The Fox and the Thousand doors
JAPAN | Wednesday, 27 May 2015 | Views [161] | Scholarship Entry
So famous the Fushimi Inari Shrine in Kyoto, the temple of the Fox, the sanctuary of the thousand gates, the Senbon Torii. Foxes are believed to be messengers of the shinto god of rice Inari, other say that the Fox is the god of lies and illusions and treachery so they praise him to be safe from its power. It is a hiking trail under the gates into the mountain. My good friend Ryosuke wanted to take me to this place since it had become his favorite hiking spot as a kid. He had no idea how much it meant to me to visit this place.
We arrived at twilight, with barely a few minutes left before the ancient city fell into darkness. We started our way into the mountain, while he explained to me how the site had been built by constant contributions to install the gates. Were they really a thousand? It was impossible to know, since we lost count of the torii after twenty minutes or so. Heavily breathing we fell silent, it had started to rain and the ground grew muddy at our feet, making it difficult to keep the pace up the hill. He asked me if I wanted to continue, of course I did. There was nobody around except for us, the silence was only broken by the muted splash of out shoes against the wet soil. It soon became completely dark, only a small lantern would be seen into the distance, only to fade a few meters after we went past it. After what seem like a sweet eternity, there were no more lights, the only thing that guided us was the path created by the gates, though the interruption between them sometimes made us get lost for moments.
All of the sudden we found ourselves in front of a pond. It was late and we were not sure how far the end of the trail was, so we decided to go back before the rain made it to dangerous to walk down the hill. We lost our way on the return several times, in the dark a crow sang. I froze, it was the first time I heard a real crow's cry. My friend comforted me and as he barely touched my shoulder under the rain I was able to appreciate the beauty of the scene. Never had darkness been so beautiful, so magic. I felt the power of the Fox around me and all of the sudden I realized we were just a few meters away from the temple. We were not lost, we never were, it was just an illusion created by the Fox. They say the Fox is the god of lies and illusion and treachery but once I read that this is why the Fox is the God of writers... That night, the Fox gave me an illusion that I now betray by telling you my story of the Thousand Gates.
Tags: 2015 Writing Scholarship
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