Wakasahime Jinja

Wakasahime Jinja.

Just a few minutes' walk from its sister shrine Wakasahiko, in the same green valley of Obama, sits the female counterpart — a shrine local people have called, for over twelve hundred years, simply "Hime-san." The Princess.

Where the Wakasahiko shrine has the dramatic ritual of sending water to Nara, the Wakasahime shrine has something quieter. It is a place women come, generation after generation, before having a child.

The pairing of the two shrines mirrors the way couples often pair in life. The husband shrine known for its public role, its bold ceremony, its outward-facing prayer. The wife shrine known for its tenderness, its private blessings, its deep familiarity to the locals.

Both shrines have a thousand-year-old cedar tree growing in their grounds. The two trees are considered partners, just as the shrines are. They have been growing on opposite sides of the same valley for as long as anyone can remember.

A small spring flows through the Wakasahime grounds. Mothers used to bathe their newborns in it, after the official blessing. The water was believed to soften the new infant's first encounters with the world.

Today, the practice has mostly stopped. But the spring still flows. The cedar tree still grows. And women still arrive, quietly, in their first weeks of pregnancy, with a particular kind of hope and a particular kind of fear, asking for grace.

Stand under the cedar. Place your hand on the bark.

Hime-san has been here for everyone. She will be here for whoever comes next.