Have you heard about iyashiroshi and kegarechi? These are the words that distinguish where you would want to live from where you wouldn’t. The words have been used from about a thousand years ago, perhaps much earlier, as far back as the Jomon period. Iyashiroshi is the place where you feel relaxed, surrounded by alpha waves, where plants and crops are densely growing and houses are dry and long-lasting, and where there are no bad smells, things decay at a slow rate and have a long shelf life, and people are healthy.

Kegarechi, on the other hand, is the place where everything decays quickly due to a greater amount of humidity, which encourages molds and bad bacteria. Those who live in such places become unhealthy, prone to illness.

The shrines and temples in Japan were built in the realms of iyashiroshi, which were selected by the wisdom of people in ancient times. That’s why those buildings have survived through periods in which no one knew how to combat termites. Measuring ion density will tell you whether or not, scientifically, a piece of land is iyashirochi. There are more negative ions than positive ones in iyashiroshi. Actually, I measured the ion density in Yakushiji-temple in Nara in one September, on which the ambient temperature was 20℃ and the humidity was 50%. The ion counter indicated 1,000 negative ions and 500 positive ions.

However, even in iyashiroshi areas, pine trees near shrines and temples have been dying recently, which has become a problem all over Japan. Because of exposure to chemicals and acid rain in the past few decades, the environment of those areas has been oxidized; therefore, the trees have been losing antioxidative properties that they allegedly used to have. Pine needles, which contain a lot of antioxidants, have been dying as acid rain blocked pores, and the old, massive pine trees have also been dying because they absorb acid substance from the land.

Pine trees in shrines in the areas facing the Sea of Japan, such as Izumo-taisha, have experienced serious damage from exhaust fumes and acid rain originating in China. It is painful to see those pine trees treated with direct injections of nutrients; it looks as if they were sick patients. Antioxidant technologies restore those dying trees to life. One method of restoration consists of digging a hole 1 meter in diameter to a depth of 1.5 meters near the dying pine tree, then putting 150 kilograms of fine coal into the hole and covering it with soil. Negative ions (electrons) emitted from the coal will have an antioxidative effect on the pine tree. In this way, the pine tree will get its green back in a few months.

Another method, at Todaiji Temple and Miwa Shrine in Nara, has succeeded in preventing damage to old-growth pines by spraying EM (Effective Microorganisms) at the foot of the trees. It is said that in Mount Miwa, an aerial spraying of EM above the mountaintop made it possible to spread antioxidants throughout the mountain, bringing the area back to life every time it has rain.

Every year in February, in mountainous areas all over Japan, a huge amount of cedar pollen is dispersed into the air, as if in a sandstorm. Maybe this is because the whole environment has been oxidized; the cedar trees disperse more pollen than necessary to produce offspring, as well as to give a warning message that their life is at stake. If we read the message accurately and treat the trees by dispersing antioxidative microorganisms like EM from above the mountaintop, in an effort to cover the whole mountain, I suppose we can even control hay fever, which is thought to be uncontrollable.

In order to refresh the earth in the future, I think we must know science on a macro level; in other words, we must fully understand and put into practice a science based on complexity, rather than the conventional science with a simple matrix that has been only effective in the laboratory.