Basho: ‘The Narrow Road to the Deep North’

80 page MS book, black stick ink and gouache painting on Zerkall papers, yellow Fabriano endpapers, black Somerset card cover, printed paper jacket. Completed April 2008. Held in the Crafts Study Centre collection.

I wrote this book at the age of 50 - around the same age that Basho was when he sold his house and set out on his long walk: ‘I barely had time to sweep the cobwebs from my broken house on the River Sumida before the New Year, but no sooner had the spring mist begun to rise over the field than I wanted to be on the road again . . .’

Setting out on a new life myself, I was also reminded of the long walks I have taken with my friends in the mountains. In particular, I recalled a walk through the Himalayas where, on a long plain beneath the blue ice-wall of Nilgiri, we found ourselves in step with two pilgrims. It transpired that they were professors of Sanskrit from the University of Delhi, but according to their tradition, at the age of 50 they had set out as mendicants on the long pilgrimage to a sacred shrine on the plain where we were travelling.

It so happened that we arrived at the shrine which was their destination at the same time. Like so many sacred places in the Himalaya, the shrine was shared by Hindus and Buddhists, the prayer flags flapping in the wind beside the simply painted chorten. To our amazement, the pilgrims without pausing simply walked three times round the shrine before turning on their heel and retracting their steps from the direction in which they had come.

It was all about the experience of journeying, and so it was that the year that I spent writing out Basho’s text was for myself a journey into my new life.