On the next day we visited the Suwa-Shrine. It was built in 1625 and is actually 3 shrines in one, including the Suwa-shrine, the Sumiyoshi-shrine and the Morizaki-Shrine.
There are a lot of ancient holy trees there.
and you feel very peaceful there... people often ask me "what is a Shrine?" And most think it's only a place for Shintoists, worshipping the gods. I often go there to pray, but a Shrine is far more than just a place for worship.
Shinto shrines are religios facilities, but so much more as well. They also serve as guardians of many important assets of Japanese culture and tradition. In or near a Shinto shrine, you will find not only religioes symbols, but memorials to literary and other cultural figures as well.
Therefore, shrines do not only serve only as religious places, but also as an institutional memory of the Japanese culture as a whole.
I was especially impressed by the old trees in Suwa-shrine. Here you see Yuki beside one of them... being near those trees in a shrine always gives me a feeling of peace and rest.
Huhu, hier kommt der Birder in mir raus! Das ist eine Buntmeise, hihi, hab sogar das japanische Wort gefunden, yamagara (habe ich schon erwähnt, dass ich avibase.org liebe?).
ReplyDeleteIch finde allein die Holzbögen schon wunderschön, und die Bäume müssen beeindruckend sein! Das ist interessant, was du über die Shrines erzählst, habe ich noch nicht gewusst!
Danke für den virtuellen Ausflug :-)
Liebe sonnige Grüße
KeezRha
^^ Ja Buntmeisen gibt es hier ganz, ganz viele. :D
ReplyDeleteIch freue mich, dass Dir meine Erklaerung zu Jinja (Schreinen) gefallen hat. Es ist immer schwer, dass zu erklaeren, da nicht das Gebaeude der eigentliche "Schrein" ist, sondern die Baeume und die Natur darum, die man verehrt, gehoeren genau so dazu.