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Benten ponds

February 27, 2014 / John D. / 0 Comments

Naturalist Kevin Short’s latest piece for the Japan News concerns the irrigation ponds which are often presided over by a Benten shrine, since the deity is associated with water. (For the full article, see here.)

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Kevin Short, for the Japan News

Benzaiten started off as Sarasvati, an Indian native river goddess, but was absorbed into the Buddhist pantheon as a protector deity. Here in Japan she is considered to be the patron saint of musicians and performers, as well as a bringer of fortune. Benzaiten is one of the Shichifukujin, or Seven Lucky Gods, honored at pilgrimages around the New Year.

In the countryside, however, Benzaiten is worshipped almost exclusively as a Suijin, or no-nonsense water deity. Most shrines dedicated to her are located on tiny islands set in tameike irrigation ponds.

These simple ponds are typically constructed at the head of narrow valleys, where water seeps out naturally from the surrounding slopes. The water is temporarily collected in the ponds, then sent downstream to the paddies through a system of sluices and ditches.

Interestingly, although Benzaiten is of Buddhist origin, in the countryside she is often worshipped as a Shinto kami. Buddhism arrived in Japan in the fifth century. At first there was conflict between this new religion and the older Shinto-like beliefs. Eventually, however, accommodations were reached.

One way of reconciling the two traditions was to match up Buddhist deities with specific Shinto counterparts. Benzaiten was coupled with Ichikishima Hime, a Shinto suijin worshipped at the Munakata Taisha in Fukuoka Prefecture and the famous Itsukushima Shrine on Miyajima island in the Seto Inland Sea.

In Japanese folk spirituality, however, the distinctions between Shinto and Buddhism have always been blurred at best. For rice farmers a steady, reliable supply of water is absolutely vital, and no one really cares what religious tradition the spiritual energies that protects and animates the irrigation ponds belong to. The tameike ponds are thus major hubs in both the physical and spiritual landscapes.

The tameike also play an important role in preserving local biodiversity and ecosystems. Often fringed with reeds, cattails and other native water grasses, the ponds provide excellent breeding habitat for small fishes, crustaceans, frogs, turtles, and aquatic insects such as dragonflies. Japanese weasels, kingfishers, and several species of egret and heron hunt regularly in the tameike.

Snakes, excellent swimmers that prey heavily on frogs, also abound in the suijin ponds. In fact, in Japanese folk spirituality snakes are considered to be the familiar or spirit-helper of Benzaiten. The goddess is typically depicted playing the traditional three-stringed biwa, but in some spectacular avatars she appears as a coiled snake with a woman’s head.

In many areas water for the rice paddies is now pumped up from underground, and the tameike no longer function as irrigation ponds. The farmers, however, continue to think of themselves as beneficiaries of a natural cosmos. Simple feelings of gratitude for these benefits still runs deep in Japanese folk spirituality, and the tameike ponds and small Benzaiten shrines are usually maintained in excellent condition.

As the countryside landscape modernizes and urbanizes, these ponds become more and more important as bio-reserves, often providing the only local habitat for regionally endangered species. Certain species of dragonfly rely heavily on tameike, as does the Japanese fire-bellied newt.
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Short is a naturalist and cultural anthropology professor at Tokyo University of Information Sciences.

The Benten Pond at Kyoto's Daigo-ji - not a 'tameike' irrigation pond but a beautifully landscaped temple pond

Space-age Shinto

February 26, 2014 / John D. / 0 Comments

Picture for the day on the Japan Today site shows how Shinto, despite its cherishing of traditions, manages to keep abreast of contemporary developments, including rocket science. Here blessings for a successful launch are requested of the local kami by technicians at the Tanegashima space centre – a safety precaution to the guardians of the other world, you might say. (Aptly enough, ten in Japanese can translate as both sky and heaven.)

REUTERS/NASA/Bill Ingalls (Japan Today Feb 26, 2014)
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) team members bow at Ebisu Shrine, the first shrine in a traditional San-ja Mairi, or Three Shrine Pilgrimage. The team was praying for a successful launch of a Japanese H-IIA rocket carrying the NASA-JAXA, Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory on Tanegashima Island on Friday.

