Sasamuta Jinja

Sasamuta Jinja.

In the rural valley of Bungo in Oita Prefecture, sits a quiet shrine known mostly to the local people who have come here, generation after generation, for one thousand eight hundred years.

The shrine is hidden in a small cedar valley, far from the main highway routes that bring tourists to the famous hot springs of Beppu and Yufuin. To reach this place, you turn off the main road and drive for ten or fifteen minutes through rice fields and small communities.

The path opens up into a courtyard surrounded by extremely old trees. The cedars are massive. The maples in autumn turn red and gold. The grounds, though small, feel both intimate and ancient.

Most striking is the four-hundred-fifty-year-old wisteria growing inside the grounds. Each May, when the flowers open, the entire shrine seems wrapped in pale purple. The blossoms hang in long heavy clusters from a wooden trellis. Their scent drifts across the small courtyard.

This is one of the few shrines in Japan whose annual blooming is accompanied by neither tourist crowds nor commercial fanfare. The locals show up. Visitors who happen to be passing show up. The wisteria does what it does. Then the season ends.

Stand under the wisteria. Look up. The flowers hang heavily, in pale curtains.

Some places hold a thing of unmistakable beauty without any need to be discovered.