Nouns That Have a Religious Quality

Lacquer, wood, moss, rock, straw

Lacquer can be black or deep orange. A natsume, both a personal item and a high ranking tea utensil for tea powder, was named after its resemblance to the jujube. I have a plastic one I purchased for classes in Niigata, 1972.

Moss either in a garden or under a forest tree. I love to discover a clump with “british soldiers,” although now that I look it up, I see the name is for a lichen. Further search—I find the moss is polytrichaceae. One site notes they have teeth! And one kind is known as “bristly haircap.” I might be wrong, considering there are over 12,000 species of moss. But I think I’m right.

(There are also “moss imposters.”)

Blood

Of course, there are common words, although they have little personal meaning anymore: chalice, altar, liturgy—

Alter

Also, cross, although the word can be noun (“post with traverse bar” or “a hybrid”), verb, and adjective.

The most important object in our whole apartment is a stack of flat stones or a single plain stone around which I tie a tiny bib. R asked why I have such things in several nooks and I told him about Jizo. How they are the Buddhist patron saint of children—hence the bib. We stack stones to help the babies who do not make it to the afterlife and whose task it is to do so.

More than blood—cerise, maroon, scarlet, vermillion.

More than blood and more than incense, incensed.