καιρός remembered

From statues to stones

Jizo protects the souls of untimely deceased children – even the ones that never saw the light of day – and he guides them on their way to a peaceful afterlife. Each Jizo statue was once placed here by the grieving parent(s) of one of those little children.

“Falling freely, tears and rain, on the garden of Jizo” as the haiku says. The statues are weathering away and their Jizo features gradually disappear in a natural process of decay. From statues back to stones.

Photo of the week: Jizo statues at Daitoku-ji, Kyoto, Japan 2008

(For Jizo statues see also an earlier post on my blog: The amiable army )