It’s weird how words change meaning over time; the way the descriptive meaning of a word (the meaning of word as it’s currently used) overtakes the prescriptive meaning (what we might call “the dictionary definition” of a word).

For instance, “literally” now means “figuratively”. That drives me mad, but that is how it’s being used. For instance, when I did I.T. work at a small bank in San Francisco, one of my coworkers said she was literally going to kill herself. I spoke to HR about this, they talked to her, and her reply was, “just because I said, ‘literally’ doesn’t mean I’m actually going to do it.”

Well, it used to mean that… but now it doesn’t.

: shrug :

As another example, take the word Orient.

According to the online etymological dictionary, “orient” used to mean “East” (and I supposed it still does at a fundamental level). So, the notion of calling countries in Asia “The Orient” has its roots in the fact that Asia is East relative to Europe.

The term Oriental originally referred to anything from the Orient / Asia. But now it’s a pejorative term for Asian people and their cultures.

The term orientation, if I remember correctly, came from the idea of arranging one’s maps to face Asia, the direction of travel during the Age of Exploration. To “get oriented” meant to get one’s bearings relative to The Orient; literally, you would make your maps face East.

I share all this to relate a simple truth:

I find the fact that I went to orientation for the JET Programme linguistically odd. I am not saying that orientation is offensive. Nor am I defending the use of a term like oriental. I just think that sometimes language changes in such a way as to create a little bit of confusion.

You might say it makes me feel… disoriented.

—

Near as I can tell, JET Programme orientation has been held at the Keio Plaza Hotel in Tokyo since time immemorial, this year was no exception.

Orientation was a blur, a sentiment shared by many past and current JETs.

JET Programme Orientation is a three-day series of classes and meetings for all new JETs. Most JETs are ALTs – Assistant Language Teachers (that’s what I am), others are CIRs – Coordinators for International Relations, and a few are SEAs – Sports Exchange Advisors – these folks are like white elk… everyone hears about them, but people rarely see them.

What makes orientation challenging is that many people are coming from North America, and these people are jet lagged (much like I am). Add to this the culture shock of Japan, and many are bleary-eyed zombies fumbling around Tokyo.

Orientation is spread out over three groups – A, B, and C. A arrives in Japan first. They go through orientation and head to their host prefectures. The next week, B arrives and goes through their orientation – I am part of Group B. Group C is unique, it is made of people who were called up past the deadline of acceptance – sometimes people drop before departure or leave the programme once they get to Japan. In that case, their replacements are called up and they form Group C. Anyone who is called up after Group C orientation is kind of left to their own devices.

I believe all participants arrive on a Sunday. We are herded off our flights, through customs, and onto busses to the Keio Plaza Hotel (unless you have an aptitude for magic like I described in an earlier post). Monday and Tuesday are classes on life in Japan – driving, speaking Japanese, finances, LGBT issues, etc. There are some twenty lectures but we have a total of six classes we can take, so we have to choose carefully. Afterwards, many people go out and party in Tokyo.

Some don’t go to classes, they check into the Keio, go out and sightsee, party all night, sleep it off the next day.

It’s a tiring blur of names, information, formalities, and exhaustion.

Now, add to all this a crash course in magic during the evenings.

—

Likely you’re wondering how it is that someone like me – someone with no formal magical training – isn’t freaking the hell out about teaching at Mahoutokoro. I’ll try to explain, but I make no promises that this will make any sense.

Watch Star Wars enough and you might start to believe that The Force is real. As a child, I would often try to mimic Luke Skywalker, but to no avail.

As I got older (and during those moments when life got crazy) I’d turn to meditation to calm myself and to find direction. Usually my meditations brought peace and serenity. But on occasion, they gave me insight to the tapestry of time that seems to be woven through the choices I make. In my mind it looks like a web of interconnecting decisions and paths. In those rare times it would appear to me, I could reach out – in my mind – and touch the web and see many possible futures. If I chose one, it always came to pass, without fail.

This has happened no more than a few dozen times in my life. Most of the time I chose safe paths, a good job, acceptance to Cal, etc. But the last time I did this, I realized that there’s a deficit when I use the web; manipulating… fate? like this has a cost, and the cost slowly adds up. I am not sure how to explain this, but the best way might be to say that when I pull a thread on this web, I am not creating something, I am borrowing from my future for a gain in the present.

Last time this happened, I wanted a raise at work. And I got it, but six months later, back in May, I was laid off while a new employee in a junior position was retained, likely because he and I were interchangeable but his salary was lower than mine. Of course, that was the same day I learned I was accepted to the JET Programme… but I’m getting off topic.

On the flip side of magic use, I was seeing that NOT using this web to get what I want had long term benefits. If I simply set my mind to things – like spending a year abroad in Italy – I enjoyed the experience much more and never had to pay a price for it.

So I slowly put away the web… or rather changed how I would use it when it would enter my mind’s eye.

I’ve stopped pulling its threads to bring the future into the present. Instead, by touching the strings, I can see those same future options open to me and I can follow their path from where I am now, to where the future resides. I can unlock the path and see the actions I have to take to get there. So instead of manipulating fate, I can follow its paths, learn what I have to do to get where I want, and then pursue that path. It’s much harder work, but I feel no sense of deficit when I do it. And what is best is the insight it gives me into what I am doing. I used to bumble blindly through life wondering how to make decisions or pursue my dreams, but now I have a map that shows me wheres (yes, wheres) I can go and how to get theres.

And after all, while I didn’t pull the JET Programme to me, I did see the path I had to take to get here…

—

Now that you understand how I work magic, let me explain to you the crash course in the arcane I received in Tokyo.

