Naminoue-gū

Naminoue Gu.

In Naha, the capital of Okinawa, on a high cliff above the East China Sea, stands the only First Shrine in the entire prefecture of Okinawa.

The cliff drops sharply into deep blue water. The shrine, vermillion against the southern sun, sits at the very edge. Standing in its courtyard, you look out over an ocean that, on a clear day, simply continues forever — south toward the Philippines, east toward the Pacific, west toward Taiwan and Mainland Asia.

Okinawa has its own indigenous spiritual tradition, distinct from the Shinto practiced on the Japanese mainland. Local people speak of "nirai-kanai" — a paradise across the sea, the original home of the spirits, the place from which good fortune drifts ashore on the morning tide.

This shrine, built where the land meets that vast water, is the meeting point. Locals come here to face nirai-kanai. To pray toward the place where, in older belief, the sun comes up each morning carrying the good things.

The shrine has been here for at least eight hundred years. It was reduced to rubble during the Battle of Okinawa in 1945, then rebuilt. The current main hall is from the postwar era, but the cliff is the same. The view is the same. The wind off the East China Sea is the same.

Stand at the railing. The water is below you. The horizon is so far it seems to bend.

Some places teach that, sometimes, the sacred is not in front of you. It is across.