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Tanegashima island lies south of Kyushu, next to the World Heritage site of Yakushima, and it was the first place that Europeans ever landed in Japan, with the arrival of a couple of Portuguese merchants (possibly three) in 1543. I visited the bay where they landed as part of my research for In Search of Japan’s Hidden Christians, and found it marked by a model of the Chinese junk carrying the Portuguese, which was blown off-course from its route along the Chinese coast and shipwrecked on the Tanegashima coast. The Portuguese brought muskets with them, which soon spread across Japan thanks to the expertise in iron-smelting, and next to the bay is a shrine which as you can see in the photo below commemorates the event in the statuary at its entrance.

Shrine at Cape Kadoma next to the bay where the Portuguese merchants landed, bringing muskets to Japan. The country's main space centre is located nearby.

Sky Father, Mother Earth

February 26, 2014 / John D. / 2 Comments

Meoto (husband-wife) rocks can be found around Japan, but the most famous pair are at Futami near Ise, as pictured above. The rocks are usually taken to represent the primal pair of Izanagi and Izanami. Meoto rocks are invariably located in water and tied together in symbolic union by a shimenawa rope. The piece below, exploring similarities in other cultures, is extracted from a longer article on the Japanese Mythology and Folklore website. (For the full article, see here.)

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The embracing Sky Father, Mother Earth and Heavenly Ropevine
by heritageofjapan

Meotoiwa, “husband and wife rocks”, or the Wedded Rocks, are a couple of small rocky stacks in the sea off Futami, Mie, Japan. They are joined by a shimenawa (a heavy rope of rice straw) and are considered sacred by worshippers at the neighbouring Futami Okitama Shrine.

Izanagi and Izanami stirring the primordial slime to create Japan

According to local lore and Shinto beliefs, the rocks represent the union of the creator kami, Izanagi and Izanami. Although the above Futami Meioto Iwa rocks are the most famous ones, there are many others to be found elsewhere in the Japanese landscape.

Such iconography and the idea of a Creator-Couple or Cosmic Couple is rampant throughout the ancient prehistoric world, and particularly widespread among the tribes of the Austro-Asiatics, the Austronesians as well as the Polynesians. Stephen Oppenheimer writes about the mythical belief on p. 321 of his book Eden in the East: The Drowned Continent of Southeast Asia:

The story of creation with Sky Father locked in close and dark sexual union with Mother Earth, is found in a band stretching from NZ to Greece. The locked-couple picture is seen at its fullest in a little understood string of islands, the Lesser Sundas of eastern Indonesia. And in the surviving megalithic societies of Sulawesi, Maluku and the Nusa Tenggara, a concept of Father Sky and Mother Earth, who were previously locked in a tight embrace remains central to cultural beliefs.

What does the heavenly rope vine symbolize and what is its origin? Below we explore some possible ideas and explanations for the celestial ladder twine.

The straw rope tying the husband and wife together is a visual metaphor recalling the myth from Flores Island (an island arc extending east from Java island of Indonesia). A rope twine used to tie the Sky Father and Earth Mother together until a dog chewed up the vine, causing the two to fly apart, a mythical explanation for the separation of Sky and Earth.

Is the shimenawa rope, often used as a signifier in Shinto, indicative of the tie between this world and the other?

In ‘Ayahuasca, shamanism, and curanderismo in the Andes‘, Steve Mizrach examines the concept of an otherworldly “soul vine”, a concept that seems to have been diffused to the Americas from the Altai-Siberia or Mongolia. In Brazil, there is a term ‘ayahuasca’ that comes from the Quechua, meaning literally “the vine of souls,” — it is also called “the visionary vine” or the “vine of death.” The folk term refers to the botanical species of liana known as Banisteriopsis Caapi , which is also known as Yage among the Indians of Brazil. The Andean shaman uses Yage, “the vine of souls,” to contact the dead as well as to divine the location of water. Mizrach thus draws a connection between the vine as a connector between the Underworld with passages of water.

