Higaki : PhotoStory

Every day, an old woman draws water from the Shirakawa River to offer to the Kannon bodhisattva in Iwato. She appears again today, walking with a cane.

A courtesan who once lived elegantly in a house surrounded by a cedarwood fence now recites poems lamenting old age.

At dusk, the old woman asks the monk at Iwato to perform a memorial service for her and disappears.

When the monk visits Shirakawa, where the old woman lived, her ghost appears and speaks of the suffering of hell.

On a moonlit night, she scoops water with a bucket from the Shirakawa to lighten her sins.

She begins again the dance she performed at the request of Fujiwara no Okinori.

Praying for enlightenment, she dances while feeling the sadness of this transient world.