Hidden Shrines of Ise 4

After leaving Izawa-no-miya, we went to a close by shrine, Saminaga-jinjya (佐美長神社). This was my first visit. It was a small shrine with no live-in priest but a clean and pure place. The wonderfully strange thing about the shrines in Ise is that no matter how small the shrines are they are all in a very sacred condition. The basic construction of the shrine is much like the main shrines of Ise. But the purity of the place could not be kept only by the form of its construction. I looked around to see the surrounding forest to find the answer to why the place feels so sacred. I looked down to the ground. The ground with small pebbles had no falling leaves. If no one had been here, the ground would be full of leaves in a day or two. This means that some one is coming here every day to clean the property. The time and effort spent to clean this place is priceless. A person who lives as god, who knows that he is god would do such thing. He cares. He cares for the nature and brings life to the trees and even to the small pebbles. Human beings are also part of the nature dynamics.

Ikashite-itadaite Arigato-gozaimasu

Thank you for letting us live