈りである。

We Remember the Rhythm That Was Already Inside Us

Standing on the beach in Ishigaki, something quiet begins to happen.

A person’s sensitivity slowly returns.

It is not created by a special performance.

It does not come from loud music, bright lights, or excessive service.

There is the moon.

There are the waves.

There is the wind, the darkness,

and the sky slowly changing from dusk into night.

There is time that does not ask us to hurry.

By placing ourselves, even for just a few days, inside this natural system, we begin to remember a rhythm that was always within us.

Perhaps people are not truly seeking nature itself.

Perhaps they are seeking the self that is remembered in nature.

The moon, the waves, the wind, and music do not give us something new.

They quietly remind us of something that was already there.

The magic that happens on the beach in Ishigaki is not simply the moon or the waves themselves. It is the process of a person remembering their own original rhythm.

This is why Of Moon and Waves is not a project created to introduce nature. It is a record, a practice of creating places, and a prayer for people to recover their own sensitivity.

グリーンフラッシュの気配

先日のIsland Echoに、写真家の北島清隆さんが来てくれた。

いつものように撮影をしながら、

少し立ち話をした。

話題はなぜか腰痛だった。

今年のゴールデンウィーク前、

東京での個展を控えたある日、

(サーファーでもある北島さんは)

大好きな海でくしゃみをした瞬間にぎっくり腰になり、

そのままヘルニアになってしまったという。

神経ブロックを打ちながら個展へ向かったこと。

歩けなくなることへの恐怖。

そして、60歳という年齢で身体と向き合うこと。

どれも深刻な話のはずなのに、

北島さんはいつもの穏やかな笑顔で話してくれた。

痛みが消えたわけではない。

発症から50日ほど経った今も、

歩くとまだ痛むという。

それでも海へ行く。

それでも写真を撮る。

それでも夕暮れを見に来る。

その姿に、不思議な強さを感じた。

そう、北島さんはサーファーでもある。

長い時間を海と共に過ごしてきた人だ。

その日も、ふと空を見ながら言った。

「今日は少しグリーンフラッシュの気配があったからね。」

グリーンフラッシュ。

日没の最後の一瞬、

太陽の上端が緑色に光る自然現象。

しかし北島さんが語ったのは、

現象そのものではなかった。

まず空気が澄んでいること。

太陽の力が強いこと。

今日のように、

夜7時を過ぎても肌が焼けるほどの陽射しが残っていること。

そして水平線の先に雲がないこと。

ただ最後は、結局、すべて運なのだ、という。

どれだけ条件が揃っても、

遠くの雲ひとつも見えなくなる。

だから待つしかない。

自然は約束してくれない。

それでも人は空を見る。

もしかしたら見えるかもしれないから。

私はその話を聞きながら、

Island Echoも少し似ていると思った。

何かを作ろうとしているようでいて、

実際には条件を整えているだけなのかもしれない。

月が昇ること。

風が吹くこと。

波が寄せること。

人がそこに座ること。

その先に何が起きるかは、

結局のところ、

自然の領域にある。

グリーンフラッシュも同じだ。

見ようとして見られるものではない。

ただ、

その気配を感じられる人はいる。

北島さんは撮影の合間に、

また海の方へ歩いていった。

私は自然治癒力の話をして、

愛用している漢方の松寿仙と紫華栄のことを伝えた。

「どこで買えるの？」

「はと薬局です。」

「ああ、(はと薬局は) 仲良しだから行ってみます。」

そう言って笑いながら、

またカメラを持って浜辺へ戻っていった。

痛みを抱えながらも海へ向かう人の背中は、

どこか静かだった。

グリーンフラッシュは見えなかったかもしれない。

けれどその日、

私は確かにその気配のようなものを見た気がした。

The Feeling of a Green Flash

Photographer Kiyotaka Kitajima joined us at Island Echo the other evening.