Perhaps one of the “ceremonial” uses of the lines is for the shaman to travel during his “spirit journey,” guiding him like a magnet to the places of the dead where he can bargain for water. Indeed, during their “soul flights,” shamans typically report that they are “guided” on their journey by “spirit paths” that lead them to the appropriate destination.

The Ladder-to-Heaven documents a ladder made of reed or vine among the South American tribes (the Nivalke, the Mataco, the Tupi, Sikuani and the Chorote)… In Myth in History: Mythological Essays, Peter Metevelis (p. 255) tabulates the countries that possess a myth of ropeway access to the Upperworld as including Iceland, India, China, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Melanesia, North and South America, and Polynesia.

In the case of Japan, the straw vine appears as a boundary marker that marks off where the entrance to the Underworld or Heavenly River is, and it is used to quickly fence off the entrance after Amaterasu emerges from the Iwato cavern, thus preventing the Japanese sun goddess from returning to the Underworld. This myth is said to be closest to the myth found in the Indo-Iranian Vedic literature — of Usas, the Dawn woman and heralder of the rising sun, who is hidden in a cave on an island in the middle of the Rasa stream at the end of the world (see Michael Witzel in his Vala and Iwato The Myth of the Hidden Sun in India, Japan and beyond).

Whether the celestial rope as a heavenly ladder, road or path to and from heaven, originated from Africa or is found there as a result of back migrations, we do not know. African sacred traditions of the Dinkas speak of heavenly path or rope that men once traversed freely to and from heaven to converse with the gods, but which collapsed or was destroyed in primeval times as a result of an accident, after which Heaven became separated from Earth.

Kagura reenactment of the rock cave myth, with a rope across the top of the cave to prevent Amaterasu returrning to hide within it

Awe and wonder

February 26, 2014 / John D. / 2 Comments

Joseph Campbell called Shinto ‘a religion of awe’, and for myself wonder is of the essence. It’s a natural response to the mystery of existence. Children typically have it, but adults lose the sense of wonder through being mired down by the mundane nature of modern life. It’s often assumed that awe and wonder are components of a religious disposition, but Richard Dawkins and other atheists have talked of being moved by wonder at the beauty and immensity of the universe. If Shinto is not a religion, as many of its adherents claim, then there is room for atheists too to worship at its shrines, as the following article suggests. (Indeed, I’ve often heard that some Shinto priests are essentially atheist, though confirmed ritualists.)

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Frank Furedi The Independent Wednesday 16 October 2013

Oprah is wrong. Atheists can experience wonder and awe

Those who believe in God do not have a monopoly over possession of that magnificent sense of the sublime. In one sense Oprah Winfrey was absolutely right when she lectured the humanist swimmer Diana Nyad about the inconsistency of the outlook of atheism with a sense of awe. For Oprah, a woman of faith, the sense of wonder and awe are inextricably intertwined with religion and God.

Indeed since the emergence of the Judeo-Christian tradition, awe is the mandatory reaction that the true believer is required to have towards God. From this perspective the sense awe and wonder is bounded and regulated through the medium of religious doctrine. In contrast, those of us who believe that it was not God but humans who are the real creators are unlikely to stand in awe of this allegedly omnipotent figure.

Although in the 21st century the term awe and awesome are used colloquially to connote amazement and admiration historically these words communicated feelings of powerlessness, fear and dread. The Oxford English Dictionary tells us, that awe means ‘immediate and active fear; terror, dread’. The OED explains that from its original reference to the Divine Being it has acquired a variety of different meanings, such as ‘dread mingled with veneration’ and ‘reverential or respectful fear’. All these meanings signal one important idea which that ‘fearing’ and ‘dreading’ are inherently positive attributes to be encouraged.

