S P O T ／ SPOT-017

Futami Okitama Shrine and Meoto Iwa (Wedded Rocks)

二見興玉神社・夫婦岩ふたみおきたまじんじゃ

Two rocks in the sea, connected by a shimenawa sacred rope — this is the essential image of Futami, and it has been the essential image for at least a thousand years of uninterrupted religious significance. The larger rock stands nine meters, the smaller four; the rope connecting them (changed three times a year in elaborate ceremony) links them as husband and wife, and through their union, they frame a view of the submerged sacred stone of Okitama and the distant profile of Mount Fuji at sunrise, at least on exceptionally clear mornings. The rocks serve as a kind of natural torii gate for the offshore sacred stone, which sits 700 meters out in Ise Bay. Pilgrims visiting the Grand Shrine of Ise (Jingū) traditionally stopped at Futami to purify themselves in the sea beforehand — a practice that has declined but not disappeared. The shrine precincts are dense with frog sculptures (the frog, or kaeru, is a homophone for "return" — returning safely from a journey), donated by pilgrims over centuries until the accumulation has become a peculiar frog-filled landscape in its own right. At the summer solstice, the sun rises precisely between the two rocks — an alignment that cannot be accidental and implies a knowledge of celestial geometry in ancient coastal Japan that continues to astonish.