As always, he arrived quietly, camera in hand, carrying stories that seemed to belong to the landscape itself.

This time, the conversation began with an unexpected subject: a herniated disc.

Just before an exhibition in Tokyo earlier this MAY, he (who is also a surfer) sneezed while standing by the ocean and suddenly threw his back out. What began as a severe strain developed into a herniated disc, leaving him in constant pain. He spoke about nerve block injections, the fear of losing mobility, and the reality of facing physical limitations at sixty.

Yet there was no bitterness in his voice.

Only calm.

The kind of calm that seems to come from spending a lifetime listening to waves.

More than fifty days have passed since the injury. Walking is still painful. But he continues to go to the ocean.

He continues to photograph.

He continues to show up for sunsets.

There was something quietly powerful in that.

At one point, he looked toward the horizon and said:

“I felt there might be a chance of a green flash tonight.”

Not that he expected to see one.

Not that he knew one would appear.

Only that he could sense the possibility.

A green flash is a rare optical phenomenon that sometimes appears for a brief moment as the sun disappears below the horizon.

According to Kitajima, there are signs.

The air must be clear.

The sun must remain strong until the very end of the day.

The atmosphere must be sufficiently transparent.

And even then, a single cloud on the horizon can change everything.

The final outcome belongs to chance.

Or perhaps to nature itself.

Listening to him, I realized that Island Echo may work in much the same way. We often imagine that meaningful experiences are something we create. But perhaps all we can really do is prepare the conditions.

The moon rises.

The tide changes.

The wind arrives.

People gather.

What happens after that is beyond our control.

We wait.

We listen.

And sometimes, something appears.

Not because we made it happen.

But because we were present when it arrived.

Maybe that is why people seek places like this.

Not because they are searching for nature.

But because they are searching for themselves.

Or more precisely, they are searching for the part of themselves that can only be remembered in the presence of nature. The version of themselves that existed before schedules, notifications, expectations, and noise. Nature does not give us anything new. It simply reminds us of what was already there.

As the conversation ended, Kitajima smiled, adjusted his camera, and walked back toward the beach.

The green flash never appeared that evening.

At least, not on the horizon.

But I felt its presence nonetheless.

Not as a flash of light.

As a quiet reminder that even in pain, even in uncertainty, there is still beauty worth walking toward.

On Writing Honestly

Lately, I have been thinking about what it means to write honestly.

Not emotionally.
Not dramatically.

Honestly.

There is a difference.

For more than five years, I have shared a small musical journey with Yaeyama musicians here on Ishigaki Island. We do not talk very much about what we are doing.

We simply gather.

The waves arrive.
The wind changes.
The moon appears—or sometimes it doesn’t.

And then the music begins.

Last night was a New Moon.

The sky was covered with clouds,

and yet one of the musicians quietly said:

“Even a cloudy New Moon has its own beauty.”

Another spoke about the sound of the waves and how rare it is to sing in a place where nature feels so present. Listening to them, I realized once again that music is not an explanation.

It is a form of experience.

For an event’s official channels (as the organizer),

I often write simple phrases:

The sound of waves and music.

Waiting for the moon.

An evening on Ishigaki Island.

These words are true.

But they are not the whole truth.

The deeper truth is harder to write about.

Because sometimes a song reaches a place inside a person that words never can.

I know this because it happened to me once. There have been moments in my life when hearing a song changed something permanently.

Not dramatically.

Not all at once.

But enough that I could never return to who I was before.

Yesterday reminded me of a quote by the Japanese writer Masaoka Shiki:

“I once thought enlightenment meant being able to die peacefully under any circumstance. I was mistaken. Enlightenment is being able to live peacefully under any circumstance.”

Perhaps that is what music sometimes offers us.

Not escape.

No answers.

But a way to remain present with life exactly as it is.

The sadness.
The memories.
The beauty.
The uncertainty.

All of it.

