修行会

126「気の御わざおろちの靈出や蜂の靈出たまのひ出ふる武産の道。」- 植芝盛平

Original Waka

気の御わざ
おろちの靈出や
蜂の靈出
たまのひ出ふる
武産の道

植芝盛平 (Ueshiba, 1977)

Translation

“August works of ki—serpent-spirit surging forth and bee-spirit springing; jewel-spirit welling forth—the Way of Takemusu.” – Morihei Ueshiba

Waka Translation¹

Ki’s own august works—
serpent’s spirit surging and
bee’s spirit springing—

jewel-spirits welling forth,
takemusu’s own way.

Morihei Ueshiba

歴史的仮名遣い（語構成を明示）²

氣の御業（きのみわざ）
おろちの靈出や（おろちのひでや）
蜂の靈出（はちのひで）
魂の靈出振る（たまのひでふる）
武產の道（たけむすのみち）

植芝盛平

Bungo Romanization

ki no miwaza
orochi no hide ya
hachi no hide
tama no hide furu
takemusu no michi

Ueshiba Morihei

Notes

¹ See note on や; it is serving two simultaneous particle functions here as a kakekotoba on the particle itself: (a) as a kireji marking an explanatory hinge echoing the serpent-spirit surging, and (b) identifies an enumerated list as an inexhaustive set (i.e., implies “not limited to these”).

² Equivalencies —「気／氣」, 「御わざ→御業（みわざ）」, 「たま→魂」, 「ひ出→靈出（＝hide）」, 「出ふる→出で振る」

Translation, Notes, Commentary, and Research by Latex G. N. R. Space-Coyote

Ueshiba, M. (2025). 植芝盛平道歌–126: Serpent surging, bee springing (L. G. N. R. Space-Coyote, Trans.; OpenAI ChatGPT-5 Pro, Ed.). Shugyokai.org. (Original work published 1977) https://shugyokai.org/9sa4

★★★★★

気 / 氣（き; ki）— vital breath; energy; spirit etc.; Ueshiba’s “ki”: psychophysical vitality / breath that pervades the cosmos, close to the ki treated as foundational “energy” in Japanese religious thought.

の（no）— genitive particle.

御（み; mi）— honorific prefix; in historical grammar it functions as a bound morpheme marking reverence toward the referent. NINJAL’s (2017) historical corpus treats ミ（御） as a prefixal element with numerous sacred exemplars (御子, 御言, 御手洗, etc.); indexes sacred dignity. In Shintō vocabulary mi‑ marks kami and imperial referents (mi‑koto, mi‑tama), a usage Shimazu (n.d.) treats as an honorific title / prefix for divine persons and attributes.

御わざ / 御業（みわざ; mi‑waza）— ‘august / divine work, deed’ (mi‑ honorific prefix).

気の御わざ（きのみわざ; ki no mi‑waza）— “august work of Ki”; 御わざ (mi‑waza) adds an honorific “august,” while Ki (気) points to vital force central to Ueshiba’s budō spirituality and his teaching that Aikido is “the marvelous work of takemusu aiki” and of kotodama.

おろち（orochi）— ‘great serpent; mythic monster’; evokes the mythic 八岐大蛇 (Yamata‑no‑Orochi), the monstrous many‑headed serpent cut down by Susanoo, a central Kojiki myth; In Shinto studies, orochi is emblematic of wild chthonic / riverine power.

靈（ひ; hi）— in norito and Shintō contexts, ひ (hi) is used for what typically is read れい (rei) / たま (tama); though not exactly fire and more like spiritual fire; some norito read as ひ (e.g., 産霊 [むすひ; mysterious power that generates and grows all things], later becoming 結び; DIGITALIO, n.d.; Mikunimusubi, 2019; Takahashi, 2024); on shrine boards and pamphlets (Kameyama Jinja, n.d.; Takahashi, 2024; Okazaki, 2025). In everyday Japanese, 霊 is れい / りょう, with kun‑yomi like たま・たましい – not ひ. In Shintō theological language, the morpheme 「ひ」 meaning “spiritual power /霊” is sometimes written with 霊, especially inside words like 産霊（むすひ） and 火産霊（ほむすひ）. So when a shrine explanation says “『ヒ』は霊のことです”, they’re not giving you a normal dictionary reading, they’re pointing out this old religious usage. Conjectured to relate to the fire/light (ascendant ethereal いん; 魂 as orthogonal to corporeal よお; 魄). 「ムス（産）」＋「ヒ（霊）」→ 産霊（むすひ）.

