And my grandma worshipped the sun… Is it that crazy?
Mt. Miwa – Photo by Author Akemi Sagawa
My mother visits Omiwa Shrine in Nara, Japan, every 1st day of the month. It takes about an hour by train and bus from where she lives. Rain or shine, she never fails to make a visit, and always brings back sacred water in bottles. She shares the water with my cousin and her family who live nearby.
Although Omiwa Shrine has an impressive building, the sacred object is not housed there. The sacred object of worship is Mt. Miwa, a mountain, or rather a large hill behind the building.
My mother told me that her mother (my grandmother) used to bow down to the rising sun every morning, praying that the day will be a good one for her and her family. My mother has a little shrine at home and bows to that shrine every morning as well.
Praying to the sun and worshiping the mountain… I grew up despising these behaviors of my mother and grandmother as superstitious and primitive. In today’s scientific, modern days, they are outdated.
When I went back to Japan several years ago, I decided to accompany my mother to visit the shrine. It was April 1st, and the cherry trees in the shrine property were in full bloom. When I looked up at Mt. Miwa through the pink clouds of the cherry blossoms, I felt awed.
The clothes that people wear, the vehicle they used to come here, and the buildings surrounding the mountain have all changed. But for centuries and centuries, the mountain has welcomed those who come to worship it.
Even with today’s advancement of science and technology, there are so many things that human beings don’t know at all. One scientist was saying in the interview that the more you research and study the more you realize how little the understanding is of us human beings.
Both my mother and grandmother realized that their existence is tiny compared with the sun, the mountain, or the whole existence in the universe. Their perception is not blinded by the arrogance of human beings.
What a fool was I to despise their behavior? Time for me to be humble…