Minashi Jinja

Minashi Jinja.

In the mountain town of Takayama, deep in the Japanese Alps, sits a shrine whose name sounds like a contradiction.

"Minashi" written in classical Japanese means, literally, "no water." But the actual meaning here is the opposite. The deity of this shrine is the master of water — the one who decides where the snowmelt goes, where the rivers flow, where the rice can grow.

The town of Takayama, surrounded by mountains on every side, sees brutal winters. Snow piles up to the second-floor windows of houses. Then, in spring, all of that snow becomes water, and travels in rivers down the slopes, eventually joining the great Miyagawa river that runs all the way to Toyama Bay on the Sea of Japan.

This shrine sits at the head of that water system. The ancient understanding was simple: if the deity here is satisfied, the water comes in the right amount, at the right time. If not, it comes too much, or not enough.

A massive 800-year-old gingko grows in the grounds. Its trunk is enormous. In autumn, the leaves turn brilliant gold and carpet the ground beneath.

Each May, the shrine still hosts an ancient ritual where a real horse is offered to the deity, in a ceremony unchanged for over a thousand years. No other shrine in the country still performs this exactly this way.

Stand on the wooden walkway in front of the main hall. The mountain air is cold, even in summer.

Some places hold the source of something everyone downstream uses, without ever knowing where it began.