修行会

9「ありがたや伊都とみづとの合気十ををしく進め瑞の御声に。」– 植芝盛平

Original Waka

ありがたや
伊都とみづとの
合気十
ををしく進め
瑞の御声に

植芝盛平 (Ueshiba, 1977)

Translation

“Existence difficult! May Itsu and Mizu unite in the tenfold harmony of Aiki, and may there be advancement bravely, guided by the auspicious voice of the divine.” – Morihei Ueshiba

Waka Translation

A hard existence!
Itsu and Mizu joined now,
Aiki Crossway—

bravely press ahead with zeal,
toward the auspicious voice.

Morihei Ueshiba

歴史的仮名遣い（語構成を明示）¹

有難や（ありがたや）
伊都とみづとの（いづとみづとの）
合氣十（あいきとお）
ををしく進め（ををしくすすめ）
瑞の御聲に（みずのみこえに）

植芝盛平

Bungo Romanization¹

arigataya
Itsu to Midzu to no
aiki tō
ōshiku susume
midzu no mikowe ni

Ueshiba Morihei

Aikikai Romanization²

“Arigatawa Izu to Mizu to no Aikido ooshiku susume mizu no mikoe ni.” – Morihei Ueshiba

Aikikai Practice Notes²

funekogi, furitama, nipo [p-] tenkan*

Notes

¹ づ (modern ず) and word‑initial を (modern お) reflect historical spelling; cf. Agency for Cultural Affairs guidance and primers on historical kana usage. (Agency for Cultural Affairs, 2006; Jinja Honchō, n.d.).

² Referenced in Aikido at Home #2 during Covid Crisis May 17, 2020

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

Ueshiba, M. (2025). 植芝盛平道歌–009: Itsu and Mizu join now (L. G. N. R. Space-Coyote, Trans.; OpenAI ChatGPT-5 Pro, Ed.). Shugyokai.org. (Original work published 1977) https://shugyokai.org/iysm

ありがた / 有難（ありがた; arigata）— 有難 (arigata, stem). A ク活用 adjective (classical -shi adjective); 有り + 難し (“to exist” + “difficult”) ⇒ “difficult to exist,” hence “rare; precious.” Rendaku accounts for kata- → gata- in arigata‑; rare; seldom found; exceptional; precious / admirable / noble (because rare); difficult; hard; burdensome (incl. “life is hard”); welcome; thankworthy; gracious (the semantic bridge toward gratitude); late medieval–early modern sources show the shift that yields the interjection arigatō. The interjection ありがたう／有難う develops from the 連用形 ありがたく + polite verbs (e.g., 候ふ) with ウ音便 (-ku → -ū/-ō), and spreads as a thank‑you formula especially from the early modern period; by Edo it is common and later becomes the modern ありがとう; Classical texts write 有り難し／有難し or kana‑only ありがたし; 有難 by itself often labels the stem (not a Sino‑Japanese word). Treat 有難 as ateji for the native lexeme arigata‑.

ありがたや（ありがたや; arigataya）— original arigato; “it is very rare; an exclamatory form conveying deep gratitude, awe, and reverence; common in older religious texts / poems to express wonder at the sacred; uses や as an exclamatory particle / kireji, functioning as a pause and heightener (“How blessed!”). In waka/haikai, や is a classic cutting word that creates a hinge between images (Horton, 2019).

伊（い; i）— he, she, it (Muller, 2002/2008).

都（す; su）— all, whole, abundant, full; elegant, refined, beauty, excellence; metropolis, imperial city or domain; district, ward, territory; kakekotoba with 主 (す; su).

伊都 （いづ; itsu）— an archaizing sacred epithet. In Shinto sources, itsu carries the nuance “sacred, august,” as in Itsu‑no‑Mitsuhanome: “Itsu means ‘sacred / holy’; mitsu / mizu ‘water’; me ‘female’.” This supports hearing 伊都 and みづ together as a purposeful kotodama pairing. 

みづ（mizu）— here not 水 but 瑞　(“auspicious, felicitous omen”), whose traditional kun‑reading includes mizu / midzu in archaic usage. Ueshiba often plays on homophony (mizu “water” / mizu “auspicious”).

伊都とみづとの（いづとみづとの; izu to mizu to no）— invokes the Shintō pair 厳御魂 (itsu/izu no mitama; the “stern / majestic” aspect) and 瑞御魂 (mizu no mitama; the “auspicious / beneficent” aspect) within the 一霊四魂 (one‑spirit‑four‑souls) doctrine. (Yonei, n.d.; see also dojo teaching notes tying “いづ と みづ” to the two divine poles; Aikido Yachiyo Enmeikai, n.d.-c).

