To Kishima Island: A Voyage of Forty-years 
Shumei Magazine. Vol. 244.

Koichi Deguchi

Sensei Koichi Deguchi is the Program Director for Shumei's Natural Agriculture activities.

Kishima Island is located within a beautiful national park in the Seto Inland Sea of Japan. It has been forty years since our spiritual leader, Mrs. Mihoko Koyama, whom we Shumei members call Kaishusama, purchased it on behalf of Shumei. She knew that young children instinctively enjoy the outdoors and that there was a pressing need for today's youth to cultivate an appreciation of nature. Therefore, the Island was to be a retreat for Shumei's youngsters. There have been camping events held there every year since.

  The construction of our first Center on the Island began soon after its purchase. It was built by volunteers who hand-carried the construction material to the highest point on the Island. In 1989 a new Center was built to replace it.

  It was after the new Center's completion that Kaishusama said, "Kishima Island is surrounded by the sea, and the sea is what connects us to the whole world." She envisioned the Island as a base from which Shumei's message would spread over land and sea so that one day all people could benefit from the thoughts of our founder Mokichi Okada, whom we refer to as Meishusama.

  Meishusama believed that our modern, industrial society has left us alienated from the natural world and this alienation deepens as our society becomes progressively more materialistic and less spiritual. Today, more and more of our youngsters suffer a great loss because of this alienation. Many never are given the chance to know and appreciate nature. Many have never touched the soil. Because of this, they might grow up without ever knowing what it is to be fully and truly human. Today, many people no longer understand nature, they might never have experienced what it is like to breathe fresh air and eat unprocessed and wholesome food. Modern industrial society is leading us on a suicidal path as we continue to poison the air and the land, never realizing that we also are poisoning our children.

  Visiting Kishima Island allows children to develop a sense of awe and love of nature. It is there that they will come to appreciate its rich bounty and one day these children will become Mother Earth's good guardians and stewards.

  But more than a site for summer camps, Kishima is foremost a spiritual place. At its heart is our Center's Sanctuary, and we think of all our activities there as a form of prayer, a prayer of gratitude. For Kishima is a stunningly beautiful place and we believe its natural beauty embodies the blessings of God. It is there that young visitors gain a sense of the harmony that exists between the sea, the mountains, the fields, and themselves. And it is here that they gain a sense of their place in God's creationÑa sense of what it means to be human. For it is our great hope that Kishima's natural splendor will shine and reveal the beauty of each of their souls.

   However, Kishima has another function besides being a retreat for children. It is also a research center for the practice of Natural Agriculture. The art of Natural Agriculture is a spiritually based agricultural practice that was first created in the 1930s by Shumei's founder, Mokichi Okada, whom we refer to as Meishusama. Along with the promotion of art and beauty and the blessing of Jyorei, Natural Agriculture is one of Shumei's major activities. Kishima Island was the starting point for most of Shumei's agricultural endeavors.

  Under the care and guidance of the horticulturist, Reiji Murota, it has become a major research facility for this form of agriculture. Although Mr. Murota now is considered the great mentor of the Natural Agriculture movement, he was relatively inexperienced in the field when he first came to Kishima 30 years ago. It was through a long and hard process of trial and error that he learned how to enhance the natural power of soil and increase the production of healthy food. He learned how to increase the fertility of the earth by covering the fields each year with natural composts, such as fallen leaves and dry grass. Every year he extended the field area on the Island using this method. However, there were problems along the way. The capacity for the Island's trees to produce enough leaves for compost could not meet the steadily increasing demands of the expanding fields. As I mentioned before, Kishima is a small island.

  Eventually, he was forced to use leaves and grass collected from off the Island. Yet, he was never comfortable with this solution as it seemed unnatural. He felt that he was not giving full consideration to the special needs of the particular environment of Kishima. A concern for the subtle relationship between crops and the locale in which they are grown is a major tenet of the Natural Agriculture method. In its practice, the farmer takes into consideration the special qualities of a particular place when cultivating food crops and will only introduce materials from outside that environment as a last resort, such as when the soil is so eroded and depleted that it cannot be improved or saved.

  Therefore, Mr. Murota began to look closely at the conditions of Kishima Island, particularly the close connection he saw between the fields and the wooded areas. As Mokichi Okada pointed out years before, "woods rightfully surround a field, for the ground gains fertility as the trees shed their leaves year after year." So, Mr. Murota began to scale back his fields and created a program to plant trees on their peripheries to establish a better balance between the fields and the woods. The practice of Natural Agriculture on Kishima Island is continuing to evolve in this direction, toward a better coexistence between nature and human cultivation.

  In recent years, this natural approach to agriculture also has benefited the sea life surrounding the Island. At one time, the seaweed around Kishima Island had almost disappeared. Today it is coming back in abundance, giving other marine life nourishment so that they in turn can flourish. Thus, the practice of this type of horticulture is in a sense giving life back to the sea from which all life originally came.

  Kishima is a small island but its mission is big; it is global. What is happening on Kishima Island, with its abundance of crops, forests, and thriving coast splendidly shows what can be done once mankind learns to respect nature and is willing to learn from it. If this can happen on one small Island, think of the larger implications that the lessons learned on Kishima have for the rest of the world. I believe that Mrs. Koyama was very wise when she envisioned Kishima Island as a place from which Mokichi Okada's message would spread over land and sea to the entire world.

Edited for Shumei website.