Rocking on Shiraishi Island

Amy Chavez has written an article in the Japan Times on the sacred rocks of the island where she lives in the Inland Sea.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20110709cz.html

I’m a big fan of the island, and particularly of the rocks there… they come in a variety of types, sizes and colour.  Some have an enormous sense of presence.  It’s my understanding that rocks were viewed as part of the living earth in ancient times, which is why they were seen as having a life of their own and in mythology they even have babies.  In Japanese cosmology rocks represent the eternal spirit world, and vegetation the human perishable world.  The idea that they are vessels for spirits which descend into them is in a sense a logical development.  It’s why you get kami descending from heaven in rock-boats (meteorites were at one time thought to be pieces that had fallen off from the rock-sky above us).  In Shiraishi the spirit of rock lives on and the islanders keep the faith.  Rock on!!