We – that is Faustian and I – arrived at the hotel and he gave me directions on where to meet him once I had finished checking in and cleaning up; but his instructions were hurried and unclear. He refused to repeat them and emphasized it was a tea garden that is hard to miss.

“What if I get lost? I’ve no smart phone at the moment…”

He shook his head at me. “You and technology will soon be divorced. You’ll have to rely on your instinct.”

He vanished. I don’t mean he left suddenly. He just… vanished, leaving little more than a fine white mist that smelled vaguely of the ocean… and then that wafted away.

I checked in, did the needful, then made my way to find other people from my group from San Francisco. They all had plans to explore Tokyo. One of them, Miranda, was already missing Mexican food and was desperate to find the new Taco Bell that recently opened in Shibuya. After having a burrito from The Mission in San Francisco, I am not sure how one can call Taco Bell Mexican food… or even food at all. But, to each their own.

I stepped outside the hotel and tried to piece together Faustino’s directions… but his words were already evaporating from my mind. They were like a kaleidoscope of butterflies aloft on the wind. (Fun fact, the collective noun for butterflies really is “kaleidoscope”).

Tea garden… tea garden… tea garden. Hey, it’s Tokyo, a city of 40 million people, there can’t be that many tea gardens here, right?

I studied my pocket map of Tokyo and saw that the Tokyo Skytree was near by. And by “near by” I mean 45 minutes away by subway.

Why not?

When I arrived, I was fortunate that it was a slow night and I was able to get entrance to the observation deck. Looking out over Tokyo, I was at a complete loss – both for words and for ideas.

Seeing Tokyo stretch out before me like a canyon of buildings and interlocking rivers of roads and rail was overwhelming. I couldn’t see an end to the expanse of concrete and steel. Though, at this point, it was turning to night, and Tokyo was an ocean of neon.

How to find Faustino?

Tea garden… use your instincts.

I closed my eyes, hoping that by “instinct” he meant using magic the only way I knew how.

“Tea garden… tea garden… tea garden…” I whispered to myself.

Nothing appeared in my mind.

For a moment, I was tense and anxious, but I focused on relaxing, unclenching my fists, loosening my jaw, dropping my shoulders.

Still nothing.

I opened my eyes… and saw the web.

I had never before seen it with my eyes open, only in the blankness of my meditations. Seeing it like this was overwhelming; my knees buckled and I knelt to the floor, my stomach a mass of knots and nausea.

My breathing turned heavy and I began to panic.

Panic is no stranger to me, it’s why I started meditating in the first place. In the past, anxiety would envelop me and cling to my mind like pieces of a broken spider’s web.

It was difficult to steady myself, but I did. Gritting my teeth, fighting back the sensory overload of what I was seeing, I stood up and attempted to take it all in.

This was no ordinary web… not one I was used to. There was silver light pouring out of me and pouring out of everyone around me, vast tendrils of light connecting me to everyone around me. It waved and undulated, it moved like leaves on the wind. I felt a connection to everyone around me, to all 40 million people in Tokyo… and beyond, I could feel the connections to every person on the planet.

Steady… steady… steady…

I’d often thought that everyone had this web, that it was a matter of somehow finding it; perhaps what I was seeing was proof of that. Or maybe it was some analogy of my magic writ large across the face of the planet, something only I could see. It was overwhelming, like trying to take in the entire Internet at once.

Tokyo, once looking like a sea of lights, had turned to a churning ocean of glowing tendrils, an unfathomable current of luminous…

It came to me just then, I knew how to find Faustino.

I passed my hands through the light coming out of me. I could feel thousands of threads of light pouring out of me and surging into me. I sifted through these threads… slowly… carefully… until I found it… a thread that felt like the ocean… like that puff of mist in Faustino’s wake when he vanished from the hotel.

Focusing on that thread, I forced its color to change from silver to a swirling mass of green and blue.

—

For a moment, just a hair of a second, I thought I could fly. Like, had I leapt up off the observation desk, I could have flown directly to where that thread was leading… but something stopped me – prudence to be sure, and also the knowledge that now was not the time to see if magic really allows people to fly – or just plummet helplessly to their death.

I hopped onto the elevator, down to the ground floor and out onto the streets of Tokyo. I managed to mute the rest of the threads and turned my attention to where Faustino’s lead. Time began passing oddly. Everyone about me moved slowly, and I wove my way through the streets moving easily through and around them. Traffic froze in a blurred streak as I passed through intersections, stepping like a shadow around passing cars.

The thread took me into parts of Tokyo that I cannot find on maps. The skyscrapers shrank away from me as I thread my way through alleys, over fences, ultimately to a small park in some corner of Tokyo whose location I cannot fix in my mind.

The park was small, crowded with trees and thick with the hum of cicadas. In the back of the park was a torii, a Japanese gate, the thread of light lead to it wrapping around one of its posts.

I approached slowly. Something emanated from the torii. Nothing one could perceive with the five classical senses, just a hum or throb in my bones, something that called out to me. As I came near, I could smell the ocean in the night air. Summers in Japan are notoriously humid; the thick summer air carried the scent of the sea from the gate.

Standing just inches from the gate, I peered through it but saw nothing out of the ordinary, just a pathway leading out of the park and back towards the streets of Tokyo. Without thought (and as I think about it now, I would say out of instinct) I placed my hand on the post of the torii. The air shimmered, and through the gate I saw a small garden; several stone tables and seats dotted randomly about it.

Faustino sat at the nearest table, sipping tea.

He looked up at me, smiled, raised his hand palm down like a cat’s paw, and beckoned me over to him.

I stepped through.

– posted from Toyohashi