The religious affirmation of fear and dread of a higher being is indeed alien to the humanist view of the world. But does that mean that Oprah is right and that atheists cannot wonder and awe? Not at all. Those who believe in God do not have a monopoly over possession of that magnificent sense of the sublime that catches us unaware in the face of the truly mysterious. Atheists and humanist experience wonder and awe in ways that sometimes resembles but often differs from the way that the religious people respond to the unknown.

We all have the capacity and the spiritual resources to experience the mysteries of life and the unexpected events that excite our imagination through a sense of wonder. Those who stand in awe of God internalise their sense of wonder through the medium of their religious doctrine. Their response can possess powerful and intense emotions. But the way they wonder is bounded by their religious beliefs and their conception of God. In a sense this experience of spiritual sensibility is both guided and ultimately dictated by doctrine and belief. Historically those religious people who dared to go beyond these limits risked being denounced as heretical mystics.

In contrast to the way that religion does wonder, atheists and humanists possess a potential for experiencing in a way that is totally unbounded. Humanists do not stand in awe of the mysteries of God but truly wonder at the unknown. Through the resources of the human imagination (humanities) and of the sciences the thinking atheist realises that every solution creates a demand for new answers. That’s what makes our wonder so special. Instead of dreading and fearing, it empowers us to set out on the quest to discover and understand.

Experience shows that the capacity top wonder is a truly human one. Toddlers and young children do not need God to wonder at the mysterious world that surrounds them. At very early stage in their life they express their sense of astonishment and wonder without effort or a hint of embarrassment. Thankfully most of us continue to be motivated and inspired by the mysteries of life.

One final point. There are of course some new atheists who insist on living in a spiritual-free world. From their deterministic perspective everything is explained by neuro-science or our genes. But what drives them away from wonder is not their atheism but their inability to engage with uncertainty. In that respect they are surprisingly similar to those who embrace religious dogma to spare themselves the responsibility of engaging with the mysteries that confront us in everyday life.

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Frank Furedi’s Authority: A Sociological History is published by Cambridge University Press

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In terms of cosmic awe, perhaps no one has better expressed it than Carl Sagan. It’s a glorious statement of universalism, which makes the concerns of particularism look petty indeed.

― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

Illustration by: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC/Caltech)

“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”

(Image taken from popchassid)

Ise pilgrimage 2014

February 26, 2014 / John D. / 0 Comments

There’s an anonymous website by a retired Japanese gentleman called Leisurely Walkings which gives details of his excursions. One of them was a six-day walk from Osaka to Ise, recreating the Okage-mairi of Edo times. He writes that Okage-mairi should take place in the year after Sengu (renewal of the shrines), which means this year (2014) is an opportune occasion to do a pilgrimage to Japan’s holiest site. Happy walking!

(The information below is taken from the website Leisurely Walkings: Tours in Retirement.)

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A newly erected shrine building, completed for the shikinen sengu ritual renewal in 2013 and featured on television

“OKAGE-MAIRI” : (1) KOJIEN Dictionary says that “OKAGE-MAIRI” is to visit Ise Grand Shrines in the next year after the SENGU.

The SENGU: Ise Grand Shrines including Naiku, Geku and and their auxiliary sanctuaries have been rebuilt and the symbols of KAMI (Goshintai) they enshrined have been ceremoniously transferred in solemn nocturnal ceremonies from the old sanctuary buildings to newly constructed buildings in their adjoining sanctuaries. It involves the reconstruction of sanctuary buildings as well as the renewal of the sacred apparel and treasures which are carried to the new sanctuary buildings along with the symbol of KAMI on the occasion of Sengyo ( :Transfer) ceremony. The SENGU is performed every twenty years (for a firsthand report by Green Shinto supporter, Peter Grilli, click here.)

People camp out at the Uji Bridge in order to be the first to cross over after the transfer of Amaterasu's mirror, marking the completion of the 20 year renewal cycle

The people’s “OKAGE-MAIRI”.

