Where Do the Sensations Embedded in the Body Come From?

Who am I, and where did I come from?
It’s a question every person asks at least once in their life. Yet most people move on, layering the present over such thoughts and rarely pursuing them further.

Mitsunori Sakano was born and raised in Tsurugi, Hakusan City, Ishikawa Prefecture. Every October, the town holds the Hōrai Festival, designated as an Intangible Folk Cultural Property of Hakusan. From a young age, Sakano naturally took part in it every year.

In 2008, while working on a project in Ōdate City, Akita Prefecture, Sakano encountered the Shishi-odori—a lion dance with over 400 years of history that was on the verge of disappearing.
There he heard many conflicting voices: “We must not let it die out.” “Its disappearance is inevitable.” “Tradition isn’t about remaining unchanged—it’s about continuing through change.”

These words sparked Sakano’s interest in the origins and transmission of the culture, customs, and embodied memories ingrained in his own hometown. At the same time, he became acutely aware of how little he actually knew about them.

Meeting a Folklore “Researcher” Who Uncovers Faint Traces and Weaves Forgotten Stories

As Sakano began his research in Tsurugi, he visited a local shrine to ask about the origins of the Hōrai Festival. There, he met a folklorist—Hiroji Muranishi—who also appears in Visualising Breath.

From Muranishi, Sakano learned that Tsurugi had once been a blacksmiths’ town, and that its blacksmithing culture dated back to ancient times. Moreover, behind the festival songs Sakano himself had sung since childhood were hidden meanings he had never imagined.

One verse from a traditional blacksmiths’ song appears in Visualising Breath:

“Hey girl over there, shall we do what blacksmiths do?
Lay down the mat by the river, shall we come together?”

This song, still sung during the Hōrai Festival, is familiar to every resident of Tsurugi, often enjoyed playfully by children for its seemingly risqué lyrics.
Yet, according to Muranishi, these words in fact conceal technical terms from ancient iron-smelting practices—phrases like “stoke the furnace” or “add the iron”.

Over a hundred such blacksmiths’ songs survive in Tsurugi, though few understand the hidden language within them. And it is not only Tsurugi—similar songs remain in many towns once flourishing with blacksmith culture.

Seeing Sakano’s amazement, Muranishi told him:

“Important things are always hidden. Even the things said to be ‘incomprehensible’ often carry meaning. And that’s what makes them interesting. What we don’t understand today can be reinterpreted and carried forward by those who come after us.”

Intersecting Eras – The Doorway to Evolving Stories

The songs sung at the festival are connected to the now-lost blacksmith culture, which in turn links back to the toraijin—ancient immigrants said to have brought ironworking to Japan, often represented by the myth of Yamata-no-Orochi.

Through his meeting with Muranishi, Sakano found that “the familiar landscape of my town suddenly appeared transformed.”
Tradition, he realised, is not static—it changes, is forgotten, rediscovered, and reinterpreted through new hands.

This was precisely the essence of what Sakano had long been drawn to—the origin of embodied sensations.
Even a small rural town, when explored deeply, connects in layers—hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of years into the past.
As long as we choose to trace and weave those threads, we can continue to create new stories with our own hands.

Visualising Breath can therefore be seen as a kind of filter—one that draws out the multi-layered stories hidden within the quiet rhythms of our daily breath, just as Sakano’s encounter with Muranishi revealed a different landscape within the familiar.