十（とお; tō）— typical meaning as “ten”, or “cross-ways” [of heaven and earth [vertical being divine-human relation, and horizontal being human-human relation]] symbolically; many Aikidō lineages teach that tō = dō; alternate reading is じふ (jifu), satisfying two mora, in Classical Japanese bungo meaning “ten” yet kakekotoba as 柔 (jū/yawaraka) yielding “softness”, “gentleness”, “yielding” and 重 (jū/omoi) yielding “heavy”, “serious”, “important” which echos soft (柔) / hard (剛) pairing (cf. Takahashi, 1986), and echos “stern Izu” and “calm Mizu” (cf. Ueshiba, 1977/2025a, 1977/2025b); see Ueshiba’s oral teaching on “The Floating Bridge of Heaven is the figure of the cross made by fire and water”「天の浮橋とは、火と水の十字の姿である。」(Takahashi, 1986); may allude also to the etymological signified crossroads of 行 (see Space-Coyote, 2026).

合気十: Ueshiba’s esoteric orthography read aikitō. Several lines in his dōka equate 合気十 / 愛気十 / 十字道 as alternative spellings for Aiki‑dō—“the Way of Aiki”—and associate 十 (cross) with cosmic alignment (“heaven’s floating bridge”). (Aikido Yachiyo Enmeikai, n.d.-b); 合気道（あいきどう; aikidō) is 5 mora, whereas 合気十（あいきとお; aikitō) is 5 mora; 十 represents orthogonality of two dimensions rather than poles of one dimension.

進（すす; susu）— advance, progress, enter; kakekotoba with 主 (す; su).

ををしく進め（ををしくすすめ; ōshiku susume）— archaic form suggesting “bravely”, “valiantly”, or “with noble resolve”; underscores a dignified, almost martial sense of moving forward. A classical adjective with early attestations; the archaic spelling をを[し] survives in dictionaries, whereas modern dictionaries have おおし (cf. Jinja Honchō, n.d.). 

瑞（みず; mi[d]zu）— auspicious; token of jade; congratulations; used in shinto contexts to denote auspiciousness or bounty.

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 Shizamu (n.d.) treats as an honorific title/prefix for divine persons and attributes.

声（こえ; koe）— voice.

御声（みこえ; mikoe）— august / auspicious voice [as guiding, protective presence].

瑞の御声（みずのみこ; mi[d]zu no miko）— auspicious voice, voice of divine blessing.

瑞の御聲に（みずのみこに; mi[d]zu no miko ni）— “toward / into the auspicious divine voice.” 御‑ (mi‑) is the sacral honorific prefix in ritual diction (norito) used for kami, hence 御聲 “august voice”; 瑞 (mizu) here plays against earlier みづ, forming a kakekotoba that can resonate as “water” (水) and “auspicious” (瑞) while also pointing to 瑞御魂. (cf. Yonei, n.d.).

Kireji echo. “O blessèd indeed!” mirrors や; punctuation works as the cut.

Kakekotoba. Retained by naming Itsu / Mizu and ending on auspicious voice, letting “Mizu” carry both “water / 瑞” in the notes.

Yoin (余韻). Ending on voice leaves a sustained “reverberation,” matching yoin as “lingering resonance / decay” in Japanese aesthetics (Groesbeck, 2023; Hirano, 2017; Waller, 2020).

The “十” device. Ueshiba’s dōka and exegeses in Aiki circles read 合気十 / 愛気十 / 十字道 all as aikidō, with 十functioning as the juji (cross of axes; orthogonality) and as a kotodama sign. This is an intentional, symbolically charged orthography, not a typo; I therefore read 合氣十 aloud as Aikidō (5 morae). The written 十 (cross) in Ueshiba’s poems encodes both “ten/cross” and “way,” resonating with his cosmic cross imagery and the “heavenly floating bridge” (天の浮橋) through which creation is rectified—hence “advance bravely” along that axis. (Aikido Yachiyo Enmeikai, n.d.-b).

Orthography. ををしく reflects historical kana (word‑initial を for modern お), and みづ reflects historical づ (now ず). (Agency for Cultural Affairs, 2006; “Historical kana orthography,” 2025). 御聲/御声 and honorific 御 are classical features for “divine voice”.

Semantics. 雄々し (“valiant”) and the imperative 進め are idiomatic bungo choices in exhortative waka diction. (Jinja Honchō, n.d.).

Shinto semioticsof voice and auspice. The collocation 瑞 (omen / auspice) and 御聲 (divine voice) echoes norito diction in which mi‑ marks the kami’s attributes and agency; correct, beautiful utterance carries efficacy (kotodama). Thus the poem enjoins valorous advance aligned with auspicious divine sound.

Ueshiba’s religious idiom: The Founder saturates his dōka with Shintō cosmology, kotodama (word‑spirit), and Ichirei‑shikon (one spirit, four souls). Scholarly treatments of Shintō cosmology and mitama clarify how 伊都（厳） and 瑞 mark complementary divine modes (Yonei, n.d.; Breen & Teeuwen, 2010/2009). Kotodama as ideology/practice in modern Japan is surveyed by Antoni (2012). Studies show Ueshiba’s Aikidō emerged at the intersection of budō and new‑religious currents (esp. Ōmoto‑kyō), where kotodama, rituality, and ethical non‑violence are central (Goldsbury, 2003; Greenhalgh, 2003/2018).