出（で; de）— “to emerge, come out”; for this character, Man ‘yoshii writes 山上復有山 meaning ‘mountain top again exist mountain’, ‘there is a mountain on top of another mountain’, or ‘there is a 山 on top of another 山’ (Frellesvig, 2010, p. 18). 

靈出（ひで; hide）— ‘spirit‑issuing‑forth’ the orthography 靈出 (old form for “spirit issuing‑forth”) reinforces the sense of numen manifesting; here attached to the orochi: heavy, coiling. ひで is a non-standard reading (cf. Yachiyo Aikikai, 2011).

や（ya）— kireji (cutting particle) in waka, marking an exclamatory hinge: it heightens the image and creates a slight pause before line 3. Classical grammars treat や as a focus‑and‑exclamation particle in bungo poetry. Additionally, as kakekotoba, and similarity in particle, や can function as と with a slight difference, where instead of X and Y it helps enumerate and communicate a sense of X and Y though not limited to these (i.e., a non-exhaustive set).

おろちの靈出や（おろちのひでや; orochi no hide ya）— “serpent‑spirit surging forth”; Orochi evokes the mythic, multi‑headed serpent of the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki. In Shinto studies, serpents and dragons often mark numinous, chthonic power and river/land energies—apt for Ueshiba’s image of spirit issuing forth. A marker of chthonic/riverine numen; や is exclamatory in bungo.

蜂（はち; hachi）— ‘bee’.

蜂の靈出（はちのひで; hachi no hide） — “bee‑spirit springing”; The bee here signals quick, vibrating, living force. While not a fixed Shinto symbol, insects are widely sacralized within Japan’s animist frame, making “bee‑spirit” a natural parallel to the orochi’s heavier numen. Parallel to the heavy, coiling serpent image. This pairing dramatizes contrasting modalities of emergence (hide) from ki. Animist sacralization of animals is routine in Shintō discourse.

たま / 魂（tama）— ‘soul; spirit; jewel’ (classical polysemy).

振る（ふる; furu）— ‘to wave, brandish; to shake / rouse’; strongly echoes 魂振 / 御魂振り tama‑furi, “spirit‑shaking”, a ritual of rousing or beckoning back the spirit, closely associated with soul‑pacification (tamashizume, chinkon) rites.

たまのひ出ふる（たまのひでふる; tama no hide furu） — “the jewel’s spirit‑fire wells”; Ueshiba’s tama no hi fuses tama (spirit / jewel) and hi (sun / fire), evoking a luminous, life‑giving effulgence. In Shinto vocabulary, tama / mitama denotes spirit, with related practices like tamafuri (“spirit‑shaking”) and tamamusubi (“spirit‑binding”) that suggest arousal or issuing‑forth of vitality—hence “spirit‑fire wells.”

武（ぶ; bu） — bu / martial (stop[ping] spear[s]).

産（むす; musu） — literally, giving birth.

武產（たけむす; takemusu）— ‘martial birthing / martial musubi’.

道（みち; michi） — way; path.

武産の道（たけむすのみち; takemusu no michi） — “the way of takemusu”; takemusu (武産) is a signature Ueshiba term: the generative, ever‑emergent birth (musu, “to bring forth / bind / create”) of martial technique in harmony with cosmic law. Aikido Journal’s archival lectures gloss takemusu as the “divine work that freely produces infinite, ever‑changing techniques,” which informs the final line.

