You hear from a local that this shrine holds god. And you want to know what god looks like. The name comes up often enough, so you go.
No appointment needed. No one will ask what you believe. Or what is in your heart. Or to repent. That would put a lot of pressure on you. Around here, who you are is not important. It is what you do. Just follow the rules and you will be made clean.
You see the entrance. Two stone pillars topped by a third with edges curved up and out like its ready to take flight. Black stains run down the light stone. Ten meters high. A brass plate with alien script in faded gold fastened to the top. Three thick straw ropes coil into headless snakes slithering before knotting toward the top of each column. Paper cut into zig-zags as long as your legs hang from that sunken smile. You have seen the same shapes around the waists of near-naked Sumo wrestlers. Through the gate runs a stone path narrowing and darkening to a crushed point of light. The rest is forest, the inside shrubbery shrouded, dark green life bursting at the edges. Behind you is familiar: streets, houses, cars, telephone poles. It ends here. Or does it lead here?
You enter the sacred space where god dwells. Well, god is a real tricky word to translate from Japanese. Kami. God is more of a feeling than a thing, more of an adjective than a noun. Keep that in mind.
You bow before crossing the threshold. It certainly feels different here. So many shadows. So much texture. A dormant piece of you remembers how pleasing nature’s fractals can be. You angle left toward a trough with a brass Chinese dragon leaking water from its mouth. The steady dripping sound is no accident. You can feel it, pieces coming together. The trees. The water. The wind. Nothing here is an accident. Not even the leaves on the ground. You pour and rinse each hand with a long-handled wooden ladle. You are dirty, after all. It comes with the territory of being human. Like a bath, the shrine cleanses, which is why the locals keep coming back.
You can’t pinpoint what the shrine feels like. Not a church. Not a forest. Not a museum. But you can feel the place working on your insides, untangling a forgotten inner thread and mending connections.
Stone lanterns flank the steep steps, moss blanketing the nooks and edges, foreign script etched black in the gray stone. Old and heavy. You are on your way to the main temple. To the seat of the local god. You wonder what it might look like. Some Eastern mythical creature? A serpent maybe. Or a symbol, perhaps the sun or the moon or a star. You have seen plenty of Buddhist statues in this country, but this place is Shinto. Nature worship. If you ask a local if she practices Shinto, she will respond, “What’s Shinto?”
You reach the top. White-gray gravel crunches underfoot. The temple is smaller than you expected. A curved A-frame roof of umber-colored wood fitted on a one-story dwelling. It is hard to see the front since a vertical planked fence surrounds it. Just to the right of the stone path is a single tree, larger than the rest. You probably would have walked right by it if not for that straw rope with zig-zag paper fastened around the trunk. A wooden sign with handpainted script staked next to it. Odd. When it comes to trees, the only options you ever considered were to cut it down or leave it alone. The rope serves as a gentle recognition that this is an object worth appreciating, kami, and for it to be an object worth appreciating, it needs an appreciator, you. The tree, the rope, and you participate in a dance that can only be done as one. And you feel that inner thread again, tying more broken pieces together.
Up three steps, just a few meters away from the gate to the main temple stand two lion-dogs, unearthly creatures in green-gray stone, their facial features weathered to flatness. The one to the right keeps his mouth shut and the one to the left has it open. You fish a yen out of your pocket and place it with the other muzzled coins.
A priest exits from a hidden entrance notched into the main temple’s wooden gate. He might as well have stepped out of a time machine from the 12th century. He dons a heavy cloth robe, forest-colored, sleeves twenty sizes too big, printed in symbols lost on your Western mind. A pointed black hat, the likes of which you have never seen, fixed to his head by an elastic chin strap, thirty centimeters tall. Ballooning silk trousers lead to a pair of shiny black… shoes? Lacquered wooden monstrosities that clomp with each step. A shooed horse would make less noise. Finally, you note his face, plain as paper, no different than the tens of thousands of middle-aged salarymen you see on the Tokyo subway.
He says in English. “Ah, a foreigner. Where are you from?”
You tell him.
“I see. Would you like to pray?”
You agree. You expect a hand on the shoulder, another in the air, and an audible plea to the heavens for forgiveness. But there are no sinners in this place.
“Stand here. Good.” You wait before a wide wooden box, waist-high and bottomless, based on the other side of the fence.
“Throw money through the hole in the fence and into the box.” You remember the 10% tithe mom kept and take out a bill.
“Oh no. Sorry. That is too much. Do you have a five yen coin? That would be best.” It is the equivalent of five cents American.
You repeat his words.
“Yes, just five yen. It is a symbolic gesture. We don’t make money from prayers.”
You follow the procedure, a calcified ritual designed to solidify an honorable connection between you and something else. Throw in the coin, ring the bell, not too loud, clap twice, bow twice, and say a silent prayer. When you pray, your childhood god appears. Bearded. Wise. But most Japanese would say they pray to a deceased grandmother, father, or ancestor.
You lift your head.
“How do you feel?”
You tell him you feel better.
“This is a quiet shrine. We don’t have too many foreign guests. Would you like to look inside the main temple?” An honor so rare you feel there might be a catch.
You get to meet the local god.
The priest opens the gate and you follow across the graveled courtyard, crunching until you reach the steps. Shoes off. Gently, you ascend the three steps and wait on the landing. It is too quiet now. You miss the gravel. The surrounding forest rests. No wind. Still. Scary. Your Western mind sees no value in silence.
You ask what’s inside.
He responds in Japanese, god.
You breathe deep and enter. Dark inside, darker than you would like. Some gray-blue light from an overcast sky seeps through crevices in the planked wood walls, but the rest of the space is marred in shadow. Black-veiled shapes cut into the opposite wall. An altar, perhaps. You step forward and wait for the floor to groan. It never does. On your right, there is enough light to reveal a worn plaque holding the most weather-beaten painting you have ever seen. Wood canvas, a sakura in the background maybe, the foreground filled with chalky white shadows, shaped like distorted humans. A ghostly thing. Try to shrug it off. The altar is calling. This is what you came for, to see god. The specters nip on your heels. The walls tighten. The temperature rises. You are not meant to be here. You can feel it. The anger in the wood. Relax. Listen to your breath. Yes, breathe. Make a labored sound with it. Something to hold and keep you sane. Focus on it. You are so close. Time to see what all the fuss is about. To see why the gate. Why the water. Why the trough. The steps. The tree. The temple.
The altar takes shape as you stand before it and there isn’t much of anything. Two simple ceramic pots with fresh-cut branches and waxy leaves stand tall. And something in the middle. Small. Circular. Rusted. You lean in and see yourself, reflected in an imperfect mirror.