I’ve spent the last eleven years slowly readying this story for print, this time with both Kazz’s and the teacher’s encouragement. I’m back in San Francisco after living two years in Prague and four years in Washington, D.C. From my North Beach window, I can nearly see the apartment where I first heard of the Sword of Heaven in 1982, seventeen years ago. I can see the Golden Gate Bridge and beyond to the Pacific Ocean where Kazz and Juan placed a god together. I’ve twisted around the spine of a spiral, and although it looks like I’m back where I started, I’m not. The world has changed and so have I.

Many times as I set down this story, I struggled with pen to paper. As Donna so wisely observed, it’s hard for me to say how I feel, to articulate what I want, and to fully reveal myself. I even considered telling the story instead with a simple haiku poem accompanied by a photograph:

The gods, placed
oh!
Green parrots in the trees

But I was ultimately compelled to tell the story completely and faithfully, in much the same way I was compelled to help place Shinto gods around the world. The writing, like the project itself, became an act of personal exploration, an act of reflection and growth. It was—as so aptly represented by the cross that Kazz gave me at the monastery—an act of becoming, not being.

Remarkable events have continued to occur since I placed the last gods in South Africa and South America: on November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. Václav Havel was elected president of a democratic Czechoslovakia on December 29, 1989. Shortly after that, the USSR and the Warsaw Pact ceased to exist. Then, miraculously, apartheid was dismantled in South Africa in 1991, peacefully. The Cold War is over. The fear of an all-out nuclear war between the superpowers is virtually gone.

Did a Shinto priest save the world?

At moments, when I’m switched to the Shinto channel, I think he did. I can clearly see gods all over the world battling in unison for world peace, making sure a missile isn’t launched here, helping tear a wall down there. But then, my rational mind, strong as ever, changes the channel, and I think all of it was just a lucky coincidence.

I can say unequivocally, however, that a Shinto priest changed my life. My crippling nightmare has never returned. With fear removed from my heart, I’ve lived a very different life.

In 1992, while I was in Prague waiting to meet my old friend Wolfgang, I met Rebecca Taggart, a foreign service officer at the U.S. Embassy. After just a few days together, I decided that she was the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. But I still lived in San Francisco, and she lived in Prague. It took everything I learned from the Sword of Heaven to make the relationship work. I jumped in with both feet, and after returning to San Francisco for six weeks to put my business in order and to pack up my things, I returned to Prague. There were moments when I doubted my rash decision, but I’ve learned that doubts are a normal part of life. There were times when our romance was less than perfect, but I’ve learned to live with that too.

After two years in Prague—where we both witnessed and participated in the country’s thrilling transition to a free, democratic state—we moved to Washington, D.C. Then, a year later, at an outdoor ceremony in Northern California, surrounded by a grove of redwood trees, we were married. Kazz flew in from Japan to officiate and make sure no bad spirits interfered. Two years later, our daughter Miranda Kristina was born. Kazz wrote to congratulate us and referred to her as the daughter of the Sword of Heaven.

I haven’t been back to Japan since the fire ceremony, but I know from Kazz that the teacher Hakuryu Takizawa is still alive, although suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Kazz doesn’t think he will live much longer. My teacher—and I say “my” purposefully—is more than 90 years old, and I thank him from deep inside my heart for all he has done. I wish his soul a well-earned rest.

About ten years ago, Kazz told me he had finished the project by placing two final gods—one in a pyramid near Mexico City, helped by Juan Li, and one in North Korea along with the teacher and a group of the teacher’s disciples. But I wouldn’t be surprised that if the world suddenly got really dangerous, a package would appear on my doorsteps with a note, “One Shinto God.”

Juan Li has become a renowned Tai Chi teacher. Donna still lives and works as an artist in New York. We are still in touch and recently she shared some of her memories of our time together to help me tell this story. Pascale is back in France with her husband and their four children.

As I write these last words, rays from the afternoon sun are striking my office window. The golden light is wonderful. I love this city, and I am so happy to be back. I can hear my daughter and her friend talking in the room next to me. I think about their future. The Cold War is over, and so is the nuclear threat of my childhood. My daughter won’t grow up in a bomb shelter but that doesn’t mean the world is not dangerous.

I want to tell my daughter not to be afraid, but I know that she will have her own fears and her own unique solutions. Instead, I’ll tell her to be vigilant, and to look to her dreams and nightmares for clues and signs of progress. I’ll tell her to be open-minded about the spirit world, and if it feels right, to call upon the spirits for help. I’ll also tell her to seek out communities embarked on meaningful and noble acts. The acts need not be as large as the Sword of Heaven, for any act that makes the world a better place is worthy. Above all, I’ll tell her that all action, big or small, must always be accompanied by the opening of one’s heart. As the Sword of Heaven taught me, ritual only takes one to the door. To get through to the other side, there must be love.

The afternoon light moves from the end of my desk and for a moment illuminates the letters on my keyboard. From my window, I can see a huge ship passing beneath the Golden Gate Bridge on its way to dock. I lean back and take it all in. I wonder where the ship is going next. I wonder where the light will fall now.

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