In Edo Period (1600-1867) it was very difficult for people to travel freely. But people making pilgrimages to shrines and/or temples for their religious believes were tolerated by government officers of the shogun. Lots of shrines and temples were the objects of pilgrimages. But the most popular pilgrimage was to visit Ise Grand Shrines. It was the grandest occasions in people’s lives and the biggest amusements for them to travel or go on a pilgrimage to Ise Grand Shrines. It’s called “Ise Mairi” or “OKAGE-MAIRI”.

The people living along the highway entertained the people or group of “OKAGE-MAIRI” by giving some rice. money, rice cakes, rice balls, cakes and others to them with glee. It seemed that even if people started on the travel without anything, they did not need to pay fares for ferries, palanquins and/or horses almost and could get foods and drinks without much difficulties on the way.

It was said that some enthusiastic traveling groups attacked wealthy merchants, rushed into magistrate’s offices and made unreasonable demands, and/or forced their ways through barrier stations without any passing licenses sometimes. Among the such situations some residents along the highway enjoyed merrymaking hilariously with the travelers.

People believed that they could travel safely and delightfully to Ise Grand Shrines due to divine protection. And they called the travel to Ise “OKAGE MAIRI (literally Travel due to thanks to God’s divine protection)”.
The popular folk song, ’Ise-Ondo’, which was sung on the way to Ise by travelers, has the following words: ”I would like to go and to see Ise at least once in my lifetime.”

A ritual in the courtyard of the Geku (Outer Shrine).

Haguromo

February 25, 2014 / John D. / 0 Comments

The headdress of the costume in the Noh play Haguromo suggests shamanic connections (photo by Jun Sato/WireImage)

The shamanic connections of early Shinto are often overlooked, but an item in the excellent website on Noh, from which the passage below is taken, suggests how strong a part shamanism played in the formation of Japanese culture. Haguromo is one of the most famous Noh plays and a well-known story to Japanese, concerning a feather robe worn by a celestial maiden. Bird, other worlds and a female speaks strongly of the miko-shamaness of ancient times, for whom the bird-costume would have been a symbol of flight and transcendence, as in other shamanic cultures. (No doubt the tengu in its guise as a bird is a similar relic of shamanic times.)

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One spring morning, a fisherman named Hakuryō, sets out to go fishing with his companions and finds a beautiful robe hung on a pine branch at Miho-no-Matsubara.

The pine on the beach at Miho no Matsubara on which according to legend the feather-cloak was hung. Now part of the Fuji World Heritage Site, since the beach offers fine views of Japan's most sacred mountain.

When he attempts to take it home as a family heirloom, a celestial maiden appears and asks him to return the robe to her. At first, Hakuryō refuses to return it. However, he is moved by the celestial maiden, who laments that she cannot go home to heaven without it. He therefore decides to give her the feather robe in return for seeing her perform a celestial dance.

As the celestial maiden in the feather robe performs the dance, which describes the Palace of the Moon, she praises the beauty of Miho-no-Matsubara in spring. She eventually disappears in the haze, beyond the peak of Mount Fuji.

This noh drama is based on the well-known legend of the celestial feather robe. In the folk tale, the celestial maiden is compelled to become the wife of the man who hides her feather robe. However, in this noh drama, the generous fisherman, Hakuryō, soon returns the robe to her.

Hakuryō suspects that if he gives the feather robe back to her, she will fly back to the heaven without performing the dance. But the maiden responds that such doubts belongs to the earth but there is no deceit in the celestial world. Honest Hakuryō is impressed by her words and returns the robe to her.

The dance of the celestial maiden is the pillar of this drama and is called Suruga-mai in Azuma-asobi in later years. Zeami’s book shows that he considered the dance of the celestial maiden as special. In later generations, the celestial dance is recognized as the archetype of dances; however, the form has been dramatically changed since then.

A calm spring sea, white sand beach, lush green pine trees, exquisite dance of a celestial maiden, and Mount Fuji at the horizon. Both the performers and audience are filled with happiness whether performing or watching this noh drama.

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For a somewhat different folktale version of the Robe of Feathers, see here. This links the robe with the Strange People (a shamanic clan, perhaps) and says that “In the robe were feathers of all the birds that fly, every one; the kingfisher and the golden pheasant, the love bird, the swan, the crow, the cormorant, the dove, the bullfinch, the falcon, the plover, and the heron.”

