What Is a Thatched House

I entered the world of thatching at the age of twenty-three.
From the beginning, I wanted to live in a thatched house myself.
At twenty-eight, I was able to buy one.
My family and I began living in a thatched house.
I felt satisfied.
And yet, there was something I could not explain.
A quiet sense of unease.

The house was 150 years old.
I knew it would not be comfortable by modern standards.
But this was not about inconvenience.
It felt as if I was not supposed to be there.
One day, a thought came to me.
Perhaps a thatched house was not built for people to live in.
This idea felt strangely natural.
Then another thought followed.
What if a thatched house is a kind of temple.
Not a house, but a sacred space.
When I saw it this way, everything began to make sense.
In the past, bathrooms and kitchens were placed outside.
They were considered impure.
The most important room, the sunlit tatami room, was not used for sleeping.
These customs only make sense if the house itself was sacred.

A Place, Not a House

I lived in a thatched house with my family for seven years.
Then I stopped living there.
Instead, I began to rent it to guests, one group at a time.
In Japan, there is a concept called “marebito.”
A visitor from afar is considered a divine presence.

By welcoming guests into the house, I felt that the building returned to its original role.
Some guests say,
“Time seems to stop here.”
Perhaps they are sensing something that cannot be explained.
A thatched house may not be something to call a house.
It is more like a “place.”

A Drop of Water

I think of human life as a drop of water.
When waves crash against rocks, tiny drops scatter into the air.
That is the moment an individual appears.

The drop rises, and for a brief moment, it exists on its own.
But soon, it falls back into the ocean.
That is death.
Yet the ocean remains.
It becomes clouds, rain, rivers, and returns again.
This cycle continues forever.
Life is only a brief appearance within that endless flow.
Living in Miyama, I began to feel this.
That is why each person has a unique individuality.
No one is the same.
Because the whole contains infinite diversity.
You and I are different.
And yet, we are not separate.
By encountering your individuality, I feel the vastness of the whole.

Conclusion

A thatched house is not simply architecture.
It is a place where humans, nature, and something unseen come together.
The individual disappears.
But the relationship continues.
And within that continuity, we exist.