Kami‑no‑ku and shimo-no-ku.  Kami-no-ku gathers cosmic operations (Ki, then the heavy, coiling serpent and the light, vibrating bee)—two contrasting modes of numinous emergence. The shimo‑no‑ku turns inward to radiant spirit (tama no hi) and names the path—takemusu—where such forces continually “give birth” to technique and right conduct. This structure mirrors Shinto’s musubi (creative binding/bringing‑forth) that underpins Ueshiba’s budō metaphysics. 

Historical kana & kyūjitai. Using 氣／靈／產 and mi‑ honorifics matches pre‑war/classical orthographic habits and Ueshiba’s own usage in dōka transcripts and calligraphy. 

Bungo particles & exclamation. The 間投助詞 や marks exclamatory focus (orochi no hide ya), a standard classical device. See standard bungo grammars (Shirane 2005; Vovin 2003).

Verbal morphology. 出（い）づ (classical ダ行下二段) →連用 いで; 振る (四段) →連体 ふる. The compound reading “出で振る” renders the kana 出ふる explicitly. (See paradigms in Shirane & Vovin.)

5‑7‑5‑7‑7 by mora. The segmentation above yields 31 mora, the canonical waka shape; moraic scansion (not stress) is the traditional metric unit in Japanese. Labrune (2012) details Japanese mora; Brower & Miner (1961) describe waka metrics.

Allusive diction. Orochi (mythic serpent) and tama/mitama belong to the classical poetic/religious lexicon familiar to court and shrine literature, aligning Ueshiba’s dōka with waka allusiveness. Kokugakuin’s Encyclopedia of Shinto documents these terms’ semantic fields.

Ritual verb furu (‘to wave/rouse’). The collocation with tama / mitama recalls 魂振（たまふり）／御魂振り, the “spirit‑shaking” rite—exactly the semantic nuance of hide furu (“spirit issues and is waved / roused”).

Shintō anthropology of tama / mitama. Shintō conceives spirits as mitama with dynamic aspects (ara‑mitama, nigi‑mitama, etc.). Poems that “rouse/pacify” the spirit (tamafuri, chinkon) align with ritual acts of revitalization. This frames “たまのひ出ふる” as a poeticized spirit‑rousing within a budō path.

Classic fire kami. 火産霊（ほむすひ） – one of the names of the fire deity also known as 軻遇突智（かぐつち）where 「ほ」＝ 火（fire）and 「むすひ」＝ 産霊（the generative spiritual power）. Also shows up in 火産霊（ほむすひ） – one of the names of the fire deity also known as 軻遇突智（かぐつち）. Also shows up in 火産霊神社 – usually read ほむすびじんじゃ or locally ひむすびじんじゃ; it enshrines 火産霊神（ほむすび／ほむすひのかみ） as a fire‑protection deity (Kokugakuin University, n.d.; Kotobank, n.d.). 

Mythic allusion and martiality. The orochi myth (Susanoo vs. Yamata‑no‑Orochi) encodes control of wild chthonic force; juxtaposing bee suggests quick, vibrative liveliness. The closing 武産 (“martial birthing”) names Ueshiba’s doctrine that true technique spontaneously arises from harmonizing with cosmic law (Takemusu Aiki).

Ueshiba’s religious milieu. Scholarship shows Ueshiba’s ideas were deeply shaped by Ōmoto and broader Shintō‑Buddhist practices: ki, musubi (creative binding), kotodama, and purification/misogi. Reading the poem as a waka of emergence and pacification aligns with those currents.

Shugyokai Comment. It is exactly this!

Shugyokai Hifumi Relation. In ひふみ祝詞 orochi (snake) and hachi (bee) are encoded into や「鳥」and its association with a 蛇比礼, and こ「動物」and its association with a 蜂比礼, which is related to the call drafted by 天宇受売命 to call 天照大御神 out of 天の岩戸 (see Space-Coyote, 2025). Note や speech particle and kiai, and こ utilization in Classical Japanese bungo. It’s great, and aligns with keiko.