Two types of tengu: the one on the left has bird-like features and a covering of feathers

Tenkawa power spot

February 24, 2014 / John D. / 0 Comments

Entrance torii to Tenkawa Shrine, which lies on the slope of a hill

Tenkawa is a notable shrine in Nara Prefecture, which has long had an association with the performing arts and has recently won a reputation also as a ‘power spot’ with a strong sense of spiritual energy. The information below comes from an excellent website dedicated to Noh, which contains information in English about every single detail of the medieval art form. For anyone with the slightest interest in Japanese culture, it’s an invaluable resource and a true gem of the internet.

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Why are Tenkawa shrine and Noh closely connected?

Tenkawa shrine in Yoshino, Nara Prefecture, is famous as the scene of a popular mystery novel by Uchida Yasuo and has recently become one of the popular “power spot” spiritual places thought to give people health and more energy.

The shrine's Worship Hall stands above the main compound

The shrine, which dates from the Asuka period (592-710), is dedicated to Benzaiten (known in Hinduism as Sarasvati, the goddess of fortune and arts). It is closely connected to Noh, having been used for performances since olden times, to ward off evil spirits and worship ancestor spirits. The fine items owned by the shrine include a mask of Akobujō (old man) that was allegedly used by Zeami and a gorgeous brocade kimono dedicated by Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

Zeami’s son, Jurō Motomasa, took part in some pieces there for dedication to the goddess of performing arts and also offered prayers. The author of a number of masterpieces, including “Sumida-gawa” and “Yoroboshi,” he was also a master performer who compared favourably with his father. Nevertheless, he was barred from places involved with showy activities after the then-shogun Ashikaga Yoshinori shifted his favour to Motomasa’s cousin and Zeami’s nephew, Onami.

In the face of adversity, Motomasa devoted himself to further practice. He performed “Tōsen” for dedication to Tenkawa shrine and offered a Jō mask (one of an old man), hoping to extricate himself from his situation. The wish did not come true, however, and he died suddenly at the age of 30. The cause of his death remains a mystery, but some say he was involved in a political confrontation between the Northern and the Southern Imperial Courts.

Tenkawa Noh stage, facing towards the kami

The photo above was taken by ‘groundnetbreaker’, who also posted the piece below to tripadvisor. I’m re-posting it here because it gives a good indication of what a ‘power spot’ means to young Japanese.

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This shrine is so special. I must say this is where original and traditional area of any religion in Japan. In first, this area is very deep to anyone to walk in from NARA flat area when there are no road to walk. but this shrine established since 7th century. I could imagine how sacred and devine place when 7th century. since then, those ancestors had lived for long long time.

The rocks at Tenkawa radiate with spiritual presence and are the object of worship

high altitude around 700m. deep like snowing here… When you enter this area, you will feel this area has been shrine forever human exsist. So, special air. high vibe. best you do practice for higher freq meditaion. but if you touch with ground or put your feet into river, you feel connection of difference.

There are many GODS lived inside of shrine. Some from earlier era of shrine, some I guess old around 15-16 centuries. but most of GODS you can not see. Some GODS can review only sepcial day. most centered GODS here in this shrine are SARASVATI (Hindu’s GODS).

Gods of water. Water is Talent. Talent is Fortune. So many known artiest came this shrine and pray and perform in this shrine. and also, This shrine has NOH stage as well.

This NOH stage is awesome. Right across to stage where GODS are staying. So, you perform to GODS which means you do for yourself. This has something to do with very deep philosophy of life… I love it.

Anyway, I would suggest you visit this area for 1-2 nights. Because you should go morning practice around 6:45AM for 20min. Lovely to start your new life of day by practice at shrine.

Tenkawa (Heavenly River) flows past the shrine and has an energy of its own

From the Tenkawa power spot you can walk along the river for a couple of hours to the Shugendo hotspot at Dorogawa Onsen