When the voices, the waves, the darkness, and the New Moon gathered together last night, I felt something I still cannot fully describe.

And perhaps that is the point.

The most important things are often the hardest to explain.

Music does not explain.

It simply opens a door.

And for a brief moment,

we remember the rhythm that was already inside us.

赤裸々に描くこと

赤裸々に描く。

もし赤裸々に描けたとして、

その絵が本当に赤裸々なのかどうか。

大切なのは、きっとそこなのだと思う。

Island Echoで起きていることを、

いつか赤裸々に書きたいと思っている。

たとえば、さださんが言う。

「曇天の日の新月もいい」。

そして、

「此処の波音はいい。此処で唄うことは、なかなか体験できないことだ」

そんなふうに言う。

そして、

さださんの妹御であり、

うたの返し手であるえりなさんが、

ライブの冒頭でこう言い切った。

「新月とは、浄化の日」。

その言葉に、心がふるえた。

私たちは、

現場で多くの言葉をわたしたちが交わすわけではない。

けれど、石垣島のこの場所で、

あの時間に、

空気を震わせるように

私たちは場を作りはじめて、

もう五年を超えた。

言葉では伝えられないことを、

音楽は伝えてくれる。

私たちは、それを説明しているのではない。

自分たちの身体で、そのままやっている。

私は企画書に平坦な言葉を書く。

波音と音楽。

石垣島で過ごす夜。

月を待つ時間。

それは嘘ではない。

むしろ、真実でしかない。

けれど、その真実の奥には、

まだ書けないことがある。

うたは、生で体験しなければわからない。

そして、ときに、そのうたを聴いたことで、人生が変わってしまうことがある。

私はそれを知っている。

けれど、言葉では書ききれない。

では、なぜ今日、こんなことを書いているのか。

私は、今朝、

正岡子規の言葉を思い出したからだった。

「悟りという事は如何なる場合にも平気で死ぬる事かと思っていたのは間違いで、悟りという事は如何なる場合にも平気で生きて居る事であった。」

新月の夜。

曇天の空。

波音。

大浜村のうた。

独唱と返しの声。

八重山のゆんた。

これらのすべてが

重なったとき、

私は、

音楽が何かを説明するものではないことを、

また思い出した。

音楽は説明しない。

ただ、その場にいる人の中で、

何かをほどいていく。

浄化とは、

美しい言葉を並べることではない。

悲しみも、

記憶も、

疲れも、

祈りも、

そのまま抱えたまま、

平気で生きていること。

たぶん、此処 Island Echoで起きていることは、

そのようなことなのだと思う。

月と波のあいだで、

人は少しだけ、

自分の本当の呼吸に戻る。

その瞬間を、私はまだうまく書けない。

けれど、書けないということの中にこそ、

この場所の真実がある。

Something beautiful happened tonight.

After the performance, Meli told me that she noticed someone in the audience was crying while she was singing. I was at the back of the venue, focused on the live mix, and I never saw them.

The song was Fine On The Outside.

Since then,

I have found myself wondering what might have been happening in that person’s heart.

Perhaps

they were remembering someone they loved.

Perhaps

they were thinking of home.

Perhaps

they were meeting a forgotten part of themselves.

Or perhaps

the night air,

the sound of the waves,

and the music simply touched something words could not reach.

I will never know.

And maybe that is exactly as it should be.

Music does not explain.

It opens doors.

Lately,

I have spent a great deal of time thinking about sound.

The balance between voice and instrument.

The depth of reverb.

The way music blends with the wind, the sea, and the darkness.

Tiny adjustments that can transform sound into a landscape.

Tonight reminded me that we are not creating events. We are creating moments where music can reach a human heart. There is something deeply moving about seeing someone touched by beauty. When another person feels healed, a part of us is healed as well.

Music is extraordinary.

Human beings are extraordinary.

Tonight, I was reminded of both.

Notes from the mixing desk.

Listening between moonlight and tides.