There is an Alan Watts podcast that is so good that I had to make a transcript. It’s from a series called Images of God (no. 1) and concerns the importance of Wonder, which lies at the heart of primal … Read the rest
Category: Rocks (Page 5 of 6)
Seifa Utaki is the Ise of Okinawa. It’s a sacred site associated with royal patronage that lay at the apex of the Ryukyu kingdom’s religious structure. I think of all the spiritual places I’ve visited in Japan, this is … Read the rest
What is it about rock temples? Some of the most stunning spiritual sites are those that perch on cliffsides in China and Burma. Tohoku too boasts the wonderful Yamadera. And on my recent World Heritage trip to the Deep … Read the rest
Today is Obon in Kyoto, when ancestral spirits are welcomed back home before being sent off with a grand fire ceremony called Daimonji, about which I’ve written previously. (See here.) The festival appeals to the syncretic sentiments of … Read the rest
Avebury stone circle
There are sacred rocks (iwakura) all over Japan, but I’ve never seen a date put on them. The supposition is that they date to the Yayoi Age (300 BC-300 AD), when waves of immigrants … Read the rest
Walking down the Kamogawa river the other day in Kyoto, I passed a wayside Jizo shrine (see above). Nothing very unusual – you see them all over the place. Jizo has to be the most popular deity in Japan, … Read the rest
The island of Shiraishi in the Inland Sea is studded with rocks of so many sorts and sizes that you can’t help being ‘struck’ by them. Small wonder it’s called White Rock Island, and that sacred rocks are numerous. Some … Read the rest