One million hits!!

Time to celebrate - one million hits!

Green Shinto is more than proud to announce one million hits on the blog since it started two and a half years ago.  It’s a number we would never have dared dream about, imagining that Shinto would be an obscure and marginal subject in internet terms.  Many thanks indeed to all those who have tuned in on a regular basis to this blog, and to the occasional visitor – welcome!  I’m particularly thankful to those who have taken the trouble to contribute to the blog with articles of their own.  Gratitude and awe are said to be the essence of Shinto, and this is an occasion on which both emotions rise to the fore.

The pleasing purity of the essence of Shinto

It’s been both a pleasure and a privilege running the blog, and I’ve been surprised by the interest it’s aroused.  I’ve been asked to participate in two video documentaries, interviewed for a PhD thesis, been invited to write articles, had copyright requests to reuse my photos, and met with several overseas readers who have visited Kyoto.  This week too I’ll be meeting with a German researcher interested in Japanese mythology.

When I set out on this venture, I never imagined the blog would involve me in so much personal interaction, and in many ways it’s been much more rewarding than writing books – though sadly it doesn’t pay as much!

The interest in the blog has much to do with the worldwide interest in Japan in general.  Aikido has proved an increasingly popular martial art, whose practitioners are drawn to its spiritual source in Shinto.  Anime and manga often feature Shinto beliefs and spiritual practice – seen above all in the worldwide success of Hayao Miyazaki’s films. And the growth in Neo-paganism in the West has spurred interest in a primal religion that continues to play a vital role in contemporary society.

A desire to return to the womb of Mother Nature lies deep within

Another factor in the interest in Shinto is awareness of the fundamental part it has played in the formation of Japanese culture and manners.  Indeed, it’s sometimes difficult to separate what is Shinto from what is everyday Japanese practice, so closely are the two intertwined.  For many years after WW2 the subject was more or less taboo, because of the unsavoury role played by State Shinto in abetting the extremism of the wartime regime, but sufficient time has elapsed now for this to be no longer such a factor.

The opportunity presents itself for Shinto to move away from its past and embrace the environmentalism that the planet so clearly needs.  So far within Japan there has been little sign of that, but things can change dramatically as we’ve seen in the wake of Fukushima.  Nationalists continue to use Shinto as a cover for their agenda to restore ‘a strong Japan’, but I’ve also met Shinto priests with a universal agenda and sympathies with the conservation movement.  Shinto’s been described as a ‘blood and soil’ religion, and the balance between the two is finely poised.

With the support of its readership, Green Shinto will keep planting seeds and looking towards a greener future.  Please keep tuning in and help us towards a second million!!

Seifa Utaki in Okinawa, the perfect picture of nature worship with a stone altar in the woods